Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Saudi 4x4 shop 4 Wheel Station, Interview with Luai Alsheheli

Transcript

Saudi 4x4 shop 4 Wheel Station, Interview with Luai Alsheheli · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:09
Speaker 1: Ole podcast and I'm Ashley Jordano, Senior Editor Journal and
0:14
Speaker 1: Expedition Portal and today I'm in Rian, Saudi Arabia talking
0:19
Speaker 1: with Lui al Shihiley, who is the owner of f
0:22
Speaker 1: for my four shop in Rhiann, Saudi Arabia call four
0:25
Speaker 1: mil Station.
0:26
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
0:28
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you for having me.
0:30
Speaker 1: One of the coolest things about overlanding is being able
0:34
Speaker 1: to meet owners along the way. We have visited for
0:38
Speaker 1: my four shops in Latin America and it's always a
0:41
Speaker 1: really cool experience.
0:42
Speaker 2: So I'm really excited to be at your shop today.
0:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for stopping by, appreciate it.
0:50
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1:27
Speaker 3: How did you get for four wheeling? I mean or yeah,
1:34
Speaker 3: So I guess, you know, as a kid, I just
1:39
Speaker 3: loved four wheel drive vehicles. I like to, you know,
1:42
Speaker 3: check them out and you know, just look at their
1:45
Speaker 3: capabilities what they can do. So I really like that.
1:49
Speaker 3: And then as I grew up, you know, just kind
1:51
Speaker 3: of grew with me, and you know, I just enjoyed,
1:54
Speaker 3: you know, checking it out and being part of it.
1:56
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I guess mostly going to be here
2:05
Speaker 3: in Saudi, uh you know. And then of course when
2:08
Speaker 3: I when I moved to the US for school, I
2:11
Speaker 3: enjoyed a lot of the scene, the four by four,
2:14
Speaker 3: seeing the things that that are done there. It was
2:17
Speaker 3: a lot of fun. I was born in the US,
2:22
Speaker 3: and then you know, I did my middle school, high
2:25
Speaker 3: school in Saudi, and then I moved back from my
2:27
Speaker 3: bachelor's degree, so I have a Mattres's degree in computer engineering.
2:31
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's that's what that was about. And then uh,
2:34
Speaker 3: you know, I spent extra time there, you know, hanging
2:37
Speaker 3: out and enjoying basically my time there. And then I
2:40
Speaker 3: moved back here, brought some of the vehicles back with me,
2:42
Speaker 3: and there wasn't any four wheel drive shops here that
2:45
Speaker 3: are doing what we're doing right now. So I kind
2:48
Speaker 3: of spiked an idea, and you know, slowly it is
2:50
Speaker 3: what it is today. So yeah, I had too jeeps
2:56
Speaker 3: with me uh in the US, so I just pretty
2:59
Speaker 3: much put them on a boat set them here. And
3:01
Speaker 3: so when I got them here, I just wasn't sure
3:03
Speaker 3: what if I wanted to get some upgrades into them
3:05
Speaker 3: or you know, fix them up or anything like that.
3:07
Speaker 2: So I have seen a.
3:09
Speaker 3: Lot of jeeps, yeah, yeah.
3:13
Speaker 2: Surrising, So what happened to those?
3:17
Speaker 3: So yeah, I uh, well, of course I still use them,
3:21
Speaker 3: but they're not really a big jip. Market isn't really
3:24
Speaker 3: that big here. Part of it is logistics, the culture.
3:27
Speaker 3: It is definitely growing right now. But when I did
3:30
Speaker 3: bring my vehicles, it wasn't that big as it is today.
3:32
Speaker 3: Slowly it started to grow a little bit and we
3:34
Speaker 3: started bringing parts for them, and you know, people love
3:37
Speaker 3: to use them, I guess.
3:38
Speaker 5: So, right, right, right, of course, So i't all that easy.
3:50
Speaker 3: It's definitely. It took a lot of effort. First, the
3:54
Speaker 3: effort of trying to open the business is one thing,
3:56
Speaker 3: and then trying to convince the customers that you actually
4:00
Speaker 3: may want to consider this if you're that type of
4:02
Speaker 3: person who needs this type of products. That that kind
4:05
Speaker 3: of started to grow. And then of course as a
4:07
Speaker 3: business evolved, we we started to look at what do
4:11
Speaker 3: people need. The needs are of course changing, so we
4:14
Speaker 3: started to move a little bit away of vehicles that
4:16
Speaker 3: are built just for the weekends. Now we're talking about
4:19
Speaker 3: vehicles that are being used for a few weeks type
4:23
Speaker 3: of trips to some people that are actually traveling the world.
4:26
Speaker 3: So we're building those vehicles for them, and we're learning
4:28
Speaker 3: of course from their feedbacks and that you know, helps
4:31
Speaker 3: us you know, make partnerships with suppliers to get the
4:35
Speaker 3: right type of parts.
4:37
Speaker 1: Are those bills change from now you're trying about more.
4:41
Speaker 3: Kind of like weekend Yeah, so right, So we would
4:47
Speaker 3: typically build like vehicles that would do they'd want to
4:50
Speaker 3: go like on a sand dune type of trip or
4:52
Speaker 3: anything like that. Two vehicles that would you know, expeditions
4:55
Speaker 3: or you know, anything like you know, long long distance
4:57
Speaker 3: or long long type of so the choices of products
5:02
Speaker 3: or you know, our gear would very very heavily from
5:06
Speaker 3: those type of vehicles that are just going for like
5:08
Speaker 3: doing bashing or anything like that, to vehicles that are
5:11
Speaker 3: trying to sustain you know, make sure the vehicles save
5:13
Speaker 3: their gears is in good in good shape, and of
5:16
Speaker 3: course it's serving them along the way. So that really
5:18
Speaker 3: did change a lot of you know, what we've offered
5:21
Speaker 3: in the past and what we're offering today. And then
5:23
Speaker 3: you've got things that are unique to this market that
5:26
Speaker 3: are not, of course, you know, maybe an important thing
5:29
Speaker 3: in other markets. For example, we were discussing this earlier,
5:31
Speaker 3: but the water tank situation, so that is something that
5:35
Speaker 3: we typically see as like something that we typically try
5:39
Speaker 3: to build a vehicle to integrate, and then it's typically
5:41
Speaker 3: something that we normally have to have in every vehicle
5:44
Speaker 3: at least like sixty liters of water. Jerry cans definitely
5:47
Speaker 3: do do a great job in that, but if it's integrated,
5:50
Speaker 3: it's normally a lot easier to deal with. And then
5:52
Speaker 3: we typically have like some kind of gauges to you know,
5:55
Speaker 3: just give us an idea about you know, consumption and
5:58
Speaker 3: all of that.
6:00
Speaker 2: Because the.
6:03
Speaker 3: Desert right, right, right. It's a lot of things. So
6:11
Speaker 3: our diet relies on water a lot. So the food
6:14
Speaker 3: that we make uses a lot of water. People are
6:16
Speaker 3: praying five times a day, they have to use water
6:18
Speaker 3: for that. Just your hygiene, of course, you need water.
6:21
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of water places to get water
6:23
Speaker 3: from outside of course small villages and towns. Because of that,
6:27
Speaker 3: you know, you need to carry a little bit more capacity.
6:29
Speaker 3: But it really just boils down to how long you
6:31
Speaker 3: want to stay off the grid. Basically. Yeah, it's something
6:34
Speaker 3: that you just have to factor in as far as
6:35
Speaker 3: building the vehicle, getting the right gear.
6:37
Speaker 1: For its influence the way that you build vehicles here
6:43
Speaker 1: now or in the blend of what you see here.
6:46
Speaker 2: And what you see the US, Africa or Australia.
6:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I typically find myself in my free
6:52
Speaker 3: time looking at what other you know, markets and what
6:55
Speaker 3: other people Scott Brady specifically is really a big part
6:59
Speaker 3: of the influence on it comes to that. You know,
7:01
Speaker 3: I really think about what he says a lot, as
7:03
Speaker 3: far as how he builds his vehicles and when he
7:05
Speaker 3: talks about them and the things that are important, and
7:08
Speaker 3: if you just try to reflect that on the things
7:10
Speaker 3: that you're doing your personal vehicle. I think it really
7:12
Speaker 3: does boil down to looking at other experiences, trying to
7:16
Speaker 3: figure it out what experiences may work for what you're
7:19
Speaker 3: trying to do, and then building vehicles from them. So,
7:22
Speaker 3: going back to that original question, yes, we do a
7:25
Speaker 3: mix of both. We definitely started with a lot of
7:27
Speaker 3: the American products, American way of doing things, and then
7:30
Speaker 3: slowly as we started to evolve, we started to understand
7:33
Speaker 3: that some things may not work as well in this
7:36
Speaker 3: market versus other places. So typically, like like we just
7:38
Speaker 3: mentioned with the water tank thing, that's typically something you
7:42
Speaker 3: may see a lot of in the US versus vehicles here.
7:45
Speaker 3: Almost every vehicle in the shop has a water tank
7:48
Speaker 3: of some sort.
7:49
Speaker 6: We're talking differences culturally between traveling overlining or in versus right,
7:58
Speaker 6: you're talking about one thought was really cool if you're
8:02
Speaker 6: traveling in a group, the way that the.
8:07
Speaker 3: Sometimes the culture now starts to play a role. Meals
8:10
Speaker 3: are normally shared. You're not having people just bring their
8:12
Speaker 3: own food and they're eating on the side or something
8:14
Speaker 3: like that, where typically you'll see everybody always eating together,
8:18
Speaker 3: to the point where if somebody's having you know, they're
8:20
Speaker 3: just sleeping extra time that they'd wait for him to
8:22
Speaker 3: wake up or wake him up so that everybody can
8:24
Speaker 3: share the same meal. So that translates in gear being
8:28
Speaker 3: in the vehicle. It's not sometimes very clear on what
8:31
Speaker 3: who's bringing what, but typically somebody with a pickup would
8:34
Speaker 3: have a lot of those gear and stuff like that
8:37
Speaker 3: and they would typically share, you know, they're their gear together.
8:39
Speaker 3: So that's typically how it normally works. It's it's changing
8:42
Speaker 3: a little bit right now, but it is still always
8:45
Speaker 3: going to be some way like that.
8:47
Speaker 2: Cultural differences that you see impacting.
8:51
Speaker 3: Travel, I don't think really there's a lot. I mean
8:54
Speaker 3: maybe like the tents. Some people would like to sleep
8:57
Speaker 3: in like a three post tent. So there's like a
8:59
Speaker 3: lot of people and this tent that is something that
9:02
Speaker 3: you know, you don't see it a lot these days.
9:04
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are now with like
9:05
Speaker 3: social media and everything, I think people are starting to
9:08
Speaker 3: see everybody wants to have their own tents. That aspect
9:11
Speaker 3: is still there. But like I said, like with sharing
9:13
Speaker 3: meals and things like that, So a lot of the
9:15
Speaker 3: cook where it's normally geared towards a bigger group, you
9:18
Speaker 3: typically have like you know, you're feeding like seven to
9:20
Speaker 3: thirteen fifteen people, sometimes even more. It just depends. You
9:24
Speaker 3: don't typically see people moving in groups of like two
9:27
Speaker 3: or three. Normally it's a minimum of ten plus. Yeah,
9:31
Speaker 3: so typically it is it is normally like that. It's
9:33
Speaker 3: just because they're they're trying to have a great time
9:36
Speaker 3: away from work and all that. So yeah, from that aspect,
9:39
Speaker 3: it's definitely a little bit a bit different.
9:41
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, a lot with some of the cultural differences.
9:46
Speaker 2: There are people.
9:50
Speaker 3: In yeah.
9:56
Speaker 2: Right now.
9:56
Speaker 3: So we've got yeah, right, So we've got an HDJ
10:02
Speaker 3: eighty series, so that would have one HDFT motor. We've
10:06
Speaker 3: got I think two of those. We've got an extra
10:09
Speaker 3: that's getting electrical work. We've got land cruisers. We've got
10:13
Speaker 3: seventy nine double cab single cabs, all the diesel motors.
10:17
Speaker 3: We've got an aev Bro, we've got a one oh five,
10:20
Speaker 3: we've got a sixty series. We've got two one ten
10:22
Speaker 3: defenders and seventy three a GPTJ that's what I think
10:27
Speaker 3: we have. And then of course we've got a D
10:29
Speaker 3: two hundred Dodge in the shop. So yeah, we've got
10:31
Speaker 3: a few parked outside right now, so don't steal our trucks.
10:35
Speaker 3: So we've got an FJ forty outside that's got a
10:38
Speaker 3: ONEFZ engine in it. We've got what else do we
10:41
Speaker 3: have outside? I think we've got a J L Oh yeah, yeah,
10:43
Speaker 3: that's right. See I forgot about that. Yeah yeah, yeah,
10:48
Speaker 3: it's pretty cool. Yeah. So that one is a an AEV.
10:52
Speaker 3: It's a thirty five hundred chassis cab tray bed. It's
10:55
Speaker 3: got the four wheel campers and yeah, just arrived from
10:58
Speaker 3: the US just a few weeks ago. We're just going
11:00
Speaker 3: through the process of getting it registered and getting it
11:03
Speaker 3: roadworthy right now.
11:04
Speaker 5: So pros.
11:07
Speaker 2: Vehicle over from other country.
11:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, these vehicles specifically because they were never imported through
11:12
Speaker 3: their dealerships, so it's a little bit difficult trying to
11:15
Speaker 3: you know, get it. That's actually why it's taking so long.
11:17
Speaker 3: But typically it takes like two or three days at
11:20
Speaker 3: most to get it, you know, played it and everything nice.
11:23
Speaker 2: What types of clients do you have a typical client or.
11:30
Speaker 3: It's all over the place. Honestly, the bigger builds. Normally
11:33
Speaker 3: it's either a company that's trying to get it, like
11:36
Speaker 3: a media company for example. They want a vehicle that
11:38
Speaker 3: is you know, maybe like built a little bit to
11:41
Speaker 3: hold more gear for example, or like electrical stuff like that,
11:44
Speaker 3: but we get a lot and then we've got also
11:47
Speaker 3: since twenty eighteen, we've had a lot of ladies come
11:49
Speaker 3: into shop too to get their vehicles built. Yeah, so
11:54
Speaker 3: we're not allowed to drive now they are, so a
11:57
Speaker 3: lot of them are getting their vehicles built. So you'll
11:59
Speaker 3: have a would come in with her kids and she'd
12:02
Speaker 3: want to just try to understand what works and what doesn't,
12:04
Speaker 3: So we typically send them back out without anything, just
12:07
Speaker 3: to get them to try out their vehicles and try
12:10
Speaker 3: to understand what they actually need, and then they'd come
12:12
Speaker 3: back again to get their vehicles built. So that's that's
12:15
Speaker 3: normally how it goes.
12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, Audi looking for.
12:21
Speaker 3: Both both. So typically with like the like wheels, tires,
12:26
Speaker 3: things like that, we really couldn't you know, help a
12:28
Speaker 3: lot in that term because it's normally boiled down to taste.
12:31
Speaker 3: But when it comes to functionalities and things like that,
12:33
Speaker 3: we try to as much as we can help with
12:36
Speaker 3: what we know, of course, but with families, it's normally
12:39
Speaker 3: there from what we've seen. Their travels are not as aggressive,
12:42
Speaker 3: of course, so they typically spend you know, time around
12:45
Speaker 3: the city normally maybe two or three days out at
12:47
Speaker 3: the camp and have fun. So it is part of
12:49
Speaker 3: our culture to be camping. This is nothing new to us. Yeah,
12:53
Speaker 3: so that is something that maybe is a little bit
12:55
Speaker 3: different than different you know, countries, and this whole traveling
12:59
Speaker 3: is not a new concept to people here. We're trying
13:01
Speaker 3: to exercise it a little bit differently, and I think
13:04
Speaker 3: it is definitely you know, where we're growing in that
13:06
Speaker 3: so I think you know, it's getting a positive feedback
13:09
Speaker 3: or you know, yeah, yeah, exactly, it is gaining a
13:13
Speaker 3: lot of traction absolutely interest.
13:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, international clients.
13:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we do. We have so locally, we have expats,
13:26
Speaker 3: we have Saudi's. These are typically ninety percent of our
13:30
Speaker 3: customers are a little bit more than that. And then
13:32
Speaker 3: we've got people that are traveling from outside of the country.
13:35
Speaker 3: They would come in for like doing a quick inspection
13:38
Speaker 3: or if they want to ask about something. Typically we
13:41
Speaker 3: do that. We normally don't typically you know, do logistics
13:44
Speaker 3: for you know, vehicles that are coming in and out,
13:46
Speaker 3: with some exceptions of course, because it's of course not
13:49
Speaker 3: our business, but we do try to help as much
13:51
Speaker 3: as we can from from a traveler's point of view.
13:53
Speaker 3: We look at it as you know, being it forward
13:55
Speaker 3: so that when we hopefully travel one day and see it,
13:58
Speaker 3: would like to get a type of support when we're
14:00
Speaker 3: going out to the unknown countries to us. So it's
14:03
Speaker 3: been great so far. We just keep talking to people
14:06
Speaker 3: about their experiences. I mean, I know you and Rich
14:08
Speaker 3: have been been traveling for almost a month now and
14:11
Speaker 3: it's been great, so, you know, amazing. Yeah, So it's
14:15
Speaker 3: such an education. Yeah, I didn't.
14:18
Speaker 1: Realize how much we've based our world views in America.
14:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
14:24
Speaker 1: Basically a huge part of our travels area, and so
14:28
Speaker 1: it was so insightful and I'm so grateful to have
14:33
Speaker 1: the experience.
14:33
Speaker 2: Here, Yeah, because it's so different and overland is different.
14:38
Speaker 3: Right right Yeah yeah, culture yeah is.
14:41
Speaker 1: Simple, like you were talking about, getting water is completely different.
14:46
Speaker 5: Yeah wow yeah yeah, crazy amazing.
14:50
Speaker 3: Well I'm glad, I'm glad.
14:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:51
Speaker 3: That's that's things that I think all of us are
14:53
Speaker 3: looking forward to and on all of our trips. Absolutely,
14:56
Speaker 3: So it's great so that I mean you have that
14:59
Speaker 3: aspect of course, and then just going back to that
15:01
Speaker 3: water experience, if you would fill up from a well,
15:04
Speaker 3: which we have done multiple times, and journeys. It's really
15:07
Speaker 3: humbling too to have somebody just leave a hose in
15:10
Speaker 3: the middle of the desert and you're just, you know,
15:12
Speaker 3: just filling up water and it's like, you know, you
15:14
Speaker 3: just to trust that there's nothing in the water that
15:17
Speaker 3: could hurt you. And you know, we've we've had great,
15:20
Speaker 3: great luck with that. So nice it's been. It's been
15:23
Speaker 3: absolutely amazing.
15:24
Speaker 2: Another question about the shop.
15:25
Speaker 1: So you guys have a pretty big storefront here in
15:28
Speaker 1: the vehicles, right. It was really surprising and cool to
15:34
Speaker 1: come through the doors of the shop and see so
15:36
Speaker 1: many brands that we recognized from back right, the brands
15:40
Speaker 1: that you carry right.
15:42
Speaker 3: So we we distribute for multiple brands that are based
15:46
Speaker 3: in the US and outside of the US. So we
15:48
Speaker 3: deal with Avy Fox shops were distributors for them. We
15:52
Speaker 3: were distributors for Warren Industries, so we were their sole
15:55
Speaker 3: distributor in the country. We do a lot with front Runner, Alu,
15:58
Speaker 3: cap Kmar out of Australia. We do Max tracks of course,
16:01
Speaker 3: so these are you know, some of the companies that
16:03
Speaker 3: we deal with. Red Arc Systems, so we do a
16:06
Speaker 3: lot of the electrical setup, our setups and our products
16:09
Speaker 3: and then we've got just ARBs, of course we do
16:12
Speaker 3: a lot of installs on those, and then you've got
16:14
Speaker 3: Baha Design. So we've got a few companies that we're
16:17
Speaker 3: happy to work with and that choices we're not just
16:20
Speaker 3: because we wanted the premium stuff, but we really believe
16:23
Speaker 3: that this type of product would take you out and
16:25
Speaker 3: bring you back. We typically try to this is our
16:27
Speaker 3: philosophy when we're trying to, you know, bring products into
16:29
Speaker 3: our stores, just try to find the qualities that would
16:32
Speaker 3: take you to the empty quarter, for example, and bring
16:34
Speaker 3: you back. And we really believe in that. And we
16:37
Speaker 3: have seen throughout the years some of the vehicles that
16:40
Speaker 3: were stranded in the desert because what we think we're
16:43
Speaker 3: having premature failures with arts that they've installed that we're
16:48
Speaker 3: really expensive trying to extract the vehicles and get the people,
16:50
Speaker 3: of course out. That just kind of pushed us even
16:52
Speaker 3: further to go with premium brands. And I mean they're
16:55
Speaker 3: great people to work with for sure.
16:56
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that's really important. I think the
17:00
Speaker 2: iris cracker heat.
17:02
Speaker 3: And right yeah, right, yeah, yeah. Corrugations also, I mean
17:11
Speaker 3: it really is really hard on cars. I don't know
17:14
Speaker 3: if you've in your travels here if you've noticed anything.
17:16
Speaker 3: But if you go to some of these areas, it's
17:19
Speaker 3: really really rough on vehicles.
17:21
Speaker 2: I feel like basically like this.
17:24
Speaker 3: Is yeah, I think, okay, they're out of the out
17:36
Speaker 3: of the blue. Yeah, okay, yeah, you know, yeah, I.
17:41
Speaker 1: Was really surprised to come across a little volcanic here.
17:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's a lot of them. Yeah. There There
17:51
Speaker 3: was one road behind an airport in That road was
17:55
Speaker 3: so rough that I couldn't sustain driving on that on
17:59
Speaker 3: that road after you know, taking breaks, just trying to
18:02
Speaker 3: you know, keep checking the truck as I really thought
18:04
Speaker 3: it was just going to you know, fall apart at
18:06
Speaker 3: whatever speed that you're driving on it. You just can't
18:09
Speaker 3: get it to sync with the road basically. So after
18:12
Speaker 3: I got out of it, I found broken engine mounts,
18:16
Speaker 3: the isolators on the like transmission isolator was I was
18:19
Speaker 3: driving Toyota then, So you know, of course I can
18:21
Speaker 3: find parts for it under any worse I got to fix.
18:24
Speaker 3: But I mean that there there are some places that
18:26
Speaker 3: are really gnarly here. And we do that when we
18:28
Speaker 3: do shock tuning and stuff like that. We take them
18:30
Speaker 3: out there and they heat up really fast. So it's
18:33
Speaker 3: pretty crazy. Oh, I have so many of them. Yeah,
18:41
Speaker 3: you know, maybe Tabook would be probably my favorite place
18:45
Speaker 3: in the country. It's got rocks, it's got you've got
18:48
Speaker 3: you know, you've got to see right next to you,
18:50
Speaker 3: you've got desert, and it's full of history and full
18:53
Speaker 3: of ruins and things like that. So it's just interesting
18:56
Speaker 3: to be out there and just wandering around. You don't
18:59
Speaker 3: have to you know, have some thing specific, and you
19:00
Speaker 3: always find something. So I really love that part of
19:03
Speaker 3: the country. Exactly, right, yeah, exactly, the whole the whole area. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:12
Speaker 3: So so Tabook is a province and there's also a city.
19:15
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to spend time in the city. That's
19:17
Speaker 3: just to be I don't like cities, but you know, yeah,
19:19
Speaker 3: the province, the whole Aira. So Saudi has thirteen provinces
19:22
Speaker 3: in the country, so Tobook is going to be northwest,
19:26
Speaker 3: so that is that area is just beautiful. Even in
19:29
Speaker 3: the summer, it doesn't get too hot because of COVID.
19:31
Speaker 3: Of course, traveling is really hard. Daytime is going to
19:34
Speaker 3: be a little warm, maybe like degrees centigrade. It's probably like,
19:38
Speaker 3: you know, lower forties. But in the yeah, but at
19:41
Speaker 3: night it drops the twenties, so it's really extreme because
19:44
Speaker 3: it's of course the desert and Riata is of course
19:47
Speaker 3: even warmer than that. But so you've got that area
19:49
Speaker 3: and then southwest is also a favorite of mine. A
19:53
Speaker 3: lot of it is mountains, and then you've got its
19:55
Speaker 3: cool year round. Elevations are above I think nine or
19:58
Speaker 3: eight thousand feet. It's just nice. And then it's very
20:02
Speaker 3: different than the rest of the country. Every time I
20:04
Speaker 3: post stuff on Instagram, people are like, you know, where
20:06
Speaker 3: are you? What country is this? So it's really really different.
20:10
Speaker 3: If you go to the Faitha for example, that area
20:13
Speaker 3: or that city or town, it's like so tropical, Like
20:16
Speaker 3: even the trees are very different than the rest of
20:18
Speaker 3: the country. The insects that live there very different too,
20:21
Speaker 3: So everything everything is just in that area. It's interesting
20:25
Speaker 3: in terms of the difference that you see from the
20:28
Speaker 3: rest of the place. So Saudi is a very big country.
20:32
Speaker 3: There's so much to see, and it's just different everywhere
20:35
Speaker 3: you go. You go to the sand dunes and like
20:37
Speaker 3: empty quarter, it's of course it's endless sand and you
20:39
Speaker 3: don't see a lot of vegetation. For like, you know,
20:42
Speaker 3: hundreds and hundreds of kilometers. It's a unique experience for sure.
20:45
Speaker 3: If you're into traveling by road or you know, by
20:47
Speaker 3: a vehicle or motorcycle. There's a lot of motorcycles too
20:50
Speaker 3: that are traveling here. You'll have a great time, for sure.
20:56
Speaker 6: Yeah, the time you are, I mean, we didn't cover
21:02
Speaker 6: a huge part of the country in our time here.
21:05
Speaker 2: Our experiences that you can pull over or drive for.
21:08
Speaker 3: Ten minutes off of yeah, it's not fun stuff beautiful, yeah.
21:17
Speaker 2: And then there's so much history here and so.
21:20
Speaker 1: Many beautiful landscapes, and the culture is so warm and welcoming.
21:24
Speaker 2: And oh my gosh, I could go on and on,
21:26
Speaker 2: but it really.
21:27
Speaker 1: Blew my mind as to be like the holistic sense
21:31
Speaker 1: of the things you like looking for in the.
21:33
Speaker 2: Destination and tipped to the bos which is amazing.
21:37
Speaker 3: And fuel is cheap. So yeah, so yeah, it's great.
21:43
Speaker 3: I mean, right now as we speak, it's snowing in
21:45
Speaker 3: to book right now, and it's it wasn't I mean,
21:48
Speaker 3: in recent years it started to become something like normal.
21:51
Speaker 3: They've got a lot of snow over there, so if
21:53
Speaker 3: you were in to book, you would also experience snow
21:55
Speaker 3: right now and snowing on sand dunes. So for us here,
21:59
Speaker 3: it's just like wow, you know, it's it's really crazy,
22:01
Speaker 3: but you know, it's it's definitely very different. I think
22:04
Speaker 3: a lot from like western point of view, you would
22:07
Speaker 3: enjoy the culture a lot, especially if you get to
22:09
Speaker 3: actually meet the locals. Saudi's are not scary. This is
22:13
Speaker 3: my not because of you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, well,
22:21
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, part of it also was that
22:23
Speaker 3: the country was it wasn't open for tourism, let's say,
22:26
Speaker 3: so that was also part of why there was so
22:29
Speaker 3: much unknown. But that also brings in a different layer
22:32
Speaker 3: of you know, exploring. So there is a lot of
22:34
Speaker 3: so what they did here, there's a lot of things.
22:36
Speaker 3: So they changed the way that the country is accepting
22:39
Speaker 3: foreigner So there's tourism now that's open, business is easier.
22:42
Speaker 3: A lot of things they're changing here that are you know,
22:45
Speaker 3: helping the country get better understood and understand the culture.
22:48
Speaker 3: And I've traveled to a lot of places around the world,
22:51
Speaker 3: and personally not because you know, I have of course,
22:53
Speaker 3: you know, some of me like I understand the culture
22:55
Speaker 3: too well, so I understand what is happening. But if
22:58
Speaker 3: I was to kind of try to remove myself from
23:00
Speaker 3: that and look at it. It's really really beautiful because
23:04
Speaker 3: it's centric to family, it's centric to people, and you know,
23:08
Speaker 3: if you like that, and I think these type of
23:10
Speaker 3: values are shared around the world. I think you will
23:13
Speaker 3: really enjoy traveling here. People will go out of their
23:16
Speaker 3: way to help you. So if you'd have a flat tire.
23:19
Speaker 3: There was one Swiss couple that were here during COVID.
23:22
Speaker 3: They had a spare their tire, their second spare tire
23:24
Speaker 3: blue on their way and they were telling us that
23:27
Speaker 3: somebody gave them their wheel, and they gave us his
23:29
Speaker 3: phone number so that, you know, we can ship it
23:31
Speaker 3: back to them, just to get them to get them
23:33
Speaker 3: to go. So I don't know if I can get
23:35
Speaker 3: that type of treatment in other parts of the world.
23:38
Speaker 3: I'm sure, of course there's generosity is everywhere, but it's
23:41
Speaker 3: just normal for that to be seen here. You go
23:44
Speaker 3: to Hiel, for example, and people their their homes are
23:48
Speaker 3: open twenty four hours. The country is very safe, so
23:51
Speaker 3: you'd go into a house there, they'd invite you, and
23:54
Speaker 3: then you'd have lunch. Their neighbor would invite you for dinner,
23:57
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, you can't leave because everybody
24:00
Speaker 3: just inviting you to the next houseover and they'd love
24:02
Speaker 3: to learn about you and your experiences and stuff like that.
24:07
Speaker 3: So if you're on a tight schedule, don't go to height.
24:09
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah.
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25:00
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of things that, like you
25:02
Speaker 3: were mentioning, that are misinterpreted or not really. Some of
25:06
Speaker 3: it is, of course political, but as you are seeing
25:08
Speaker 3: right now, and hopefully others that would travel here they
25:11
Speaker 3: would see it's very different than what the media is
25:14
Speaker 3: pushing out.
25:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, it seems like a lot of changes
25:17
Speaker 1: are happening here, like you were saying.
25:18
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, of course, project yes.
25:25
Speaker 1: Huge, Formula one, and I also notice concerts.
25:32
Speaker 3: And oh yeah, I mean we didn't talk about that
25:35
Speaker 3: stuff too. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, So everywhere you look
25:39
Speaker 3: at there's things. So if you're into art or Oprah,
25:41
Speaker 3: there they have the biggest operas happening right now. Yeah. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 3: the Mariah Building, yes, and the Early Yes, the Hedge yeah,
25:53
Speaker 3: he early, Yes, I don't know. It's all right, like mirrors,
26:01
Speaker 3: it is. It is a hall. It's a really big
26:03
Speaker 3: hall that they have on the inside. And then you've
26:06
Speaker 3: got that. But at the same time you've got so
26:08
Speaker 3: if you're into motorsports, you've got the Formula One, you've
26:11
Speaker 3: got the car. They're the biggest things that are in motorsports.
26:13
Speaker 3: And then you move into art galleries and things like that,
26:16
Speaker 3: and they just they just bring the best of the
26:18
Speaker 3: best and they're just opening up so huge competition with
26:21
Speaker 3: our neighbors in UAE and Dubai and all that. So
26:24
Speaker 3: we see a lot of license plates coming in from
26:27
Speaker 3: different countries. It's really cool. They're opening everything. You know,
26:31
Speaker 3: you're into yachts and boats and stuff like that, they
26:34
Speaker 3: have a big thing happening right now on the Red
26:37
Speaker 3: Sea for that. So scuba diving too, they have like big,
26:40
Speaker 3: big clubs that are you know now in Saudi instead
26:43
Speaker 3: of Egypt for diving and stuff like that. So just
26:46
Speaker 3: whatever you're into, there's something happening and something big they're
26:49
Speaker 3: doing about it. So yeah, it's pretty cool.
26:51
Speaker 5: It's interesting, right, which.
26:57
Speaker 3: Is events, right? Yeah, So they have like the Saudi seasons,
27:03
Speaker 3: so each let's say a few months, they move it
27:06
Speaker 3: from so right now it's read season, but then there
27:08
Speaker 3: is like Jetti season, and you've got all these different
27:11
Speaker 3: things that they're doing. And then typically you'll see like
27:14
Speaker 3: concerts and things like that that are happening in each
27:17
Speaker 3: city and they just bring you know, different stuff and
27:20
Speaker 3: different activities for that. Yeah, I'm sure they've had something
27:32
Speaker 3: like that. I mean, the things that they're doing is
27:34
Speaker 3: just crazy absolutely. So yeah, so I mean you've got
27:37
Speaker 3: that and of course, uh, you know for us, I
27:39
Speaker 3: mean going back to traveling and all that. I mean,
27:41
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've tried local food, but it's
27:44
Speaker 3: very different than Western food. I'm sure you've you've seen
27:49
Speaker 3: is very also different. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah
28:08
Speaker 3: because yeah right.
28:12
Speaker 1: Like traditional team afferent experience from the water right really cool. Yeah,
28:23
Speaker 1: and architecture and religious coffee.
28:25
Speaker 3: You really enjoyed that, Yeah, it's it's it's great. I mean,
28:28
Speaker 3: even like you know, going to like cappuccinos and things
28:31
Speaker 3: like that. They're really really Saudi's love their coffee, they
28:34
Speaker 3: love their tea, and they take it extremely seriously. So
28:38
Speaker 3: so if you want, you know, if you want the
28:39
Speaker 3: best food, I think you'll find it here if you
28:42
Speaker 3: go to like in the Riad where we are right now.
28:44
Speaker 3: Tell my friends in the US that if you want
28:46
Speaker 3: the best burger, come to Saudi for it American burger,
28:49
Speaker 3: I mean just because of like you know, all the
28:51
Speaker 3: restaurants and everybody just takes it, you know, very seriously
28:54
Speaker 3: about the taste and everything, and so it's it's pretty
28:57
Speaker 3: cool when it comes to that home, like the like
29:01
Speaker 3: the food everything. Yeah, so like there, I mean, it
29:07
Speaker 3: typically just depends on what they like. Like Kepsays for example,
29:10
Speaker 3: are like really big here. There's other foods like Garson,
29:15
Speaker 3: these type of foods they're like low. Maybe we'll try
29:18
Speaker 3: something tonight if you guys would like. Yeah, so that's
29:21
Speaker 3: typically what you see that. Of course, everybody's getting shawarmas
29:24
Speaker 3: and they're getting like their burgers and every kind of steaks.
29:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeahs from let's.
29:32
Speaker 3: Say, right, yeah, yeah, right like that. Yeah. Yeah, we've
29:44
Speaker 3: got a Vietnamese restaurant right next to us. It's the
29:47
Speaker 3: only one actually right next to the yeah, like the
29:49
Speaker 3: rental car across the street here, but yeah, that's the
29:52
Speaker 3: only one. So everybody comes in for you know, so,
29:54
Speaker 3: but it's yeah, I mean we've got pretty much the
29:56
Speaker 3: range of food is that's also changes from region to reach.
30:00
Speaker 3: So we're in Riod. Some some items we'd find them here.
30:04
Speaker 3: I mean typically you'll find everything here. You go to
30:06
Speaker 3: like south or east or west and typically have something
30:09
Speaker 3: that is more common in their area than it would
30:12
Speaker 3: be like for here. Problem with cities, and I think
30:15
Speaker 3: this is global. It's a melting pot, so everybody is
30:18
Speaker 3: having everything at any time, so it's a little bit Yeah, going.
30:22
Speaker 2: Through a lot of the gas stations will.
30:25
Speaker 3: Have a little I don't like those, but yeah I
30:29
Speaker 3: don't like those, yeah really okay, Yeah, it just tastes
30:36
Speaker 3: like milk all the time. That's just you know, what
30:38
Speaker 3: I think. But yeah, oh okay, okay, really different. Yeah,
30:50
Speaker 3: maybe they're using because so these type of stories, normally
30:53
Speaker 3: they have something that's like a quick quick already made
30:55
Speaker 3: or you know, like they're sold in small bags and
30:58
Speaker 3: just put it with water. You can get them like
31:00
Speaker 3: grocery stores.
31:02
Speaker 2: Ladies that share a team with me.
31:04
Speaker 3: That was like there, okay, the coffee right, yeah, yeah, and.
31:10
Speaker 1: I was expecting coffee colored, but it was actually more
31:13
Speaker 1: like this yellow, creamy color.
31:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it is that it just depends. So it's
31:18
Speaker 3: just like coffee beans that we'd get, you know, at
31:20
Speaker 3: like a speciality coffee shop or something like that. You
31:23
Speaker 3: can just change it up and it would give you
31:25
Speaker 3: like different colors and that I wouldn't know what you
31:27
Speaker 3: actually had, but I mean it is typically you can
31:31
Speaker 3: you can go with the ready stuff. Some of it
31:33
Speaker 3: is really good too, but like if you're trying to
31:35
Speaker 3: get like a latte or something like that, then that
31:38
Speaker 3: would I wouldn't I would maybe not want to go
31:40
Speaker 3: to these, you know, but not just me, but others.
31:43
Speaker 3: One of my friends he wouldn't miss it one, so
31:45
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, yeah, and you're just like, oh coffee shop,
31:51
Speaker 3: yeah yeah, yeah.
31:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could literally.
32:00
Speaker 3: Right, Oh yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's
32:05
Speaker 3: a lot of good stuff here. Well hopefully tonight will
32:07
Speaker 3: try some. Yeah, for sure.
32:10
Speaker 1: The thing that I thought was really amazing here was
32:14
Speaker 1: all the different vehicles, so.
32:21
Speaker 3: Every yeah, so we still get the Nissan Y sixty ones,
32:27
Speaker 3: so those have I believe they've been discontinued in Australia
32:32
Speaker 3: for a few years now. They're still in production for
32:35
Speaker 3: Middle Eastern market. So we get the four point eight
32:37
Speaker 3: VTC motor that's a gasoline engine, and we still get
32:40
Speaker 3: the FJ Cruiser that's yeah. Yeah, they're still made brand
32:45
Speaker 3: new from Toyota for for this market. So the distributor
32:48
Speaker 3: for Toyota and this market has a really strong grip
32:51
Speaker 3: on the brand, so we believe that they have a
32:53
Speaker 3: huge influence also on the manufacturer. So they typically would
32:57
Speaker 3: get these vehicles in this market, but they're not complete builds,
33:00
Speaker 3: so they'd come in and they'd add their accessories tore
33:03
Speaker 3: they've been doing great job with some of the vehicles
33:05
Speaker 3: and to a terrible job with others. So yeah, but
33:08
Speaker 3: like for for example, like compressors, they'd add them from
33:11
Speaker 3: the dealership and they work really well some of them do.
33:14
Speaker 3: So these are tons and then of course keeping the
33:16
Speaker 3: FJ running. They're just really in high demand. We have
33:19
Speaker 3: not stopped this or twenty twenty one has been an
33:21
Speaker 3: FG year for us. It's crazy how many we've seen
33:24
Speaker 3: in the shop. Yeah, they come in brand new, they
33:27
Speaker 3: come with lockers of course, and then of course you
33:29
Speaker 3: look at other vehicles, like the seventy series is still
33:31
Speaker 3: in production. We're still getting those. We just started getting
33:35
Speaker 3: the one VD motor so that that would be like
33:37
Speaker 3: the VA turbo engine, so that's coming into this market.
33:40
Speaker 3: But people are now starting to look at them outside
33:42
Speaker 3: of agricultural. You know, they want to build them up
33:44
Speaker 3: for overlanding and having fun, or someone like me who
33:47
Speaker 3: wants to make a rock collar out of it. So yeah,
33:51
Speaker 3: that's that's typically what we would see. Then you've got
33:54
Speaker 3: some of the people that would have like vans are
33:56
Speaker 3: like two wheel drive. These type of vehicles are in
34:00
Speaker 3: interesting because you of course can't take them too far.
34:02
Speaker 3: They would use that. So I guess you can use
34:04
Speaker 3: whatever you've got and work with it. So it's cool.
34:07
Speaker 3: Yeah I do. I really don't know. Maybe yeah, I've
34:12
Speaker 3: got I mean, I've got a few. I mean, I
34:14
Speaker 3: so you know, some of you who may know me
34:17
Speaker 3: know me as a geep person. And of course as
34:19
Speaker 3: I move back and starting using them, it's been hard
34:22
Speaker 3: to keep them running for you know, or maintaining them
34:24
Speaker 3: and doing all that. So I, you know, started getting
34:26
Speaker 3: into toyotas, and because of their global support, I've had
34:29
Speaker 3: a great, you know experience working with them. And then
34:32
Speaker 3: of course as you start to wrench on them and
34:34
Speaker 3: understand them more, you know, you develop an understanding of
34:37
Speaker 3: why they're built like that and who's the customer for
34:40
Speaker 3: these type of vehicles. And so I've got a lot
34:42
Speaker 3: of land Cruisers, Troopies, that seventy three that we just
34:45
Speaker 3: looked at, the sixty that I drive everywhere. These are
34:48
Speaker 3: the type of vehicles that you know, typically I use
34:50
Speaker 3: that one oh five. I love driving that thing. It's
34:52
Speaker 3: just so comfortable. I have an eighty series. This is
34:55
Speaker 3: what comes. I have a Mercedes g Wagon. It's a
34:58
Speaker 3: four sixty. It's a two do so it's like the
35:00
Speaker 3: short wheelbase fun with a hard top. Yeah, I've got
35:03
Speaker 3: a few few of these, but I typically buy older
35:06
Speaker 3: vehicles just because I think they're more fun to work with.
35:09
Speaker 3: They have more character, and they smell funny sometimes, so
35:13
Speaker 3: you know, it's cool to fix them up and enjoy
35:16
Speaker 3: the process. That's typically what I like to drive at sixty. Specifically,
35:19
Speaker 3: I have a lot of kilometers on that thing. I've
35:22
Speaker 3: been almost to the border with Yemen. I almost got
35:25
Speaker 3: I had a really big problem there in that vehicle,
35:27
Speaker 3: So you know, it's it's been everywhere with me. I
35:29
Speaker 3: don't think I'll ever sell it, but everything else is
35:31
Speaker 3: for sale, so I'm just kidding. It's fun. I mean,
35:35
Speaker 3: you know, it used to be a gasoline motor and
35:38
Speaker 3: I put a diesel in it. I use it for
35:40
Speaker 3: like three four weeks. I'm planning to ship it to
35:43
Speaker 3: Africa and hopefully do a trip there with it. So yeah,
35:46
Speaker 3: that'll be that'll be a lot of fun.
35:50
Speaker 1: People shipping to the most I guess like Africa.
35:55
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, so a lot of Saudis will ship their
35:57
Speaker 3: vehicles to Africa, but through like from Jeda to like Sudan,
36:01
Speaker 3: so it so then ship them there. It takes like
36:04
Speaker 3: two or three days on the ferry or like the boats,
36:06
Speaker 3: and then they'll they'll get there, they'll go for hunting
36:08
Speaker 3: trips so and then they'll ship them by there, so
36:11
Speaker 3: they're completely stocked vehicles. Normally they'll have like guides with
36:14
Speaker 3: them over there that'll help on It's like a kind
36:16
Speaker 3: of like a tourist thing. They're not taking they're not
36:18
Speaker 3: using these vehicles in the sense that we're using them
36:20
Speaker 3: live out of or you know, travel the world with.
36:23
Speaker 3: That's a little bit different. But then you've got a
36:26
Speaker 3: lot of Saudis are shipping their vehicles to Europe. You're
36:28
Speaker 3: seeing a lot of them in North America. Like if
36:30
Speaker 3: you go to La or like New York or any
36:32
Speaker 3: of these hot tourists areas, you'll see a lot of
36:35
Speaker 3: Saudi cars there, but they're typically like you know, like
36:37
Speaker 3: rich Lamborghinis and for these type of vehicles that be
36:41
Speaker 3: used in these type of areas. But then I think
36:43
Speaker 3: now people are starting to see, Okay, what if I
36:46
Speaker 3: already seen Saudi, I'd like to go even further. So
36:48
Speaker 3: we're starting to see people go to neighboring countries. They'll
36:52
Speaker 3: go to Jordan, Orman, You've got Uee of course, so
36:56
Speaker 3: you're you're starting to see a lot of that. But
36:58
Speaker 3: because of their size and what Saudi has to offer,
37:00
Speaker 3: normally it's not enough. They'd like to see more. So
37:03
Speaker 3: we have people now planning to do like you know,
37:05
Speaker 3: this one bus trip that we were talking about earlier
37:07
Speaker 3: to Kenya, and then we've got people going to Namibia
37:11
Speaker 3: next year too, So we're gonna be we're gonna be
37:13
Speaker 3: starting building these vehicles up here shortly. So we've got
37:16
Speaker 3: two seventy Series one cruisers for that, and yeah, that's
37:19
Speaker 3: typically what we have. Hopefully with the more that with
37:22
Speaker 3: social media and everything and everybody's you know, trying to travel,
37:25
Speaker 3: I think there's going to be a lot more people
37:27
Speaker 3: doing it than just you know, a handful of pupils
37:29
Speaker 3: we did.
37:30
Speaker 2: I haven't seen.
37:31
Speaker 1: I think we saw two Overlanders from I think it
37:33
Speaker 1: was well one was a Swiss couple and I also interviewed.
37:36
Speaker 2: Another, and then there was another European couple. I will leave.
37:41
Speaker 1: We just saw their plates, but we didn't anybody else.
37:44
Speaker 1: I think it's because of their route to get here
37:46
Speaker 1: from yours.
37:48
Speaker 2: A bit.
37:49
Speaker 3: It's hard, yeah, I mean, especially with Syria and what's
37:52
Speaker 3: happening is that it used to be maybe fifteen twenty
37:55
Speaker 3: years ago. I remember seeing a lot of you know,
37:57
Speaker 3: European license plates that are just trying to make their
38:00
Speaker 3: way to go to let's say India or something like that,
38:03
Speaker 3: or they just want to go to Uee for example
38:05
Speaker 3: Orman And of course with all the issues that are
38:08
Speaker 3: happening north of us, that's kind of making it a
38:10
Speaker 3: little more difficult. So my dad is a motorcyclist and
38:13
Speaker 3: what he's done in the past, he would ship his
38:15
Speaker 3: motorcycle from Yenburg, so that's like on the Red Sea,
38:19
Speaker 3: and then they would ship them like to Reece or
38:22
Speaker 3: ship them to like Turkey or something like that, and
38:24
Speaker 3: they'll continue their journey. So they've been as far as
38:26
Speaker 3: to Switzerland, but they're mostly on roads. I don't know
38:29
Speaker 3: if they'd call them overlanders are but they're just they're
38:32
Speaker 3: just enjoying their you know, their right to go to
38:34
Speaker 3: Switzerland and then they'll just stay there for a few
38:36
Speaker 3: weeks and ship them back. But it's definitely challenging to
38:38
Speaker 3: trying to do the drive. It's definitely challenging to do that.
38:41
Speaker 1: And you see any changes or challenges since more tourists,
38:49
Speaker 1: do you think it's.
38:50
Speaker 3: Po It is definitely ninety nine percent positive and this
38:54
Speaker 3: is what we've been hearing. I'm sure that some people
38:56
Speaker 3: have had some issues at some point. It happens everywhere.
39:00
Speaker 3: From my perspective, I would love to leave everything as is,
39:03
Speaker 3: just so that you know, us who like to travel
39:06
Speaker 3: and see things the way they are would appreciate it
39:08
Speaker 3: more without having fences and things like that they are.
39:14
Speaker 3: And especially Tubook is gonna because that's now Neon, so
39:17
Speaker 3: there's a huge city that's being built there. You've got
39:19
Speaker 3: the Line, which is another city that's going to be
39:21
Speaker 3: built without any streets, so that that whole city is
39:24
Speaker 3: going to be buildings on one line. So it's a
39:27
Speaker 3: crazy concept. Check out videos of it on YouTube or
39:30
Speaker 3: what they're planning to do with it. But construction and structure, yeah, yeah, yeah,
39:40
Speaker 3: like what's going on? Yeah, I mean we traveled there.
39:43
Speaker 3: First time for me to go there was like twenty
39:45
Speaker 3: eleven or twenty twelve. I think there's nothing there, and
39:47
Speaker 3: it was just so nice because you know, even me
39:50
Speaker 3: traveling there as a local, people are like, what are
39:52
Speaker 3: you doing here? You're not they know, they don't recognize
39:55
Speaker 3: this type of vehicle to be there, So it was
39:57
Speaker 3: really nice and I would encourage anybody who want to
40:00
Speaker 3: travel here to make that maybe one of their first
40:02
Speaker 3: priorities to go and check out that area before the
40:04
Speaker 3: full development happens. Of course, that's going to be amazing
40:08
Speaker 3: from you know, from having you know, big cities and everything.
40:11
Speaker 3: But if you want to see deserts, that would be
40:13
Speaker 3: the perfect place to start, especially the beaches and all
40:16
Speaker 3: that is just so pretty over there. It's great. And
40:20
Speaker 3: then you know the mountains that are in that region.
40:22
Speaker 3: I think there as more people start to live out there,
40:24
Speaker 3: you're going to be starting to see more traffic and
40:26
Speaker 3: you're going to start seeing more people that are traveling.
40:29
Speaker 3: We were already running into people that are doing basically
40:31
Speaker 3: what we want to do. So if you wanted that
40:33
Speaker 3: isolation that you can, I think you could still do
40:35
Speaker 3: it for the next few years. But then after that
40:37
Speaker 3: it's just going to be really busy. So absolutely, you know.
40:42
Speaker 3: Besides that, I mean, you've got of course, you can
40:45
Speaker 3: go south. You can go you know some places in
40:47
Speaker 3: near Riad that are really nice. We go, you know,
40:51
Speaker 3: some of my friends were into rock calling, So the
40:54
Speaker 3: nearest place that we'd go to is like fifteen minutes
40:57
Speaker 3: away from here. Yeah, and we're like in the middle
40:59
Speaker 3: of the city. It's it's in a valley exactly. Yeah.
41:02
Speaker 3: So but that area now is going to be a
41:04
Speaker 3: new project which is called the Gidia Project. So that
41:07
Speaker 3: project is going to be like a complete entertainment So
41:10
Speaker 3: six Flags is coming, They've got like really I think,
41:13
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's near. One other big entertainment
41:15
Speaker 3: company is going to be there too. Formula one is
41:18
Speaker 3: going to have a course there as well, so they're
41:20
Speaker 3: doing really, uh, you know, big things in that area.
41:23
Speaker 3: So my rock crawling trail is unfortunately going to be gone,
41:26
Speaker 3: but you know, but there's a lot of things that
41:28
Speaker 3: are they're bringing into the country. So yeah, it's it's fun.
41:32
Speaker 1: There's a question that I asked everybody in the world
41:38
Speaker 1: right now.
41:41
Speaker 3: Maybe I'd love to go to Namibia. Yeah, I'd love
41:44
Speaker 3: to do that. I've never been there, but I've seen
41:47
Speaker 3: a lot of videos and it's just so interesting to me.
41:51
Speaker 3: I love deserts, I love mountains. I haven't seen mountains
41:53
Speaker 3: in Namibia, but I think that the is like this.
41:56
Speaker 3: It just never escapes my mind. That dunes that are
41:59
Speaker 3: on like the Ocean's I think it's on the western side.
42:01
Speaker 3: It's just crazy, like it's so beautiful. I'd love to
42:04
Speaker 3: go there one day and drive on that coast. It
42:07
Speaker 3: would be really nice. I don't know if I can
42:09
Speaker 3: claim up the dunes from the other side, but yeah,
42:12
Speaker 3: it's it's definitely interesting. So i'd love to see that.
42:16
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about you and yeah, you've
42:23
Speaker 1: looked at.
42:25
Speaker 3: What he has been an influence. Actually, yeah, so I've
42:30
Speaker 3: known Scott for ten years. Yeah, because yeah, So right
42:39
Speaker 3: when I was in the US my final trip before
42:42
Speaker 3: I moved out of the country, I went west and
42:44
Speaker 3: I used to live in Colorado. And actually how I
42:46
Speaker 3: got to Colorado was through one of my friends. His
42:49
Speaker 3: mom was from there, and when we were here trying
42:52
Speaker 3: to decide what college to go to, she said she
42:54
Speaker 3: knew that I was into jeep so she said, if
42:56
Speaker 3: you like jeeps, there's a lot of trails in Colorado.
42:58
Speaker 3: That immediately sold me to go to Colorado. So that's
43:02
Speaker 3: actually how I picked Colorado. And you know, thankfully, I
43:05
Speaker 3: met a lot of great people over there, and it's
43:07
Speaker 3: just so beautiful. Right now, I hear it's like crazy
43:10
Speaker 3: overpopulated with new people over there, but my experience was great.
43:14
Speaker 3: So anyway, I went west from my last trip. I
43:18
Speaker 3: don't know if I would call it overlanding. I mean,
43:20
Speaker 3: to me, it's just you know, I'm just driving, having
43:22
Speaker 3: a great time, and it's just this trip that I'm doing.
43:24
Speaker 3: I knew Scott was in I think he was in Prescott, Arizona.
43:27
Speaker 3: I wanted to stop by and say hi, and I
43:30
Speaker 3: wanted to see their setup. So well, that was through
43:34
Speaker 3: Expedition Portal, I think, yeah, So I think that was
43:38
Speaker 3: twenty ten or something like that. So I drove there
43:41
Speaker 3: and I think we were texting or messaging on Facebook,
43:44
Speaker 3: and then we met at his office, and then we
43:47
Speaker 3: met Adventure Trailers at Overland over there as well. One
43:51
Speaker 3: of my axle seals was leaking, so we ended up
43:55
Speaker 3: having to fix it there. So the guys there were
43:57
Speaker 3: totally awesome with Maryo on his team, and we fixed
44:01
Speaker 3: it up and we spent some time with Scott. We
44:04
Speaker 3: actually drove a G eight that he had that was
44:06
Speaker 3: a right hand drive, so that was an experience that
44:09
Speaker 3: I've you know, I didn't drive a Vancouver or any
44:12
Speaker 3: vehicle that was a right hand drive before that. That
44:14
Speaker 3: was my first experience, and it was in a military GP,
44:16
Speaker 3: you know, so it was it was Yeah, it was
44:18
Speaker 3: pretty cool, so that was fun. We spent that afternoon together,
44:21
Speaker 3: we went for dinner. I believe, and then the next
44:23
Speaker 3: day we fixed the jeep and I gone my way
44:24
Speaker 3: and we've been friends ever since. I mean we've been,
44:26
Speaker 3: you know, talking about a Saudi trip that would one
44:30
Speaker 3: day happen. So we try to apply for a visa.
44:32
Speaker 3: This was before this tourist thing that was opened up.
44:35
Speaker 3: So hopefully now we can we can get him to
44:37
Speaker 3: come out here. So yeah, that'll be that'll be a
44:41
Speaker 3: lot of fun. I mean, that's that's kind of how
44:44
Speaker 3: how we met. Cool. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Now we're
44:50
Speaker 3: here exactly. How crazy is that? Yeah, that's pretty cool.
44:54
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
44:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for stopping. I appreciate it.
44:58
Speaker 1: It's valuable, say to the world of runing and over landing.
45:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if are.
45:07
Speaker 2: Just checking out the shop, anything to do with you.
45:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm on Instagram as Louey four wheel Drive,
45:14
Speaker 3: so it's for w D and then our businesses on
45:17
Speaker 3: Instagram as four Wheel Station. It's the number four, that's us,
45:21
Speaker 3: and yeah, reach out to us if you want to
45:22
Speaker 3: travel and come and check out. Saudi would love to
45:25
Speaker 3: have you, you know, just don't bring COVID with you please,
45:29
Speaker 3: just kidding. Yeah. So but yeah, I mean that's that's
45:32
Speaker 3: where we'll find us. Thank you so much, thank you pleasure,
45:37
Speaker 3: thank you for.
45:38
Speaker 2: Listening, and we will see you next time.
45:42
Speaker 3: Thank you, sweet, thank you,