It's watermelon season here in Saudi Arabia. On our recent weekend trip to Yanbu to attend the Flower Festival, we spied lots of watermelons for sale everywhere - in small town markets and many vendors in the desert along the highway. The market above is in the town of Rabigh.
We bought a big sweet juicy watermelon from this distinguished looking vendor in Rabigh for 15 riyals. Prices can be negotiable, which my husband is good at doing.
The above photo is of a watermelon field off the highway between Jeddah and Yanbu. We saw many fields like this one. The vendor tending to this field told us that he doesn't water the crops - he only relies on rainwater. This was amazing to me, since there is not much rain in our area of Saudi Arabia, but apparently it is enough to grow big juicy watermelons. The trash all around was disturbing...
This roadside vendor stacked his melons and sold them in sets of 2 or 3. You can see that several are cut up and can be sampled before buying. He looks pretty comfortable and relaxed on his red carpet.
The roadside vendors usually have drinking water and many of them have a fire for tea. This guy also has a stool to sit on in case his feet go to sleep when he sits on the ground for too long, as mine do!
This desert vendor has his fire on the right and a nice tent where he can nap. In the background to the left, you can see his field where he grows his melons.
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3 comments:
Very interestinig! I did not know watermelon grew so abundant here in Saudi.
I know some of our farmers have them at the market in the harvest season. I've never been fond of the taste.
Batich! Such long narrow ones.
Thanks for the interesting story of your watermelons.
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