This is the shop we wanted to visit in Al Khobar, whose building I thought was quite attractive, although I guess I should have taken an expanded view! I had heard about this place my first weekend in Riyadh and have been wanting to visit ever since.
The kingdom doesn’t encourage tourism, although that may be changing to a small extent nowadays, so one doesn’t normally find “touristy” kinds of items that are available in any country that has an influx of foreign visitors. Even indigenous handcrafts are hard to find, although I have seen one small shop in a souk in Riyadh that is obviously geared towards expatriates, and of course there were the camel accessories at the beauty pageant. But this shop is just the kind of place I like, full of tribal art, handcrafts, carpets, fine art, furniture crafted from old architectural items and much more, and very nicely presented. I imagine it’s located in Al Khobar because of the huge expatriate community from Saudi Aramco that has had a presence there for around 90 years.
If you’re curious about what such a shop in this part of the world would sell or what handcrafts here might be like, have a look at their site http://www.desertdesigns.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=26 -- not everything is from Saudi Arabia, but most of it at least is from the Middle East. We drove halfway across the country to buy a tribal mask we had seen at a bazaar in Riyadh but didn’t have enough cash on us at the time to get it (see below picture), so they held it for us until we could get there. We also bought a contemporary Iranian carpet and ordered a coffee table to be made from an old Moroccan window http://www.desertdesigns.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=736&category_id=7&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=40 which is one of their specialties, crafting dining, coffee and side tables from old doors and such. All in all, it was worth the eight hour drive to and from, and I’m sure we’ll be going back again.
This is the mask we drove eight hours to buy:
