Looking back, I was clearly shielded from the politics and the uglier elements of the country, so my main takeaways were simply of scale and noise. Every building in Jeddah was bigger and shinier than any building I had ever seen before. The roads were dotted with vast works of modern art that I could scarcely wrap my mind around. There was a giant fountain (the biggest in the world) that changed colour at night. And even above the din of everything, the call to prayer boomed out across the city throughout the day. The holiday I had before this was to Abergavenny; this felt like visiting another planet.