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- So my name is Laura and I'm from Finland and I work here
in AlUla, actually, with the Royal Commission of AlUla
for the marketing departments.
AlUla is in Northwest Saudi Arabia.
And it's a part of the Nabataean Kingdom.
It's the same civilization that built
and lived in Petra in Jordan.
And this is their southern most biggest city.
Well, I came actually 14 years ago to work here
and then I just fell in love with the country.
I came to AlUla in 2008, the first time,
and I visited this site.
Back then it was very much remote place to come to.
It's still very peaceful and quiet here.
And it's a very unique location
that just sort of really intrigued me and that made me
really want to stay in Saudi longer and explore more.
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They also have a social media channel called Blue Abaya.
And this is about Saudi tourism in general.
And I started that back in 2010.
And that was because there was kind of like a lack
of information, I couldn't find,
I was trying to travel myself,
I couldn't find the information I was looking for.
So then I thought I might as well do it myself.
So I just started to blog then.
So on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter,
it's @BlueAbaya, is the handle.
Now we're standing in front of an outcrop
in Hegra, called the Jabal AlBanat.
Jabal AlBanat means the mountain of the girls
or the daughters.
That's because most of the tombs in this area
are actually owned by women.
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How do we know that is because we have it carved on top
of the tombs.
So we have the information, who owned this tomb,
who carved it, who's allowed to use this tomb.
So it's very interesting details that we can find here.
And on this outcrop, there's 30, 30 tombs,
of which 26 are owned by women.
And, in the entire Hegra, there is over 100 tombs
that have this decorative facades.
And most of them we know when they were carved
and who owned them.
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Well, I would say it's one of the
like most amazing places to be right now, to be honest.
In Saudi, we have so much space here.
It's clean air, it's, you know, you can come here,
and it's like COVID-friendly.
You have like this whole place to yourself.
We have the luxury here to travel safely around.
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And not only here in Hegra, we have so many other places
in AlUla that are very interesting.
Actually the history goes back thousands
and thousands of years here, the human history.
So this has been traditionally a place
where people would stop by, on trade routes from Yemen,
up until Damascus until recent times.
So it's like a hub of people coming together.
That's AlUla, now and in the past.
So if you wanna find out more about this area,
you can go to experienceAlUla.com,
and you'll find all the activities
and all the heritage sites in this site
and all the information, how to book.
So @experienceAlUla also on the social media.
It's the handle for that.
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