Umluj

Umluj grew where a sheltered anchorage meets a break in the reef, on a coast that has carried traffic between Egypt, the Hejaz and the southern Red Sea for millennia. Small ports along this shore served the pilgrim and trade routes, landing goods for the caravan roads that ran inland towards Medina, and fishing and pearl diving supported the families who settled beside the water. The town's name appears in accounts of the northern Hejaz coast long before the modern state.

Under Ottoman authority the Hejaz coast was administered loosely from Jeddah, with garrisons and customs posts at the larger harbours. During the First World War the region was caught up in the Arab Revolt, when the Red Sea ports of the northern Hejaz changed hands and were supplied from the sea. In the years after, the area became part of the kingdom unified under Ibn Saud, and Umluj settled into the role it kept for most of the 20th century: a modest fishing town and minor port, linked to the interior by desert tracks and later by a paved coastal highway.

Change came late and quickly. Improved roads, electricity and services enlarged the town in the second half of the 20th century, and from the 2010s the government's tourism plans turned attention to this coast. The beaches and islands off Umluj were promoted nationally, the corniche was rebuilt, and large resort projects were begun along the shore to the north and south. The town has found itself on the edge of one of the kingdom's biggest development programmes while remaining, in its daily character, a small fishing port.

Umluj is a coastal town in Bedouin country, and both worlds shape it. Families descend from tribes of the northern Hejaz and the desert behind the coast, and tribal courtesy governs social life: long greetings, the serving of Arabic coffee before business, and a strong obligation of hospitality to guests. Seafaring traditions run alongside — boatbuilding, net making, the reading of weather and reef, and knowledge of the islands passed down in fishing families.

The town is conservative and its public life is religious in rhythm. Prayer times punctuate the day and close the shops, Ramadan turns the day around so that the streets come alive after dark, and the Eid holidays bring visiting, new clothes and large family meals. Weddings are the main public celebration, with drumming, sword dances and Nabati poetry recited in the local dialect.

Leisure is outdoors and seasonal. Families picnic and camp on the beaches in the cooler months, men fish from the rocks in the evening, and weekends bring visitors from Tabuk, Yanbu and further afield to the sand and the islands. That attention is recent, and residents talk about it with a mixture of pride and unease: national fame has brought jobs, traffic and litter to beaches that were empty within living memory, and the etiquette of the place — modest dress, quiet, respect for fishing grounds — is still assumed of everyone who comes.

Umluj is a small town; counts put its population in the tens of thousands, with villages and Bedouin settlements scattered along the coast and the plain behind it. Nearly everyone is Saudi, with Egyptian, Sudanese, Yemeni and South Asian workers in the shops, restaurants, boats and construction sites.

Fishing is the old economy and still a visible one: boats leave before dawn and return to the harbour to sell reef fish, mackerel and shellfish to local buyers and to traders who truck them inland. Government employment, schools, the municipality and the port provide steady salaries, and farming and herding continue in the wadis behind the town. The newest source of work is construction and service jobs at the coastal developments, which have drawn young people who would once have left for Jeddah or Riyadh.

The day divides around the heat. Business is done in the morning, the town goes quiet through the afternoon, and by early evening the corniche, the cafés and the beaches fill with families who stay out late. Friday is the day of communal prayer and long lunches. The concerns residents raise are the ones common to fast-changing small places: housing costs, water, pressure on the reefs and the beaches, and whether the resort boom will bring lasting work to the town itself.

The kitchen here is a Red Sea one. Fish is the centre of it — reef species such as grouper, emperor and parrotfish, along with mackerel and, in season, shrimp and squid — usually grilled whole over charcoal after a rub of spices, or fried, and eaten with flatbread and a hot relish. Sayadiyah, fish served over rice browned with onion and spices, is the classic sit-down version; simpler meals are bought at the market and cooked at a grill beside the harbour.

The land dishes are those of the wider kingdom and the northern Hejaz. Kabsa, rice cooked with meat and a mix of spices including dried lime, and mandi, meat slow-cooked and served over rice, appear at every celebration, and madghut, meat and rice cooked in a pressure pot, is made in some households. Bread is baked daily in neighbourhood ovens, and dates are the standard offering to a visitor, eaten with coffee at any hour.

Drinks are non-alcoholic, alcohol being illegal in the kingdom. Arabic coffee, pale and scented with cardamom, is poured in small cups and refilled until the guest tilts the cup; sweet black tea, sometimes with mint or sage, follows meals; and fresh juices, karak-style milky tea and speciality coffee have all taken hold with younger people. Sweets are simple — dates, basbousa and similar semolina cakes, and sugary pastries bought from bakeries in the evening.