On exiting the hotel my umrah guide asked some construction workers that we found close by where the nearest ATM was. This was a group of 3 construction workers who replied it was back at the Haram and the grand mosque where to be fair there are massive shopping malls and districts surrounding the mosque. As we had just come from there the only other ATM was further up Ajyad street inside a hotel.
We started to walk in that direction. One thing about Makkah is that there is still a lot of construction that is taking place all around including besides the grand mosque. I never up until now went up Ajyad street due to some visible construction work but we were now heading past that site.
On the way a short distance after passing the construction workers my umrah guide asked another pedestrian to confirm if there was an ATM up ahead to which the gentlemen quickly said not that he saw I think. Based on this reply we started walking back towards our hotel.
We again bumped into the construction workers. Interestingly, even though sometimes you might not speak the same language as someone else, their body language as well as their facial expressions or micro-expressions give you a good grasp of what they are saying.
I understood that my umrah guide relayed to the construction guys that “this man did not see anything” to which the construction worker replied assertively “what would he know, i’ve been working here for months. We know the area, there is an ATM believe me”. He was kind enough to accompany us to the right location which was about a 15 minute walk.
About 5-7 minutes after we turned around and started walking back up Ajyad street away from the Grand Mosque, my guide pointed up ahead to a tall building with some lights all the way on the side. He mentioned that this was the hotel building containing the ATM and where we were headed. It was a brief walk, not very long.
On entering the hotel we asked the hotel receptionist if there was an ATM here who pointed back behind us. The ATM was a small stand alone terminal in the corner besides the hotel entrance. One really good thing about ATM’s in the KSA is that I never came across one which charged conversion/transaction fees. It just withdraws in the domestic currency so my advice is just to check with your bank what it costs you to withdraw abroad. My bank charges nothing and they use the Mastercard exchange rate.
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