2024-04-29

In the Asir mountains, we tried hunting down some vibrantly colored houses we'd seen in a book, but it wasn't easy 🎨.

The book, called 'Colours of Arabia' by Thierry Mauger, is about the rich historical architecture in the Asir region, such as the beautiful Rijal Almaa shown in the first image. But we were even more intrigued by the many pictures of houses in very bright and colorful patterns.

This type of painting and wall decoration is called Al-Qatt Al-Asiri, is mostly practiced by the women, and even registered as UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. Still, it proved very hard to find any. We kept asking around, untill we finally found some nice examples in two abandoned villages high up in the mountains 🤩.