Surprisingly, certain areas are known to be "off-limits" to the mutawwas. These include the following:
the Diplomatic Quarter (in Riyadh)
the Kingdom Tower, including the hotel and the shopping mall (in Riyadh)
the beach resort compounds north of Jeddah
the premises of Saudi Aramco (in the eastern province)
expat compounds generally.
Generally, the Mutawwa rarely enter hotels, if ever. This does not mean that one should flout Saudi social mores with impunity in such places, but the restrictions on mixing of genders and, in some areas, the dress-code are much looser.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
