It was the early 1960s and King Faisal wanted a road that would connect the desert areas of Al Saud with the coastal Hejaz region. But the route was impassable, going down an almost vertical cliff. King Faisal had contacted the major foreign construction companies, who had all tried to find a way. Nothing. He then tried bin Laden, who had left his home in Yemen and appeared in Jeddah penniless before starting a construction company in 1931. He got to the point not with machinery and sophisticated equipment, but with a donkey. According to
