What it’s like to visit Saudi Arabia right now

(CNN) — I have seen countries change before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like the change taking place in Saudi Arabia. It is not like the fall of Soviet Europe, nor the upheaval recently witnessed in Sri Lanka. Saudi’s change is deliberate, deep-reaching and dramatic.

It is difficult to visit Saudi Arabia without a host of preconceived ideas, stereotypes and prejudices creeping into what one expects. After all, the country has spent the last five decades shielding itself from the outside world — and until recently — making it very difficult for anyone to visit, unless they were on religious pilgrimage to Mecca.

We’ve all heard about how women must be fully covered and veiled, no mixing of the sexes and a religious police force that is draconian and uncompromising. Frankly, it would be surprising if Western tourists wanted to go on vacation there — it’s hard to have a good time in that oppressive environment.

So the decision by the nation’s leadership to blow hurricanes of fresh air through the country has turned the whole place on its head. As part of this change, Saudi is spending obscene sums of money creating new cities and tourist attractions — long-term planning for the post-oil world. In today’s Saudi there is only one constant: change at breakneck speed.

It would be silly to go further without talking about the man behind these changes — Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, better known simply as MBS. And no discussion of MBS can take place without reference to the controversy he generates.

MBS is the architect of Saudi Arabia’s reforms. He is modernizing the economy at a phenomenal speed, and creating massive opportunities within the country, but he is also heavily criticized for Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

Many say he’s been selective in his reforms. While he famously changed laws allowing women to drive, critics say that there is still very little room for public dissent.

I raise this now because it is the core of the contradiction that is Saudi today: MBS is lauded for making societal and economic reforms, giving new freedoms to millions of ordinary Saudis, yet there is this dark side to the reforms that offends Western values and…