“I wish I could have more hotels in Mecca,” said Jan Smits, InterContinental’s chief executive officer for Asia, Middle East and Africa.

My purpose was to travel with my mother to Saudi Arabia to perform the Umrah, a mini version of the annual Hajj pilgrimage millions of Muslims make each year to Mecca. The historic city of Medina was the first stop on the journey before we continued on to Mecca for Umrah.

In this clip excerpted with permission from the documentary The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power based on the book of the same name by Daniel Yergin, the story of Tom Barger’s first journey to Saudi Arabia is related through his movies and letters.