Category: holidays

It’s about midnight local time, and I’ve just completed my first full day in Oman. I’m tired, but, I think that’s a good thing — I’ve adjusted pretty well to the 9-hour time difference, and I should be tired. I haven’t napped yet, and I’m sticking to my timezone busting strategy of drinking lots of water, powering up with natural daylight (no shortage of that here) and otherwise pretending that I’m supposed to feel good now.

The journey here was long, but pretty uneventful, which is a pretty good way to travel across the world. The highlights weren’t too remarkable, but, I did get a great view of the core of London as we approached Heathrow … I can now say that I’ve flown over Iraq … I saw two sunsets and one sunrise in a single journey … and I read about 350 pages of the 7th and final Harry Potter book.

After waiting my time in the slow-moving immigration line in the Muscat airport, I finally got my passport stamped, picked up my duty-free alcohol, and met Chris in the arrivals area. Given that it was nighttime, there wasn’t too much to see on the 20-minute drive back to his house … I guess my first impressions were that it was dark (duh), there were loads of square buildings lit with ample neon, and that things were otherwise pretty normal. It’s holiday time here (Eid) which means that traffic patterns are a little off the norm — it didn’t seem too busy on the way in though.

Chris and Mel’s house seems nice – the building style reminds me a little of Taiwan, not so much because of how the outside looks, but more the interior – the bathrooms, kitchen, etc. The similarity probably has more to do with both being semi-tropical locations more than anything else. They’ve got a quite a large yard which was nice – we took advantage of it and sat outside, enjoying the pleasant nighttime temperature, had a beer or two and caught up on life.

Today (Friday) we started off with the “lay of the land” drive, giving me a pretty thorough overview of the city and surrounding area. It’s really not all that big of a city, but it’s broken up into a lot of distinct parts. Muscat is sandwiched between the Sea of Oman and a pretty abrupt mountain range, so the city is wide, but not too deep if you catch my drift. We drove past the diplomatic area where most of the embassies are … caught several glimpses of the sea and beaches … drove past the Sultant’s Palace … and eventually ended up at a beautiful secluded beach. It was very romantic — Chris, Cade and I had a great time. Actually, Cade seemed rather terrified of the sand and water, so I’m not sure if he had a great time or not — I certainly enjoyed the super-soft sand and warm water. I don’t think that beach-going is a big part of traditional Omani life, so there weren’t too many (if any) Omani’s around — some of the migrant workers from Asia seemed to be enjoying the day off though, which I’m sure is very well deserved.

After the beach we headed back to home base – before long we were playing outdoor ping pong. Chris certainly took advantage of the home court and his acute knowledge of the wind conditions. Having never played outdoors before, I had no idea how to deal with the wind and lost many more games than I won. Turns out we’d play again in the evening under the lights, and I would restore my confidence with several decisive victories.

In between rounds of ping pong, we made a trip to the hyper (super) market to pick up some supplies for an upcoming trip out the city, and then went to another beach for a sunset walk (the romance continued), Mel joining us this time. Muscat is really blessed with a lot of beautiful beaches and scenery, though they certainly weren’t blessed with many other natural gifts. It is exceedingly hot and sunny during the day, and the land is very dry, rocky and mountainous. I haven’t seen anything else in the region to compare it to, but, the people who had the vision to create a settlement here way back when must have really been amazing people. To my eye, there is virtually nothing here — I’m still surprised when I do see a bit of greenery breaking up the brownery that otherwise dominates the area.

Tomorrow, we’ll be heading inland, through the mountains, to a famous desert camp. I’m looking forward to the scenery of course, as well as to my first real sand dunes and my first desert camp out. Given that we’ll truly be in the middle of nowhere and that there won’t be a moon, the star vision should be incredible. I’m not sure what else mother nature might have up her sleeve, but I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be out of communication for a few days, but will surely have lots of updates once we’re back in Muscat.