We're back! (Oman and UAE trip)

Our trip is already starting to become a blur so that might make this entry a little shorter… or not : )

Day 1 and so on… Arrived in Muscat and it looked just like it did when they went there on "Amazing Race"- beautiful and very, very clean! Also horribly humid (and this is only April, I guess the summer months are so unbearable that anyone with enough money leaves the country). J spent the first day in meetings so K and I took the opportunity to enjoy the awesome hotel pool, for the first time in my life I decided that the most important amenity in a hotel was the toddler pool (and not the free shampoo, ha). I never really got their purpose before but now I’m a huge fan. I sat in the shallow water and relaxed while K did the rest. Pure bliss! We ended up spending the entire day relaxing because when J came back at noon he informed me that literally everyplace shuts down for siesta until 5 so there was nothing else to do but chill. Of course, I didn’t mind. That evening we drove downtown and I fell in love with the city. It has such an old world feeling, kind of reminded me of Hawaii with a twist of Arabia and the Orient.

A quick background on Oman for anyone interested in traveling off the beaten path- I highly recommend it! Before 1970, it was absolutely primitive. Only a few roads, schools etc. and Muscat has a wall that surrounds it in which they would actually lock the gate every evening. When the current Sultan overthrew his father (interesting story there), he completely modernized the country and has since spent the last 38 years catching up to the rest of the world. So although everything is very new (most buildings from the last decade or two) it also feels old because of the city gate and numerous forts, architecture and historic port. We walked around the Palace grounds where the Sultan still lives today (picture 1970’s palace) and then met up with my friend, Pam, at the Suq for some shopping. The best shopping I’ve found- loved all of the traditional Omani things also lots of silver and Frankincense, since that’s what they are known for. They burn it in little incense burners and the smell was everywhere. Can’t say I’m a huge fan but apparently, it used to be worth its weight in gold. We have LOTS of Frankincense now so if you want any let me know! Christmas anyone?

The other thing that I loved about Oman from the beginning was the dress. Omani men wear dishdashas, little hats (forget the name), and they are beautiful, often in pastel colors with matching colorful hats. The women dress depending on the region where they live so there are various traditional often-bright colored outfits. The surprising thing was the women wear what looks like a batman mask over their faces. That was something I’d never seen before but looked straight out of National Geographic. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to snap a photo of it. The culture is also phenomenally mixed, many Africans, Pakistanis, Indians, etc. etc. which made for a very colorful place. At first I really enjoyed the fact that it was so culturally diverse but by the end of the trip we were looking forward to just having Arabs around us. Not that there was anything wrong with the other cultures but it just made things confusing, a real blend of languages, religions and customs. The easy thing about Oman is everyone communicates in English because of the large cultural mix. Unfortunately for J, this was also not a good place to practice his Arabic, he would often forget and start talking to a clerk somewhere only to find that they didn’t understand him at all.

The next day was my birthday so we hit a museum in the morning and I got to spend the entire afternoon doing my most favorite thing in the world- lounging by the pool with a good book and cold drink (non alcoholic because they are very strict about alcohol in the Gulf region!) The third day was spent driving to the United Arab Emirates. Speaking of a road trip- this is the place to do it! We filled up the gas tank of our huge SUV for roughly $16! The drive to Abu Dhabi took us about 9 hours but for the most part, it was fascinating. We drove thru the desert stopping at various castles along the route. Also we saw desert oasis’s that were amazing, there would be brown and sand everywhere and then out would pop this beautiful landscape of lush palm trees and grass in little patches throughout the desert. The craziest thing was when we stopped for lunch (small town, middle of nowhere) we had to eat behind a wall in the “family section” because I was a woman and not allowed to eat where the men were eating! Did not like that one bit so when K proceeded to bang on the wall after her lunch, I let her -telling her to “tear down that wall”! : ) Incidentally this happened to us a second time later in the trip so Oman is definitely a more traditional country than Jordan.

When we arrived in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (there are seven Emirate’s altogether) we could tell right away where the money was- mansions and Range Rovers everywhere! Abu Dhabi has 90% of the oil in UAE so they are living very nicely. For the most part, Emeriti’s don’t have to “work” (as we think of work); they have a large foreigner population that does everything for them. It felt really strange in the beginning- we kept looking for “real” Emeratis but they were hard to find since they don’t work at the hotels, restaurants etc. The best place to spot them was in the mall, shopping!

Their government is so wealthy that they can afford to be very generous to its residents, free healthcare, land, education etc. J found out that his salary in the UAE (for the same job) would be a 3x what he makes now! How nice! There were beautiful homes and buildings everywhere but what I loved the most were the parks- huge, city parks with lots of equipment for the kids and entertainment stuff everywhere. The landscaping alone must have cost a fortune because 50 years ago, it was all desert and now it’s green. As they like to say, a gallon of water costs more than a gallon of gas! We spent the next couple of days at the hotel pool and swimming in the Persian Gulf since there was not a whole lot of “cultural” stuff to take in other than perusing the malls, awesome Ikea btw. J had a little fender bender one day while driving thru the city- doesn’t actually remember bumping the guy but was able to get out of it with a $60 payoff. Extortion or not, we’ll never know but he was in a hurry so was just happy not to cause a scene!

For the first time in years I got to play the “license plate game”. You see, I watched this report on CNN a few months ago that should how people in Abu Dhabi would spend MILLIONS to get a low number license plate. One guy purchased the number 2 for like 16million. (Talk about nothing better to spend your money on!) I was so disappointed not to find a number under 10,000 in the entire city! The really low numbered cars must stay in the garages.

We drove to Dubai in the evening and were stunned to see the skyline. Kind of like seeing Hong Kong again. They have some amazing skyscrapers and since they have an obsession over being the biggest and the best of course, they have the tallest building in the world. Unfortunately, the traffic in Dubai did us in. They are building 500 new buildings at the moment and a metro system so construction was everywhere! A real pain to have to drive anywhere! Because of this, we decided to hop on a bus tour the next day and see the sites that way. We didn’t have enough time to get out and do much but we did get in a boat trip and see a few malls. Dubai is really known for its shopping and I cannot imagine a better place in the world to shop. They are currently building the world’s largest mall now (sorry Mall of America fans!) and have something like 50 other malls there. The malls themselves are remarkable; we enjoyed watching the indoor downhill skiing for sure! Walking thru the malls I saw cleavage and shoulders for the first time 3mos, almost forgot I was in the Mid East for a moment, so western!

We also saw the famous 7-star hotel but didn’t want to pay the $100 entrance fee just to look (puhleez!) and caught a glimpse of the Palm Island and the other islands they are building. For instance, they are building islands in the shape of the world and selling them for millions of dollars. J and I actually considered the investment property but then decided with global warming it will all just be under water eventually! The best way to sum up Dubai is to imagine opulence at its best (or worst!) I’m glad I don’t live there because I would turn into quite a greedy beast since it’s all about having more.

Our second morning in Dubai was spent touring a Mosque and listening to a speech on Islam. The lecture was given by two British women/ Muslim converts who had no problem telling us that the reason the women’s prayer halls are much smaller than the men’s is because women should be home taking care of the children or shopping and really don’t need to come to the mosque anyway. Their honesty was refreshing if not annoying.

We then spent two hours trying to escape the traffic of Dubai and another two driving up the coast thru four of the other Emirates (the poorer ones) and back into Oman. The Musundum Peninsula, which is on the Strait of Hormuz, just twenty-some miles across from Iran. We arrived at our hotel, the only one for MILES, at dinnertime to find that they had lost our reservation! After some time, they decided to move two beds, a crib and a TV into a bare room they used for meetings. This was by far the worst night of the trip. Although they said, the night was free (whatever!) it felt like we were sleeping on concrete. After staying in some truly great hotels, it was a big bummer to spend the night in a large closet. Oh well, I guess this kept us humble if not very appreciative of all future amenities and decent beds.

Our day on the peninsula was spent riding on a dhow (a wooden boat) thru the fjords. It was stunning scenery for sure and we loved seeing the dolphins, almost as much as the Iranian traders who use their speedboats to bring goats across the Straight into Oman in exchange for cigarettes. The highlight was meeting another family who were friends of our friends in Oman, small world after all. We had a great time with them and they saved our day by recommending a great hotel for the night since we didn’t have any plans yet and I wasn’t in the mood to rough it again. We then drove back into the UAE (border crossings are always so much fun- not) and crashed at a great Japanese resort on the gulf which made up for the previous night. Although I tried talking J into staying another night, he was anxious to drive back to Muscat, which we did the next day.

A long drive thru yet another border crossing back into Oman. I was starving and as figures, we could not find one place to stop until we finally found our real-life desert mirage- Pizza Hut. I swear I have eaten pizza more in Oman than in the past 6mos. combined. It’s the one food they serve everywhere. Checked back into a hotel in Muscat for one night and then J left the next morning for a 24-hour trip to Salalah, which is down near Yemen, a 90 min. flight away. Due to the quick nature of his trip, K and I opted not to go with him. We spent the day at the pool and the night with my friend Pam and her kids. It was her anniversary and her hubby was traveling so I took her to dinner and Persian carpet shopping. Unfortunately, the rugs were way too pricey but dinner was fun- since most places don’t serve alcohol, juice is the main beverage. They have fresh squeezed anything everything you can imagine and it’s delicious.

J enjoyed his time down south, talked to several of the locals and came back laughing about how they blame George Bush for everything from the price of oil to the rice shortage. He sure doesn’t have any fans in that part of the world, but everyone loves Bill so they all wanted to know if we were voting for Hillary. The US presidential campaign definitely gets its share of worldwide press coverage and it’s a pastime to weigh in on it. He also saw where Job (from the Bible) is said to be buried, which is the only real thing to see there I’m told.

We had just 24 hours left with J, so we checked back into yet another hotel for what seemed like the zillionth time and spent our next day touring an Omani museum and visiting the Grand Mosque (well sort of). We went back to Pam’s for dinner and J and her husband flew to Saudi that evening and K and I spent the next two days relaxing at Pam’s house. Her maid babysat K for the day so Pam and I could shop. I guess the Olympic torch came thru town one evening but despite our plans to show up in “Free Tibet” t-shirts, we never made it to the event. I’m pretty sure the Omani police would have cracked down hard on our protest plans.

The nice thing about Oman and UAE was how safe it felt. I’m sure it is safer there than any city in the US which sure felt nice, their crime rate is so low Pam often doesn’t bother to lock her doors which is a lovely thing to find in this region. Pam dropped me at the airport the following morning and K and I had a good trip home.

J returned from Saudi a day later and had an interesting trip. He was most surprised about how “not rich” Riyadh felt, despite the fact that they are swimming in cash these days. He did get to visit chop- chop square also but thankfully, found it empty. Although he did get a laugh at the airport where they had a large sign stating “Drug dealers Die” (I’m quite sure they are serious about that). He was also happy to see women not covered in abayas as well. Overall, we both had a great trip with lots of down time for me and cultural immersion for J. We are most thankful for safe travel everywhere and esp. not getting lost, no credit to me as I am no help as navigator!

Well, this turned out to be really long after all, so much for my blurry memory!