Wandering the Wadis

Sometimes, as part of my job, I get to see alot of the countryside in the process of driving around between different project sites. Some days are more enjoyable than others. Yesterday it was really really HOT:

Thats right, 47 C, as in 116 F. And this was right after I had been driving around, not when the car had just been sitting in the sun for an extended period of time. For the record, the hottest I’ve seen it is 50 C, i.e. 122 F.

Despite the ridiculous heat, it was a particularly enjoyable afternoon. Over the course of my travels, I managed to get a few pictures of the wadis (dry river beds) criss-crossing the countryside:

I was also greeted by some of the local fauna:

And after an afternoon of driving around, headed home via the Sultan Qaboos highway. His Majesty (H.M. for short) Qaboos isn’t afraid to add a little decoration to the roundabouts:

Bree wants to do a pictorial of these monuments-o-the-highway called “Roundabouts of the Sultanate” because there are so many elaborately decorated roundabouts in these parts.

Since it was Wednesday night (reminder: Wednesday = Friday), we set out for an establishment where one can have alcoholic beverages along with their meal (the one who isn’t driving at least). We made our way to a mexican establishment:

Undeterred by the demonic figure on the sign, we ventured in. The mexican food was decent,  but like all things here, had a faint hint of curry (because most of the chefs are indian). You can take the chef out of India, but well, you know…

Despite the live band playing non-stop hits, the dance floor was empty on a Wednesday night.:

Not just any Wednesday either, according to the menu we were witnessing “Wild Wild West Wednseday”. Notice the two “wild”s. Yet.. the atmosphere did not warrant even one “wild”. Closer inspection revealed…

Huh? This place is a mystery wrapped in an enigma sometimes. Margaritas? Check. Live band playing 80’s hits? Check. A staff of Indian waiters sporting cowboy get-ups? Check. Boot-scootin? No-can-do. Apparently by some semi-official sounding decree. Banning dancing seems a little out of character here, but ya just never know…

We’re gonna make an attempt at going out again tonight. Two nights in a row! This is big for us. We’re even going to meet our new friend there (we’re nervous). I’ll report on whether any dancing is witnessed.

Dubai! Again!

*Whew* it was a big weekend for us. Accustomed as we are becoming to the relatively small-town life in Muscat, a trip to Dubai last weekend was a nice little break. The itinerary didn’t change much from the last trip: the pool, malls, big buildings. We did, however, manage to work some culture into this trip, which was as nice as it was unexpected.

Thursday morning we woke up early (and actually used an alarm!) despite the usual claims throughout the week of how much we were going to sleep in on the weekend. Some things just don’t change. The thing was, we wanted to do a tour of a mosque, and they only offer a few a week, so there you have it. We joined an information session at the Jumeirah Mosque in Dubai that was put on by the Sheikh Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding. The event was an open forum-type format, where you were allowed to ask anything you wanted about Islam, muslims, arabs, mosques, etc. We took some pictures:

We learned all sorts of interesting things, such as why they have the domes on the buildings (acoustics), what the call to prayer says (basically, “God is great, come pray now”), and how they pray (there are quite a few steps). Overall, it was a very interesting experience and kudos to the Emiratis for striving to increase cultural understanding, which is something we could all use a little more of.

After all that culture, we sought out the 2nd most prominent cultural experience in Dubai: the mall. My stated goal was to witness the famous indoor ski resort. I can now check that off as visited, and I have the evidence:

Coming from Colorado, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $150 to ski a couple hundred vertical feet on artificial snow. I really wanted to, but I couldn’t. So instead we took it all in from a restaurant overlooking the hill and enjoyed this instead:

They make some pretty tasty hummous, tabouleh, and pita in this part of the world. The lunch-time entertainment included seeing people who had never seen snow before learn how to ski, and watching men in traditional dress (with a puffy jacket over it) and women in abayas (the local version of a burka) sled and tube down the slope. They looked like they were having a blast and the juxtaposition of gulf attire on a ski slope was priceless.

Lastly… for anyone who may actually still read this, you can now look forward to a higher class of photography in upcoming posts. Bree is becoming the official family photographer with a snazzy new digital SLR. Here’s a picture of her taking pictures:

She has always been a really talented photographer so the other person or two who actually reads this is in for a treat.

The weekend o’ fun was capped by a trip to duty free where we were allowed to get 2 bottles of liquor or wine… per person! We split our purchase into two bottles of wine and the essentials for margaritas (tequila + Cointreau). We made our decision and I stand by it. The purchase and ensuing consumption of 4 bottles of booze has already improved our opinion of this place. We may start making regular trips for no other reason than access to purchasing wine. Seriously.

Cheers,

Brian

Dubai & Dayminyats

I made my first trip to Dubai, albeit a short one. Dubai is like Vegas, if Vegas practiced a little more restraint when it came to architecture. From the looks of things, the developers just keep one-upping each other. It won’t stop until someone builds another entire city in the middle of the ocean. I’m sure plans are already underway.

In a mere 24 hours, I did the following: went to a buffet, had some drinks by the pool, went to an enormous mall. I think that pretty mush covers the highlights of what Dubai has to offer – not bad really. The hotels are really nice, so it made for an interesting 24 hour diversion.

On Sunday, two important things happened:

1. We dove at the Dayminyat Islands, as shown in the picture below (stolen from another site because we had neither a camera nor a helicopter to take an aerial photograph). This is a pretty accurate representation of how it looked, except much larger in person. It was cool.

2. We may have (fingers crossed!) made a friend. I don’t want to jinx it, but we got a number. How many days do we wait until we call? Maybe we’ll make it 3 just to stay on the safe side. We don’t want to look desperate….

More or less the same...

Life in Muscat is more or less the same at home, with a few minor (or major) distinctions:

• More coffee - People drink coffee or tea 24/7 and I find myself partaking (as I am now) until about 3PM when I have to quit so I can sleep


• Less running - At least for the next few months it's just too freaking hot (occasionally we run after the sun goes down)


• More driving fast - Go fast here or get run over and honked at (see below)


• Less use of turn singals (people here are more likely to use hazard lights, which they turn on as they slam on their breaks - which they often do)


• More use of horns (very annoying - is everyone really in that big of a hurry?)


• Far less options for beer and wine


• More sweating (again, too hot)


• Less TV (we opted not to get one)


• More movies (to balance not having a TV)


• Less radio options (unless you're into english/american pop, which I find pretty terrible)


• More reading (averaging a couple books a week here)


• Less time outside (did I mention how hot it is here?)


• More scuba diving - yay!

All in all these are all interesting life changes. Around September a lot of the outdoor related activities will pick up. For now, we will stick with scuba diving as our primary outdoor activity. Tomorrow we are diving the Daymaniyat Islands off the coast of Oman and are hoping to see whale sharks (or shark, I would be happy with one) this time.

Weekend Update

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately…. a decent internet connection is hard to come by in our new residence for the time being.

So here we are, 3 or so weeks into this expatriate thing, and we are starting to learn a thing or two about a thing or two. We are learning, for example, that things are a little different when you’re not in your home country. For example, here is a picture of Bree, sitting next to me as we (or I, as it were) speak:

Notice that we are in a mall not unlike one in the US, and there is, in fact, a Forever 21 store right behind Bree. Also notice the Omani behind her sporting the dishdasha. Like I said, things are a little different. Overall, we’re not suffering too badly.

Two weekends ago we went diving for the first time, which was really impressive, and yesterday we went exploring into the interior of Oman, while today we went to the beach prior to our current excursion to the mall.

Yesterday’s excursion led us to Nizwa, Oman’s second largest tourist town (so we’re told). We went to a famous old fort there:

which we had to ourselves. Even in Oman’s second biggest tourist destination (so we’re told), you can have the place to yourself if you go when its really, I mean ridiculously, hot outside.

We were hoping to make it to the town’s famous souq (market) to buy a rug or perhaps some souvenirs, but it was deserted due to the aforementioned weather conditions. Instead, we cruised around town. Here is a picture of one of the old narrow streets:

Nizwa is a crazy mixture of old and new. There are remnants of the old city mixed with modern buildings everywhere. The wall we were so delicately squeezing our vehicle through is probably at least 400-500 years old (if not much older). All of Oman is kindof like that. You’ll be cruising down a highway and on the top of the hills you’ll see watch towers that date back to the middle ages. Its wild.

We had so much fun we decided to end the day by having our first run in with the local law enforcement. I (stupidly) took a wrong turn down a one-way street, and of course there was none other than a police car driving up the street at the time. Luckily it turned out to be no big deal. The policeman asked about how we were enjoying our stay in Oman, and after explaining the importance of obeying local traffic laws and carrying the right documentation (like a passport, which we didn’t have), let us go. Next time I’ll try to remember to drive the correct way down the street…

More random pics of Oman:

Today’s Beach Destination

They have this tourism thing down here, someone KNEW I was going to have to take a picture of this before deciding to use it.