Kindly refrain from eating… or else

Today, the holy month of Ramadan started. Ramadan is a big deal here. Huge. Others have warned me that as we get further into it, the driving gets particularly crazy. The prospect of driving becoming actually more dangerous here is fairly terrifying to me. I already spend almost 2 hours in a car or more per day, usually along the main highway, which is harrowing enough as it is.

Several weeks ago I got caught in an insane traffic jam. It started out normal enough, with cars backing up on the highway…. but soon, people started looking for every possible means for gaining forward progress. For the first 10 minutes of this spectacle I was getting pretty annoyed with all the people cutting me off, driving in the median, driving through the landscaped barrier between highway and service road, passing illegally into oncoming traffic, and generally ignoring the rules of safe driving.

But I admit it. I gave into the chaos. I adopted the “when in Oman” ethos. I drove over curbs, through freshly-planted landscaping (I was only following the others!), into oncoming traffic. Notice how in the first few pictures I am on one side of the highway and in the third I’m no the other? There wasn’t any exit.

Its no excuse, but the ends justified the means. It only took me 2 hours and 30 minutes to navigate this traffic nightmare. My less-bold coworker, who was in a car right behind me at the beginning of this debacle spent 4 hours in traffic following the “rules”. The next day, I saw them re-planting the landscaping (no word on whether they’re planning to tend to the large-scale highway design and traffic law enforcement issues though).

In general, Oman is a fairly open minded place, but there are limits. The government is not really too concerned whether you are muslim or not when it comes to Ramadan: everyone follows the rules. No one, muslim or not, is allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight hours. You can actually be arrested for such offenses as, say… drinking coffee in your car while at a red light. For real. mostly they just give fines though….

The risks of these indiscretions are tempered by the fact that it is more difficult to get food or drinks outside of your house during daylight hours anyway. Restaurants, fast food joints, ets are all closed and not selling food during the day. If you are in an office with predominately muslims (I am not), you can’t eat or drink there during the day either. And perhaps most cruelly of all, alcohol sales are banned during Ramadan – even in restaurants and bars, even at night.

In order to deal with the dehydrated, starving masses, there are official laws allowing muslims to work reduced hours during Ramadan. Most offices switch to a 5 hour per day schedule. The majority of people leave by 1:30 or 2 PM and sleep until the evening prayers that signify that they can break the fast. Once so authorized, they do so in style with big iftar (breakfast in arabic) parties where everyone gets together and makes up for the lost time with huge buffets and such. With any luck, Bree and I will get to check out one of these parties….

Just another trip to the grocery store…

Well, sort of.  We woke up last Thursday without a plan for how to fill the day.  So, after some browsing through some tourist books, we decided to hit up Al Hoota Cave.  Al Hoota Cave is a couple hours from Muscat and was opened to tourists in 2007.  Supposedly, the Oman government was surprised at the throngs of Omanis (inspired by the country’s recent emphasis on tourism) that turned out to see the cave.  Now it’s one of Oman’s most popular attractions.

However, along the way (only several km from the house, actually), we got distracted by the Nizwa Vegetable Market sign and turned off the highway.  Groceries at a grocery store in Muscat (similar to an American grocery store) are very expensive.  For example, the Oreos shown below for RO 3.990 (USD $10.37).  Produce can be just as expensive and it’s hard to get it fresh.

 

Therefore, we decided to see what the Nizwa Vegetable Market had to offer.  It turns out, the Nizwa Veggie Market has a LOT to offer!  Many of the people were quite excited to see the likes of us – we stood out just a tad – and were loving the fact that we came with a camera to document the 120 degree grocery shopping experience (who doesn’t enjoy sweating while shopping for onions?).

Truck leaving the market – probably bound for a local grocery store or restaurant

The market is a large car port (if you will) with vendors filling up almost every square inch.

Limes

This guy wanted me to take a picture of him with his lettuce.  So cute!

Melons and dates

Dates at varying stages of ripeness

Now, shopping here, though it looks similar to your local weekend farmer’s market, is nothing like you local weekend farmer’s market.  In Denver, I would stroll with my coffee, have Chloe on a leash, and browse….not so much the case here.

Let me give you an example.  Say, I am interested in buying some bell peppers.  So, I walk up to a table containing boxes of bell peppers…

Vendor:  You like, ma’am?

Me: Yes, How much?

Vendor:  600 baisa/kg – then he grabs a bag and starts filling it with peppers before I can even register the price I was just quoted or begin to calculate how many peppers = 1 kilo.

Me: shaking my hand No sir, I am just shopping.  So, I walk to the next table to find out how much their peppers are – with every vendor in between shouting at me on the way to view his offerings.  Turns out, their peppers are 400 baisa/kg at the next table, but they don’t look quite as delicious as my first friend’s peppers.  So, I go back and say: I can get peppers down there for 400 baisa/kg. 

Vendor: These are better, but OK! 500 bais/kg!!  As he again starts excitedly filling a bag with peppers, but not necessarily the good ones.  He is rapidly tossing the sad looking ones into the bag.

Me:  Okay, but take all those peppers out of the bag and let me pick them.  I start filling the bag with good peppers, though he keeps trying to sneak in some sub-par ones, which I promptly remove.

At last he thinks we have filled the bag with a kilo of peppers and weighs it to confirm.  “One kilo – 500 baisa",” he says.  I pay and as I reach for the bag he opens it up and plops in one last (very sad looking pepper) and says, “for you for free".”  I smile, take a picture and carry on. 

The plan was to make ratatouille for dinner, so we basically went through the same process for tomatoes, eggplant, onion, and zucchini.  Brian also decided to go for some dates and a watermelon (“No sir, not eight  watermelon, just one.)

Finally we finished at the market.  Then, we had to take all the vegetables back to the house before continuing on to Al Hoota Cave.  Not a problem though.  We now know where to buy vegetables for MUCH cheaper than we pay at the store.  And while we are probably still paying more than the locals at the veggie market, both we and the vendors think we are making out like bandits, so everyone is happy.

Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in Al Hoota Cave. But, we had a nice lunch along the way.

Saw some goats, nice scenery, and some mosques….

And, my first Omani cemetery (you may not know this about me, but I really like going to cemeteries – all over the world).  In a traditional Omani cemetery, bodies are  buried and one stone is placed at the head and a stone at the feet.

So, until next time, we will be making the most of the last few days before Ramadan when the whole city shuts down.  Though, I expect Ramadan will provide some more interesting sights and experiences to share.

Jordan Part 2

We have been lax in our chronicling of this little adventure of late. For that, we have no novel excuses. Here is a slightly more illustrated account of Jordan:

This was what I meant when I said that most of Jordan is half-finished. This isn’t a building under construction.

After we left Aqaba, we went to the ancient city of Petra. Perhaps Petra’s greatest claim to fame is its appearance in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. Or at least that was its biggest claim to fame to me, prior to visiting. This being most of my knowledge of Petra, I learned a few things on our visit.

The main approach to the ruins is through a narrow canyon called the Siq:

This is the Siq seen from above and far away. The Siq is the tall canyon almost dead center in this picture. If you look closely you can see the path leading away from it towards the right-center of the picture. Along the path leading to the Siq itself there are impressive ruins.

Walking up the Siq only adds to the impressiveness of the place:

The ancient people who built Petra, starting around 200 BC, carved channels all through the Siq to deliver water to the village on the other side of the canyon:

The Siq was also adorned with carve-outs for votive candles, dams, and other structures to re-direct the floods that originally carved out the canyon.

They actually carved this enormous tunnel to redirect floods into an adjacent canyon:

It is roughly 30’ wide, 40’ tall, and 300’ long. Unbelievable.

After a walk through the Siq, the first glimpse you get, obscured by the steep canyon walls, is of the so-called “Treasury” building:

This is actually a misnomer. Bedouins who found these ruins long after they had been abandoned by their original inhabitants mistook the impressive structure for a place where the Egyptian Pharaohs hid their riches:

Actually, these were tombs. Sadly, there are no ancient knights guarding the Holy Grail inside, only expanses with alcoves carved out to hold the bodies of the honored:

Its hard to capture the sheer size and impressiveness of this place with photos, but here’s an attempt:

The person in the photo is Bree, who, granted, is no giant. But perhaps you get the idea…

Petra was special to me in that it combined these amazingly beautiful natural landscapes with fascinating remnants of a long-gone civilization. I’m a sucker for either any day. Together, they were just too much. I could go on for pages and pages about this place.

Petra is more than just the Treasury. There are remnants of the ancient civilization scattered all over the area – from the tops of the mountains into the narrow slot canyons that radiate out from the main village. We spent over 12 hours roaming around over a day and a half, covered the main trails to the famous building and went on self guided tours of the lesser-traveled side canyons, covered miles and miles – and still only scratched the surface.

They converted one of the ancient tombs into a bar:

What better way to cap a day in the heat and dust?

Jordan Part 1

We made it back from Jordan last Saturday night and as expected it has been like a fire drill ever since. Catching up with work has consumed most of our time since then. All that said, it was worth it.

We flew from Muscat, Oman to Amman, Jordan via Bahrain. It was nice to finally see the city of Amman since many people often think we live there - due to the similarities in pronunciation. As a matter of fact, whilst in Jordan I always told people we live in Muscat, because if you say “I live in Oman” they think you live in Amman, and thats just confusing.

All that said, I lied when I said it was nice to finally see Amman. We never actually saw the city - we went from the airport to the car and started making a bee-line for the beach in Aqaba. This is where we ended up:

Can you blame us for skipping Amman?

Relative to our days in Honduras, our digs in Jordan were a significant upgrade. It turns out the middle of July is the low season in Jordan, which opens up all sorts of opportunities for staying in nice places for half the price (literally). When you descend from the fifth ring of Hades (Muscat in summer) to… say the second or third (Jordan in summer), the difference in temperature feels downright pleasant.

Aqaba is located at the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, a point of convergence for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and Jordan.

We could see four countries from our hotel window. The proximity to all these other countries combined with the high number of tourists led to an above average abundance of police, soldiers, and security. It wasn’t overwhelming, but they were always there somewhere. Is it comforting or worrisome when you have to pass through a metal detector when entering buildings? What about when they check the undersides of cars around the hotel with mirrors? The answer for us: you get used to it.

You also get used to what I like to call the “sleazy charm” of the streets of Jordan. Outside of the hotel, the sidewalks and buildings all had a certain greasy, grimy feeling. Nothing was outright gross, but everything looked like it could use a good washing. Buildings everywhere look half-finished (on purpose).

Our driver, George, explained that its part of the culture here: why finish the beams when you might add another floor to your house or level to your store? Better to leave that re-bar sticking up….

In general, people throughout the middle east are all for building something but less in favor of maintenance. Hence that certain sheen to the streets and buildings.

The people of Jordan are somewhat more laid-back than their Arab neighbors to the east. We found the locals to be easy going and willing to chat. Even the people in the tourist trades weren’t overly pushy about selling you something. You can get a beer or a glass of wine at most restaurants, and you don’t even need to have a special license to buy something at a liquor store. A sizable portion of the women would cover up, but not the vast majority in the Gulf and not nearly to the same extent.

We really enjoyed our few days in Aqaba – we did several dives, we swam, and hung out by the pool. One evening we went to the local Turkish Bath House. Bree described the facilities as “like a prison”, while I like to think of them as “an experience”. Either way, we stuck around and were soaped, scrubbed, massaged, served tea, and sent on our way. Despite the bargain price of $15 per person, I’m not sure we’ll be returning.