Arriving in Muscat

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Arriving

The journey to Muscat was easy once we were in the airport, but dealing with Doha’s new airport did not prove the simple task we had anticipated. The problem lay with the very new and free long-term parking. Despite being completed only a few months ago it was full. We couldn’t quite believe the security guards who told us this, so drove up and down every row until quite convinced that there wasn’t one parking spot left for us. Dilemma; drive all the way home and call a taxi, oh but wait taxis normally say they’ll be with you in 3 hours time, if you’re lucky, or pay for short-term parking which is priced per hour. Quick thinking on the mad dash out of the airport was to park at he Marriott Hotel just outside the airport complex. Fortunately for us local hospitality etiquette meant that they security guards there were fine for us to leave the car for a couple of weeks. Then we only had to pay a ridiculous amount for the limousine back to the airport,(no taxis here either) instead of a crazy amount for short-term parking.

We were experimenting with FlyDubai the local cheap airline. Living up to its’ reputation we were delayed an hour, missed our connection, had to stand around waiting for a new flight to be assigned and just made that flight. To be fair the journey home was all on time with no hiccups.

Car pick up at the airport was easy and our new GPS meant we arrived at the hotel just 15 mins later.



First impressions were of the ‘realness’ of Oman after the oddity of 4 months in Doha. Omanis working at car hire desks, all a bit chaotic and noisy, also dealing with roundabouts here felt normal after the unnerving way people drive ‘round’ them here.

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