Blogs from Oman, Middle East - page 10

Geo: 25.7227, 56.6607We awake late and almost miss breakfast. Fantasia is slowly making her way through the Straits of Hormuz as we round the Oman Promontory before heading southeast toward Muscat. The gulf is a flat calm, perfect sailing weather. A few white clouds dot the hazy blue sky and the air temperature is a pleasant 28c. There are plenty of ships about. The straits are the only way in and out of the gulf and many an oil tanker can be seen as well as smaller fishing Dhows. Large flocks of white sea birds bob gently on the calm waters no doubt after the silvery shoals of small fish I can see just beneath the surface. I even spy a group of 9 or so stingrays in formation heading northwards. I'm not sure what the ... read more

Hello my fellow travellers! This morning Hemant drove me down to the centre of Muscat where I started by buying my bus ticket back to Dubai for tonight so that I wouldn't miss out on it, I had to wait a bit for something which I didn't quite understand what it was but finally I got the ticket squared away and I could get on the city bus going to the historical part of Muscat. This is a new bus line that Hemant didn't know about so I sent him a text about it so he can inform his future guests about it. I jumped of near Al Alam, the royal residential palace in Muscat. It's about 200 years old and is a beautiful, albeit modest, palace that also serves an official function as it receives ... read more

Nichts…soweit das Auge reicht…ein gelbbraunes Nichts. Irgendwie ist da noch weniger als Nichts – man kann es gar nicht wirklich beschreiben – es wirkt auf einen so, als wäre nichts da in diesem gelbbraun. Blickt man von der Reling auf das Land erheben sich rund um dieses Nichts ein paar eintönige Felsbrocken, dazwischen in der Ebene ein paar Häuser und ein altes Fort. Alles in Ocker gehalten - der sandbedeckte Boden, die getünchten Häuser, die steinernen Felsen, sogar die hier und da einsam wachsenden Bäumchen. Auf der Erde alles eine Farbe. Ein heißer Windhauch umgarnt einem das Gesicht und bringt den Schweiß auf der Stirn zum Stocken. Ein kurzer Wisch und die eben noch reine Haut der Hand passt sich der Umgebung an – dieses gelbbraunfarbene heiße Nichts beginnt damit, wie vorher schon alles andere hier, ... read more

Salalah, Oman Along the journey I sent off occasional emails to several tour operators in the Salalah region. Two of them replied with word-for-word responses under different names, and the rest didn't respond at all. After our experiences with tuktuks in Columbo and cabs in Mumbai, we heeded the frequently-heard warnings of unscrupulous cab drivers in Salalah who renege on agreed prices and itineraries. Because of the taxi problem (and stories afterwards illustrated that the warnings were justified) we opted for the overpriced transfer bus to a souk (marketplace) put on at the last minute by the ship. This is an industrial port, so no there are no passenger services. We were off to a poor start with an overbooked bus on which we and others were left standing in the aisle. Guides were aware of ... read more

The short plane hop from Qatar brought me to the Sultunate of Oman. Oman is a stable and peaceful country of four and a half million and situated in the Southeast of the Arabian Peninsula. Once I was at the airport, I tried taking out some cash but no ATM would work. Luckily I was carrying some USD currency so I exchanged some of that. Then I couldn't get online with the airport internet because it required a password that you could only get via text message. I wasn't traveling with a smartphone, and it was really causing some issues in terms of travel ease. Five years ago, no one had a smart phone on the road. But now the times have changed and although it's great to be disconnected, I could tell it was going ... read more