Blogs from Middle East - page 4

Easy 10am flight on the 10th April from East Midlands Airport via Jet2 to Larnaca. Our pickup there turned out to be a private taxi as there was only the two of us to go West to Limassol. It seems most people went East, direction of Aya Napa. Very pleasant to have a taxi to ourselves and straight there with no other dropoffs on the way. We are staying at the lovely Atlantic Miramare Hotel. It's on the beach. We have a superior sea view room, extra big and a stunning view round the bay and across the sea from our balcony. No hire car until tomorrow but all organised for one to be delivered to the hotel tomorrow morning. We are as always only booked bed and breakfast as we plan to eat out everynight ... read more

This day actually started with a continuation of the day before. Our flight left Heathrow in the early evening, but that meant, with the two hour time difference, that we did not actually arrive in Amman until 1.30 in the morning. Definitely not the most sociable of times to arrive in a new country. Thankfully, we were being met at the airport and we were surprised to discover that meant being met before we went through immigration. We had understood that the visas were being arranged for us on arrival and we were wondering how they were planning on doing that, so all became clear. That said, it was very disconcerting when someone we had only just met took our passports and disappeared, apparently to go and get an additional stamp. All was good. He then ... read more

20 MART ÇARŞAMBA 2024 Tav’ın imkanlarından yararlanarak biraz dinlenme biraz da uyuklama fırsatı bulduk... Sabaha karşı daha fazla oyalanmadan, bekleme salonuna geçtik Uçağımız saatinde kalktı .. Sabah 08:30 gibi Bodrum hava alanına indik … Otobüsümüze binip Bodrum eski otogarında indik … Şimdi artık eskisi gibi değil ..şehir dışına Torba'ya yeni Otogar yapılmış... Bu durum belediyeye sizden iki kez para kesmek fırsatı yaratmaktadır .. Alandan yeni otogara bir para...yeni otogardan eski otogara ayrı para.. Niye böyle diye soran yolculara manasız ve içi boş bir ton açıklama getiriyorlar Millet gülüyor ... Eski otogarda İçmeler minibüsü adeta bizi bekliyordu.. Evimizin önünde indik … Yokuşumuz biraz zorladı fakat eve kavuşmak çok güzel … Kahvelerimizi b... read more

My first blog and first visit to Saudi Arabia. It has to be a diving one for diving my 69th country! From 2005 to 2010, two liveaboard were operating on the Red Sea Saudi side. At the time they had managed to get visa for diver. Well, one day in 2010, the government told them that they had one month to leave the country. Then in 2019 Saudi established a new tourism visa, the road was open again for diving trips to Saudi. With Covid, it meant those operations only resumed in 2022...Tornado fleet with 2 boats and another company just launch another boat. That's not a lot of divers for such a place. The season here extend from October to June. First a little of geography about the possibilities of diving in Saudi. I'm diving ... read more

We left our desert camp around midday, having been assured the journey to Muscat would take hours and the roads might be closed. In fact it took two hours and we were dumped at the airport, very annoyed, six hours before our flight. When we came to check in, we were told that as we had not taken the first part of our flight tickets (Khasab to Muscat, cancelled by Oman Air), we could not be checked in on this ticket. It was only the persistence of Faisal our check in desk agent, who insisted that this was ridiculous and marched over to the ticketing office, that got us on our plane. The next day was spent on idleness at our delightful Anantara hotel, but we resolved to take a trip to see the sights to ... read more