Blogs from Oman, Middle East - page 24

A two hour road trip to Oman was just what I needed to remind me that I am a world away from home. We crossed the border to Oman and found ourselves haggling for antiques in stores with no air conditioning, drinking cokes out of bottles that cost about 30 cents from the local coffee shop, and eating hummus and cherries for lunch on the top of the only mountain in the entire country. ... read more

After 4 days at sea, we pulled into Salalah. We had been escorted by the Dutch Frigate, HnLms Evertsen since leaving Mombasa and were sorry to see it leave. It's main Mission was to protect Emergency Food supplies that were being delivered to Somalia but we were very happy to have her company and protection as well. Salalah is a pretty bleak looking place from the water and it did not get much better once we went ashore. We had booked a Shore Excursion to Mughsayl Beach, Frankincense Trees and The Tomb of The Prophet Job. The beach was actually beautiful but there was not a single soul on it! Swimming is not part of the Omani Culture so no one goes to the beach. The big highlight of our first stop was the blow holes ... read more

Nizwa - the interior city. Nizwa (Arabic: نزوى‎) is the largest city in the Ad Dakhiliyah Region in Oman and was the capital of Oman proper. Nizwa is about 140 km (1.5 hours) from Muscat. The population is estimated at around 70,000 people. Set amid a verdant spread of date palms, it is strategically located at the crossroads of routes linking the interior with Muscat. Nizwa is a center for date growing. Dates from Nizwa (including Khalas and are known to be the best dates in the world). The main tourist attractions in the city are Nizwa Fort and the traditional Souq. The main bulk of the fort, built in the 1650's took about 12 years to complete and was built above an underground stream. The main part of the fort is its enormous drum-like tower ... read more

Wadi Shab 'Wadi' means 'dry river bed' (Wadi Shab is actually a wet river bed, a beautiful emerald green oasis in the desert). Wadi Shab is wadi in Oman and located between the capital Muscat and the town Sur, Oman. It has at least seven pools of emerald green water and is studded with boulders. One of the pools is in a cave where light streams in dramatically from above and there are fantastic echoes heard when one swims in it. Eventhough all guidebooks say you need a 4WD to get there...you can easily reach it in a regular car...thanks to the backbreaking road-construction (courtesy of practically free labor from India/Pakistan/Afghanistan). These workers situation is so bad, and the government does not do anything to alleviate the situation. Most of these workers flock from the subcontinent ... read more

So have almost been at sea a week, completed a number of trawls , a huge range of exciting marine life to sample and sort, as we get closer to the Yemem boarder, more and more unlit fishing boats appear on the radar - so far no fishing boats have thrown rocks at us or opened fire on us - the closest has been a bunch shaking there fists and screening some arabic at the top of there lungs. The crew are all great to work with - nothings a problem, all the routines on the trawl deck , foredeck go like clockwork, which makes life so much easier, it's a little cooler at sea, a mild 29 degress most nights and on the clear days upto 38 degrees , quite cloudy today, but can see ... read more