15-Oct-04 to 19-Oct-04 - Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

With training now complete in Malaysia, I was off to see the Sultan. With way too much luggage and no visa in hand, I toddled off to the airport with my three travelling buddies; Adam from the US, Saif from Oman and Ali from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Now when it comes to travelling on the cheap, I can highly recommend taking an Arab or two with you. It may have taken half an hour, but Ali wouldn't leave the check-in counter until my excess baggage bill was reduced from several hundred dollars down to a big fat ZERO! And there was definately no meeting half way on this matter. The airline sent out the obligatory sequence of officials to explain that this was the policy, and that they would be very kind and reduce the bill by 20%, 30%, ..., 60%,... ... ... ... ... 85%, ... ... ... ... They eventually worked out that "no" just wasn't an option. Well after I was ready to cop it sweet, bend over the counter and take the spanking; Ali finally convinced the exasperated officials that, "we don't pay excess baggage, marfii! Hulus!" (nothing! Finished!) So off we went... cash in pocket and luggage on plane!

Ali's the man being sent to the same location as me in Oman, and we're to work together. I liked his style already!

Here's Ali and Saif on the plane shortly before landing in Bangkok, Ali on the left and Saif on the right dressed in his local Omani clothes.


When it comes to Arab national airlines, I'd only previously heard of Emirates, and they have the reputation of being the fanciest airline in the world with a ticket price to match. Our flight however was with Gulf Air so I checked with Ali to find out what to expect. "It's a bus," he tells me bleakly. Hummm... With hindsight I can say that it was just that and more: a clapped out, old as the hills, overcrowded, pile of junk, bus with wings... Just. Apparently Gulf Air don't have many planes, so in order to service the cities of the world in true bus style, they stop all stations. Our flight only had one stop along the way, but word has it that this is a luxury for those traveling on Gulf Air. Although, we certainly got our money's worth after pulling in for a stop at Bangkok.

As it happened, I was flying into the Arab world on a very special date; it was the first day of Ramadan. The mulsim equivalent of Christmas is Eid, and it's celebrated at the end of the 30 days of Ramadan. Now Ramadan is a particularly special treat, but I'll get to the gritty details of that soon. For now it will suffice to say that the first day of Ramadan is a fabulous day for a Koran-reciting Muslim to head off on a once in a life-time pilgrimage to Mecca with hundreds of his or her fellow country men and women. And how better to get there than on a flying bus!

On arriving in Bangkok our flying bus was largely empty, but it was going to leave with a very full belly. Down the aisle hobbles a very old chinaman, bearing a long grey beard, an enormous bag and a vail-draped wife. The hostess takes a look at their boarding passes and directs them both to their seats. But they don't like those seats, so they head off to find better ones, and no amount of gesticulating from the hostess is going to change that. But that's OK, because following along close behind them is a circus big enough to distract every hostess on the Gulf Air payroll, all at the same time. Judging by the average age, it appeared that the entire Muslim population of China's rural peasant areas had spent the last 200 years saving up every last Yuan for a trip to Mecca just before D-day. There were at least 200 of them, all bearing enormous bags filled with kitchen sinks. Well ..., if the truth be known, I didn't actually see the sinks, but with the cooking pots, kettles, bags of food, drink containers, clothes, shoes, etc... all dangling from the outside of the bags, the only things missing were the kitchen sinks; so they must have been on the inside!

First on the agenda was to balance these monstrous bags precariously from the overhead lockers. It wasn't a big problem if the lockers wouldn't close, as they could just stay open during the flight. Simple really. And that number on the boarding pass which matched the seat number that the hostess was pointing at furiously was just for decoration; I mean, why sit in your allocated seat if you could just wander around aimlessly, completely ignoring the hostess and chatting to friends in the only language you know, and the only language the hostesses don't know. If you need to cross to the opposite aisle in the plane, you can simply climb over the seats in the middle. Why would it matter if people you'd never met were actually sitting in them? Then of course there was the lure of those window views which were at their best when the seat belt sign was glowing brightly and the plane was either in the middle of taking off or landing. What good was a middle seat then! Best flick off that pesky seat belt, climb over the human obstacle beside you and head for the window!

Need I say that Ali's words rang true from go to whoa. Gulf Air was definately a bus.

I managed to get through immigration by buying a tourist visa at the counter, then headed for the hotel at about 300km/hr - I think the airport/hotel transfer car driver was a want-to-be Gulf Air employee. He seemed to think his minibus had wings and that if he drove it fast enough it would just lift up off the ground and scoot over the top of all the cars that were millimeters infront of him.

On my first morning in Oman I got up and took a picture of what greeted me outside my hotel window.


Do you see the tree near the middle of the photo? Well soak it in, because you're not going to see many more of them on this website for a while!

One of the things that struck me most about Muscat was that it was this long skinny strip of buildings with the Arabian Sea on one side and these bare rocky mountains on the other side. Apart from the public places where grass and plants were carefully cultivated and maintained, plants just didn't exist. Anywhere. From anywhere in Muscat you can see the denuded mountains which form the city limit boundary. The city is generally only a few kilometers wide. On the other side of the mountains is just sandy desert, which sometimes seems like it goes all the way to the moon! The lack of plants and top soil is the thing which struck me most about Muscat, and to this day months later my eyes still can't get over it! Needless to say I took some pictures, but I was pretty disappointed in them, as they really don't capture the scene well at all. But here they are anyway.




I also took a movie whilst driving along the main highway. It's not much chop, so if you don't have a fast connection don't bother taking stacks of time to download it. For those with a fast connection it's probably worth a look at the nude mountains.
Muscat.MOV (1.4MB)

All of the homes here in Oman are surrounded by these tall painted brick fences. Outside the fence to the property boundary it is all paved as a parking area. Inside the fence up to the house it is also all paved. Dirt and plants are just not in fashion here, and it seems that they never have been. Sorry though, no pictures of this yet.

Ali and I ended up spending about 3 or 4 nights in Muscat and then we were on the bus for the 5 hour trip to our new home - Fahud.