Late November 2004 to January 2005 - A detour to Salalah, then an outdoor feast with the Omanis at Fahud

After my big Eid stint on the rig we headed back to the base at Fahud - the long way... We took a short detour south to the only part of Oman that has trees! And camels too of course... I saw the only herd of cows that I've seen in Oman along the side of the road just before Salalah. This place is the official tourist Mecca of Oman and it's way down south west on the coast near Yemen. I only spent two hours there though, so I don't really have much to report.

I can report that they sell coconuts and paw paws (papaya) and other tropical fruits here that they grow locally. James (the guy I was traveling with - king of the beeps) and I stopped on the side of the road near the beach for a lovely young fresh coconut juice. That was about the highlight of the visit though. After that we pretty much pointed the car north and drove back - beeps and all...

On the way into Salalah we came off the high inland plain and down onto the coastal plain. Up the top just before we went down we stopped to take some pictures of a camel, just for a change! I must say, James must feel the same about my camel fetish as I do about his beep fetish.




This lady camel is a lot older than the young specimen I got all those photos of at the rig.


And just for the sake of tradition, I took a photo of her toes.


I didn't take any other photos on our two day drive back to Fahud. On the way back we stopped for the night at a camp called Bajha, which to my surprise harbored a nest of Auzzies with a serious taste for beer. I had a sore head the next day to prove it!

Just before going home at Christmas I stopped into Muscat to see the boss. This next photo is the building that work's Oman head office is in. I just knew how excited you'd all be to see it! Notice how there are two white buildings on the right side of the photo. Well work's office is in the left end of the right building.


As most of you know I flew home for christmas and new year.

One night not long after returning to Fahud, I heard a loud bunch of foreign language speaking people near my room. I'd heard this rucus on previous occasions but hadn't bothered to investigate. However to my good fortune, this all changed on the night of which I speak...

I took off and followed the noise to see what all the fun was about. To my delight I found that a bunch of locals who work as drivers and operators at our base were completely fed up with the food we're fed in the mess; and had taken matters into their own hands. Yippeeeee I say! I found out that one to three or four nights per week these locals get together and cook them selves up a feast of Omani proportions! Hal-a-loo-ya! Come to mummy!

Wasting no time at all I secured myself an invitation to dinner; and what a dinner it was! All my Christmases had come at once.

Sunna is the cook and there are a few others that supply invaluable help in the chopping, lemon squeezing and stirring departments. For a group of Muslims who are brought up to have women do all the cooking/cleaning/etc , this was something I'd never expected to find. Sunna's kitchen is a wood fired bbq outside on a small concrete slab. There are three rather dilapidated tables around the area, a cold water hose to do the dishes, two enormous aluminum pots with one lid, three tin bowls, three huge plastic platters, two buckets and a mother of a wooden spoon. That's it. If you can't cook or eat it with that, then Sunna just doesn't cook it.

This photo is of me, Sunna and Shaaban (from left to right). Shaaban is the assistant chef, or replacement when Sunna is on leave. I'm holding Sunna's wooden spoon. We're all standing next to the bbq on which our dinner is cooking.


So far I haven't eaten anything cooked in this kitchen (either by Sunna or by Shaaban) that didn't include coconut rice - that is rice cooked in coconut milk. Along with that we always have a meaty thing. The photos below were taken at the first meal I ate with them, and it was coconut rice with lamb stuff. The lamb stuff was like a cross between a stew and something that actually tastes good. It was lamb cooked up in a sauce made from onions, tomatoes, tomato paste, lemon juice, coconut milk, etc... It was really really good! Here's Sunna adding the coconut concentrate to the boiling water for the rice.


Sunna and Shaaban always soak the rice in a bucket of cold water before they cook it. Here is Sunna putting the rice into the boiling pot of coconut milk by the handful.


Here is Shaaban emptying a stack of tomato paste sachets into a tin bowl, ready to add to the lamb. As you can see he's already cut up the lemons ready to juice them before going into the lamb stuff.


When the rice has cooked for about 15 or so minutes, Sunna takes it off the bbq and puts it on the table. He then scoops a few shovel-fulls of hot coals out of the bbq and stacks them onto the lid of the rice pot. He leaves it like this for at least 10 minutes before he serves the rice.


Of course, it's eventually all cooked and time to eat. Sunna serves the whole feast up onto three platters only. He covers each platter with a layer of coconut rice, then pours over the lamb stuff. Each table gets one plate only. Yes that's right... One plate per table, and not one plate per person. Here are the Omanis all dressed in their casual local clothes just starting to tuck in. Note how we don't use cutlery in this neck of the woods. Dinner is eaten by the handful - literally... And sitting on the table during a meal is all good!


Most of the guys you see here are actually Omanis with a African blood in them. Just to diverge for a moment, many years ago before the oil ran free, Oman was relatively poor. At some stage the country was not able to feed its population, so the Sultan allowed those that wanted to emigrate to the east coast of Africa. Some years later (one or two generations) the oil flowed in Oman, money became easier to come by and the Sultan of the day invited all those that had emigrated to Africa to return home to Oman - especially now that there was money enough for food. Many returned, but a significant proportion of those had inter-married with Africans; hence the darker skin and the Swahili language (you'll just have to take my word on the language because it doesn't come up that well in the pictures).

Anyway, this divergence had a purpose - however small it was. You see the bottle of sauce they are putting on their dinner? Well it's called fil fil, and it's made from salt, stinking hot chillies, garlic and lemon juice; and it's an African sauce that they make fresh here all the time. I just love it!


Like I've said before - when in Rome do as the Romans do! In this picture I'm beside Anne, who's from Thailand. She's one of the only expats who joins into the Omani feasts.


I was actually surprised that the locals were concerned that I might be uncomfortable eating the way they do (they clearly don't know me very well). A couple of them were dispatched to the mess hall to get me a plate and cutlery. For which I thanked them for their consideration and proceeded to go with my Roman theme (as previously mentioned).


This is what's left after the Omanis are finished.


Here's Sunna serving the left-overs up for a few late comers.