Sunday 24th to 28th April 2005 - Would you like a passport with that?
24th April - Europe day! Haaa-leee-lou-ya! Goodbye desert, hello food! Come to mummy!
Need I say that with the hours ticking down until my flight out of Oman for my 6 week European sojourn, I was fangin' (translation: champing at the bit)! At about lunch time in Oman (evening in Melbourne), Mister Always On Time and Organised (aka Bradley), sent the last text message from his phone as he boarded his flight out of Melbourne bound for Germany. The wheels were rolling...
I was in Muscat this fine day and I scooted off from work to munch an early dinner and pack my bag up ready for take-off at ridiculous o'clock that same night. All seemed in order: dinner was good, clothes fitted in bag, flight ticket was in hand. That is until I got highly organised at the very last minute before walking out the door. I decided to put all my travel documents together in one place in my bag to minimise delays at ticket counters, customs, etc... Few could argue that, in theory at least, that's a very good plan.
Aghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Passport is not where it ALWAYS lives! Plane leaves in two and a half hours! Don't panic, breathe; don't panic, breeeathe; don't panic, pleeeeeease!!! It must be somewhere...
Well it was somewhere, and somewhere was Fahud; 350km away in my shed in the desert. It took little time to confirm this; a phone call to the camp boss (yes, I got him out of bed), a search of my room in the desert and then a return phone call - camp boss had passport in hand.
When crap like this happens, some prick always comes out with, it's Murphy's Law. All I can say is that Murphy was an arse hole!
At this stage I stopped for a few minutes and took stock:
- My plane was leaving in two and a half hours
- I had a valid ticket
- Bradley was already in the air and could not be contacted. He was expecting to get off his plane in Frankfurt and find me smiling at him in the terminal. That is me, the person with all the relevant information: the name of the hotel that I'd booked, where it was, how to get there, how long we were staying there, the intercity train tickets and times, etc...
- The law in Oman prohibits you from leaving the country without showing the visa that allowed you into the country. If it's a resident's visa (which mine is), you also must show your Omani identity card. Even though I had an identity card, my Omani visa was in my Australian passport and that was well out of reach.
- I had a second valid passport: an Italian passport. Yes, I have dual citizenship and two passports, and I actually had the second with me. But my Italian passport didn't have an Omani visa in it! Fat load of good that was. There was also the problem that I didn't know how the Omani law saw persons holding (and not declaring) two passports. There is always the possibility in this part of the world that something like this can be a cause for jail: not a good place for a woman in the Middle East.
I had but one option available - attempt to wing it!
Off to the airport I went: valid ticket, valid identity card, wrong passport. I went straight to the Big Kahuna in Omani customs. I had decided in advance on the very polite, very apologetic, woe poor me approach - seemed the best option in this part of the world, especially considering I didn't know how he'd react to passport number two... Best not to begin by making a prick of myself.
I came very close to pulling it off. Things went well for most of the time. To my surprise Kahuna didn't say no straight away as he rolled on his back laughing. Persons were instructed to do some computer stuff and they confirmed that I did actually have a valid visa (even though they couldn't actually look at it). I phoned some friends in Fahud and they were at the ready to collect my absent passport, open up their office and fax a copy of the relevant pages if Kahuna should want them. Captain Kahuna took me into an office and took my documents out to discuss with others who ummmed and ahhhed, then he called the Even Bigger Kahuna who made the final call - if my Italian passport had been used in Oman at least once before and had an old used visa in it (any old crapped out visa would have done the trick), then I could leave the country. Otherwise, I could stay put!
Captain Kahuna explained that when a person leaves the country, their departure is entered into the computer and then put a stamp is placed beside the visa in their passport. He could enter my departure into the computer without a problem, but he just couldn't allow me to leave without a stamp!
Unfortunately I'd never used my Italian passport in Oman and therefore found myself bartering for a reasonably priced taxi back into town.
Poor Bradley... Half way through his twenty something hour flight and no idea that his reception in Frankfurt was going to be a huge fizzer. Woops...
After my big knock back, I headed for the ticket counter and managed to change my flight to the following day at exactly the same time. All I needed now was my passport - the one with the stamp-ready visa! I made a final call to Trevor, my knight in white shining armour on his noble steed (no doubt a white shining camel which was parked at the bar) in Fahud. Trevor was on the job and my passport would be with me in Muscat the following day, come hell or high water.
In the end Trevor and quite a few others had to brave hell without water to get my passport to me - I only got it half an hour before I left for the airport. One of the guy's wives, Benny, was visiting Fahud and was sent into Muscat the next day with my passport. Unfortunately her car broke down about 100km out of Fahud, it was forty something degrees, there was no shade, and she had no way to call for help. Luckily someone from Fahud who was travelling in the other direction stopped and took a message back for her. Two other cars were then sent out - one for Benny to continue on to Muscat with, and another to take the two drivers back to Fahud.
What a shambles! Anyway, I did get on my flight and only one day late, but with a rather large debt left behind in Fahud. I'm quite sure it'll be my shout for a week when I get back there!
I finally found old Bradley in Frankfurt about an hour before our pre-booked train was about to leave for Berlin. Being in Germany we headed straight for an early lunch of pork knuckle, sauerkraut, potatoes and beer at the train station.
In Berlin we collected our camper van and took off! We didn't get far the first day though, as it was about 4pm when we collected it. The next day we let fly though and we started our mission south. Here's a cool bridge that we passed. It's made of hand-laid stone, and not concrete. What clever cloggs they are in these parts!
Germany was really beautiful, it was full of old stone buildings and it was both clean and green. They've got a really effective and widely used recycling program and there were separate bins everywhere for plastics, metals and the three different colours of glass - even in the smallest towns.
The first night out of Berlin we stopped at the sports field in a small town called Schkieditz, and the second night we stopped at a place called Markt Pressig just inside the Frankenwald Nature Park. It was here that we finally remembered to take a picture of our bus for the website. Here she is!
Inside our five-star hotel on wheels we've got a double bed, bathroom, fridge, two-burner gas cooker, and a table and chairs. She's also got a cool shade thing that we can wind out the side to sit under. Here I am cooking us up some German sausages and zucchini for dinner.
After dinner Bradley thought he'd take a photo of me with my German beer.
We're not drunks, we were simply exploring the local culture!
