Muscat: On the Water

If you go to Muscat, you must go out on the water with the remarkably genial Captain Salim, or -- as we did -- with his equally genial son, Akhdar. (Captain Salim was busy driving a boat to Oman from Bahrain. Better him than us.) The text messages alone will be worth it. There is also a little matter of honey cake (made by the Akhdar's mother) and Arabian coffee on board.

It was sweltering as we waited at the marina's bar (yes, that's another reason to love Oman) for our ride. But when we got out on the water, the weather was perfect. Breezy, even.

And....there were dolphins!  Big, graceful ones, giant versions the small graceful ones we saw on our last trip to Oman. And *lots* of them -- more dolphins than we'd ever seen all at once. Apparently, it wasn't too special. Akhdar told us he'd once seen a pod a kilometer long.

Akhdar was a clearly worried we wouldn't get to see dolphins; we kept insisting that it was amazing just to be out on the water. We meant it. The coast is beautiful, orange and rocky against the deep blue of water and sky.

We stopped to swim near a reef, when the honey cake suddenly found a whole new purpose. It turns out, fish like honey cake as much as we do; Akhdar threw in a few tiny pieces, and fish came storming over.  With just goggles and flippers, we drifted through the coral reef, where we ran into purple butterfly fish, big greeny-blue fish, little yellow guys, and even a few turtles! They're easy to spot when they pop up to breathe. But unlike us, they only do that once every half hour.

And then it was back again, to our friendly marina with its beer on tap. Oman, we love you.

Muscat: Forts and Palaces

Abu Dhabi has preserved only one of its forts -- and that fort is barely preserved (as our friends, visiting from Chicago, can attest....we scrambled through construction to take a look at a few of its exposed walls).

Does this story grow old? Yes, Oman has forts. And they are gorgeous, and huge, and interesting, and exquisitely preserved.

They make for crazy silhouettes on the city's wonderfully dramatic cliffs.

Some, the Portuguese built. Others, are Omani. Which, you ask? We wouldn't know. The only real fault we managed to find with Muscat is the impossibility of visiting even one of its many forts. But in a city with friendly locals and wide-open beaches....

...souqs that are distinctly different from malls....

...menus full of items like "shrimp cheese burgers"...

 ....real theater, varied and beautiful mosques....

...where even our hotel managed to be an interesting architectural space, without boasting giant chandeliers, too much glass, or ridiculous staff uniforms...

....we really, really aren't going to start complaining.

We'll just stand outside and smile.

Muscat: Royal Opera House

We planned our trip around tickets to the Royal Opera House to hear Joyce di Donato sing.  

The Oman Opera House is the cultural pride of the city; its impeccable programming is mouth-watering to Abu Dhabi residents who are spoon-fed Cindarella on ice and Moscow City Ballet's back up corps. (A child could leap higher than most of their principals.)

We didn't get a great picture of the building -- but check it out on this dress, which at least
one of us wanted to bring home.

But the inside is better. Here is the lobby.

The theater itself is small, but piled high with balconies and boxes, from which -- by some freak of chance -- the Omani ushers decided to extract us. Perhaps they knew that it was past our bed-time, and that sky-scraper dwellers like us are no longer pleased about the existence of stairs.

They deposited us in the second row.

And there we sat, on our violin-print chairs, listening to a heart-wrenchingly beautiful voice, and watching the tiny minutia of each musician's movements, surrounded by gorgeously arrayed expats gathered from all over the Gulf region, and a sizeable Omani contingent. (Omanis are always gorgeously arrayed.)

We have always wondered why friends from Abu Dhabi can do nothing but rave about Oman. But now we know. Oman is just the best.

Hatta Fort

 

We are trying to squeeze in UAE travels while the weather is still tolerable.  One of the places on our list for this spring was Hatta, a fort town in the mountainous center of the country.  The climate at Hatta is hot but drier than Abu Dhabi and Dubai, making it a relative summer haven.  

Nearby Hatta Fort is a small complex of a few towers and a main square, now converted into a museum scattered with all-too life-like soldiers.

We stayed at a charming hotel, open since 1981 (an eternity by UAE standards).  Hatta Fort Hotel lacks the sheen of modern UAE architecture, and we didn't miss the glitz one bit. It is an unofficial gathering spot for the Dubai Harley Davidson club. The 100+ degree weather didn't deter the bikers from parking their bikes in the sun and striding about in their leather pants.

The hotel has an endearing medley of attractions: a putt-putt course, where the "greens" are cement (the ball never stops rolling!), rabbits in a rabbit house, goats, ducks, and several loquacious peacocks.

Even though it is spring here, it is still quite warm.  We walked up to the hotel's observation point. Despite our considerable sweat, no one will be impressed with our ascent.

 

Photos from a weekend in the desert

Fujeirah

The UAE has seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Dubai, Ras al Khaimah, Ajman, Um Al Quwain, and Fujeirah. We've been in the first four long enough to go for runs, spot flamingos, camp, and scope beaches. We've hardly touched the last three. Especially Fujeirah, the pink region on the map below.

This is a serious omission. On the east coast of the Arabian peninsula, just below lovely Musandam, Fujeirah has an entirely different look and feel: coastal mountains gathered next to sandy beaches, tremendous snorkeling (or, in our case, diving with goggles), and a whole new gulf to swim in. 

The drive there from Abu Dhabi sent us up past Dubai, through the rather scrubby interior....

....until dunes begin in earnest.  

And then, as if the terrain couldn't get any stranger, the mountains set in. 

Then it was over the mountains and a quick swoop down to the coast, where we stopped at a tiny Indian restaurant.

"No menu, just biryani," the proprietor explained enthusiastically. Two deep-fried fish later, we wandered out to meet the Gulf of Oman. 

We made it up the coast nearly to Dibba, where we stopped at Snoopy Island, named for its uncanny resemblance to Snoopy asleep on top of his dog house.

 

And that's where we spent the night. On the beach, with an Emirati family camping nextdoor.  

But first, we played some frisbee, swam in our front yard....

....and watched the sun set.

 

 The next day, we swam out to the coral reef near Snoopy Island, where we saw fish that could only be described as tie-died, sea slugs, urchins, anenomes, and all kinds of coral. We lay on the beach afterwards, listening to the German, Russian, and dubious English of the various vacationers. And then started back by a different route. 

Liwa desert camping

Go a little past the town of Madinat Zayed, past the last homely house, and you'll be in dune country. 

We followed our (more intrepid) friends there this weekend, driving into the desert in search of a quiet, empty place to camp. Steerforth was game.

Nick was pretty game, too. 

With significant coaching, he made it up to our campsite....

...on the third...

...or fourth try.

We didn't count too carefully. 

Relieved, we set up our tents (check out our fancy green sand tent!), and discovered that we had the dunes to ourselves.



Liwa is tremendous. Alone in the dunes, a few hundred meters away from our campsite, the desert was ours, and it was empty. We lay in the sand as it cooled down, and watched sun set and the stars pop out of the sky.

We've never seen so many.