You and me, we come from different worlds..

Sur is a fisherman's town absolutely seeped in history and the essence of the sea. Our hotel balcony doors opened to the waves crashing on the beach. Bethy was beside herself. "MOM! This is so cool!"

There were absolutely no western restaurants or chain supermarkets to be found. White and cream buildings with carved wooden doors, sand and sea. We threw down our stuff at the Sur Beach Hotel, Colleen and I draped ourselves with pashmina shawls, and then sicced Matilda's GPS on the restaurant Juma had told us about, Zaki.

At first sight we weren't sure it was the right place. But it was. Outside of Zaki, in the light of the neon sign, there were rotisserie chickens slowly turning, and Arabs and Indians queuing up for take away bags of food. One stray cat.

Bethy and Thomas scared the cat who skittered away to hide beneath an overturned rowboat.

Inside we positioned our chairs away from the dripping A/C unit (Mike just had to mention Legionnaires' Disease!) and did our best to give Colleen a birthday dinner. It was indeed very tasty, particularly those chickens, even if not exactly what I'd envisioned. As we looked around, congratulating ourselves on being the only caucasian folks in the restaurant, (we were getting used to this) when three more showed up.



They turned out to be Italian. I'd wandered over to see if they spoke English and to see if they knew anywhere I could find a birthday cake for Colleen. I was hopeful but not optimistic. Ecstatic over helping us out, the younger gal beamed as she showed me a bag with the legend "Oman Modern Bakery," and the older lady, who I took to be the Mom, took me firmly by the hand and dragged me outside to point out where it was up the street. I tried on bellisima, grazie, and arrivederci for size, and they were kind enough not to laugh at me.



Bethy and I went into the bakery together. There were, indeed, plenty of Western-looking cakes. Bethy was whimpering about needing to go to the bathroom, so I asked about that first. Lots of gesturing, frequent use of the word "toilet" and finally I made myself understood. The nice lady who was trying to help us gestured to go around the corner of the counter. So we did. I looked at her and pointed to the back room. "Yes?" I asked, and she nodded and nodded as she followed us. I pushed open the door to reveal bread machines in a dark work area. It didn't feel right but she was still nodding emphatically so I kept going with Bethy. She got in front of me and stopped us, turning us back around and gently pushing us back out to the customer area.



A dark-skinned woman in a beautiful abaya took pity on us (Bethy was really doing the potty dance by now) and told me that the toilet was at the medical clinic. I must have shown my total lack of town knowledge since I was taken by the hand for the second time in less than a hour and led to our destination. There, she wanted to go into the bathroom to help Bethy out, but Bethy politely told her "No, thanks, I don't need help. I'm really good at the squat potties," and closed the door. I waited outside and answered our rescuer's questions, No, we are Americans, not English. Seriously. We live in Dubai. Yes, we had come to see the sea turtles. No we had not come to see her, but we were happy to have met her.



Bethy finally finished, and we went back to the bakery. There was still some sort of lining up for pastries, so I watched and waited, trying to figure out the system. There was a group of completely shrouded young women at the counter ahead of us, and seeing Bethy they descended upon us. I was amazed when they lifted their veils to reveal their entire faces. Eyes darkly rimmed with kohl, they giggled and pinched Bethy's cheeks repeatedly and fussed over her, especially her hair. They also touched mine, moving my scarf out of the way to see it. Then of course they brought out their mobiles and took photographs of her.



I should give you some background on the whole "other people taking photographs of Bethy and Thomas" thing. Everybody wants to touch the blond, blue-eyed kids, hold the kids, photograph the kids, and generally we try our best to accommodate. There are so many folks in Dubai, especially, who are far from home and their families...and far from their kids. So we've gotten in the habit of letting people enjoy our kids.

For these ladies, though, it was all about the novelty factor, and also a certain level of self-indulgence that I've noticed. Back in Muscat we were amused to watch two young women standing directly in front of the TV set up in in the center of a shopping mall for the Gulf Cup, completely oblivious to the fact that they were blocking the view of about 30 men who were also trying to watch the all-important game. The men gave them a wide berth, another social expectation.

Our bakery group clucked and pinched Bethy, taking photo after photo. Finally, I figured, what the heck, and asked if I could take a photo of the ladies with Bethy. With their veils down...I pointed and made photo taking and face covering gestures and they nodded yes, yes, yes.

I took my camera out of my purse.

It was like I threw a bomb.

"PROBLEM! PROBLEM!" they shrieked, turning away from me, reshrouding their visages and fleeing out into the street like a group of ruffled chickens. I had not even gotten the camera all the way out of my purse and had hurriedly put in back in, but too late, they were gone, gone, gone.

Huh. That didn't seem terribly fair.

"Where'd they go, Mom?" Bethy asked.

"Mommy scared them, sorry."

Then we went through the process of trying to buy cakes. The first bakery assistant, an older man, blind in one milky eye, seemed like he was going to help us, but no, after I'd pointed to three kinds of cakes, asking for two of each, (LOTS of hand signals and saying men fadlak -please-) he walked away to help another customer. We waited some more and I tried to look as pleasant as I could (as opposed to a camera packing stalker tourist). Finally another man helped us, and we got our little frosted cakes. An Arab accidentally left a huge wad of cash on the counter, and I picked it up and went after him to give it back. He was quite gracious, and I hoped I'd set my karma spinning back in the right direction.

Back in the car I took a deep breath of relief and told Mike, "OK, first time, way out of my comfort zone. "

In our hotel room we lit the complementary matches in liu of candles and stuck them into the cakes and sang "Happy Birthday" to Colleen.

After all that, I wish I could say the cakes were delicious.

But they weren't.

Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes...

Our next stop along the road to Sur was the beautiful Wadi Shab, which translates as "gorge between the cliffs". Cliffs indeed, arching skyward on either side of the green waters bordered by large palms. There were a few other cars there, one was a tourist group with a guide, another was obviously an Omani Jeep, with the now-familiar flag depicted across it's hood. The owner was a smiling young man, dressed in a soccer shirt with a white wrap around his waist. We struck up conversation with him; his English is very good, though he kept apologizing for it.

We learned that his name is Juma, and that he is an incredibly open, sweet and generous individual. He offered to let us stay in his Aunt's house in Sur (she is out of town), and to take us out the the beach for a bonfire. ("I collect wood for you!") He also made it clear that these were offers from the heart, and that he wasn't looking for money.



It was Colleen's birthday, and I asked Juma for what I told him would be a big favor: to recommend where he would take someone for a special dinner in Sur. He gave us the name of a restaurant that he said was good and has a variety of food, and then he and his friend encouraged us to go check out the path along the Wadi.

Hiking the sand beneath the cliffs and among the palms along the river felt very Indiana Jones to me...I swear I could hear the theme...most likely the side effect of wandering in damp jeans after climbing ropes and flinging myself into the sinkhole and perhaps swimming with an unseen demon...

The kids waded in the waters of the Wadi with the fish, played and shrieked, a wonderful break for them from sitting in their car seats.

Wandering back to the parking area, we saw Juma again, though he was on his mobile and we left him alone. Bethy finally deigned to play with a young local boy who had to work hard to get her attention for some reason. Poor little mite was so sad until she finally relented; then they had a good time.

Juma came over to us again. "My friends, you must stay here for just 5 more minutes, you must stay." So we did. I promised to email him the photos we'd taken, which he said he would drive into Sur to retrieve. Soon the Jeep came roaring back into the canyon and his friend climbed out with carry-out cups of freshly blended juices for all of us and two Oman flags for the kids. A gift. It was such a thoughtful (and delicious!) gesture, and in the middle of the desert, too. We couldn't fathom where they'd managed to find drinks for us.

We enjoyed our juices, (banana and mango, perhaps?) exchanged emails and mobile numbers, posed for photographs, and then, seeing clouds rolling in, said our good-byes. Flash floods in the wadis are one of the two main dangers to travelers. (The other is the long distances between peopled areas, ie help and fuel.)

Staying off the new freeway for a while (which pleased Matilda no end, since she wasn't aware of its existence and kept intoning "recalculating" and "drive to mapped road" when we were on it) we drove on a rock and sand passageway through Juma's village, the tiny fishing hamlet of Tiwi. Little sandy stone homes, people out on the doorsteps socializing, not so much as a coffee shop to be seen, the occasional chicken or goat. It was very poor, and very wonderful. I only took the very rare, discrete photograph.

Outside of town we stopped by the sea to admire the sandy soccer field by an old well, where Juma had told us he usually plays. His leg had been terribly burned by a drunken Irish friend of his at a campfire gathering, and he probably wouldn't be playing that evening as it was still healing. He forgave his friend, he told us, no problem, it was an accident. It was one heck of a burn---he must be awfully forgiving. Then we got back on the road to Sur, much to Matilda's dismay.

Last night Juma's beloved Oman played Saudi in the final game of the Gulf Cup. We exchanged a couple of "good luck" sort of texts. This morning I was greeted by a text message on my phone from Juma: Congratulations dear. Oman win. thanks. Juma.

Congratulations Oman from us on winning your first Gulf Cup! Final score, 6-5. It must be one amazing party there right now!!!

Jump for my love...

OK, folks, thank you for being patient. I'm about 2 1/2 weeks behind in my blogging. The price one (joyfully in my case) pays for having guests. Last night Pat and Colleen said their good-byes and began the long journey back to the States. So now I have lots of ground to make up, and I appreciate your patience.

Back to Muscat...

....A Muscat cat

Our second night in Oman was the football (ie soccer) game between Oman and Kuwait, hosted in Muscat's Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex. The game was on every television, on every radio. I went downstairs to watch the game on a huge projection screen the hotel had set up in the courtyard by the pool to watch, but by overtime Thomas was getting pretty squirrely and I went back upstairs to put him to bed. By the time I went out on the balcony to check and see if anyone had scored they were putting the screen away and I figured, from the sound of car horns blaring all over town that Oman must have scored and won after all. The celebrating, cheers, and honking went on all night. It wasn't until morning that we found out that the final score was 0-0. They'd tied.

After breakfast outside beneath the hotel's canopied dining area, we left any possibility of Starbucks or McDonalds behind and headed away from the city and down the coast towards Sur, continuing through the stark beauty of the sand and rock of the Eastern Hajjar Mountains. Matilda continued to be patient with us. Our first stop was the Bimmah Sinkhole in the middle of the desert. There were no signs, or even obvious roads to it, but with the aid of Matilda's GPS and persistence we made it there.

The Oman Gulf was about a km away, and turquoise and green waters were far, far down in the limestone sinkhole.

Our little group followed the steps in down to it, and Bethy and I waded gleefully into its salty waters for a swim with our clothes on.

At the deep end of the waters was a rope so that on could climb up to a high limestone shelf...for jumping off of, of course. And of course, you know who just had to swim over and jump off of it.

Twice, actually.

Bethy counted me in and Thomas giggled as hard as anyone has ever heard him when I hit the water.



No one knows how deep the sinkhole is, and there are supposed to be blind cavefish living in its waters. The locals call it Bayt al-Afreet, the House of the Demon. We didn't actually see the demon...


After splashing and playing enough, we made our soggy way back to Bird Car, where a shaggy group of goats were busy checking out the dining scene in the nearby dumpster. Thomas upped their happiness quotient for the day by sharing his apple with them.



A bus dropped off many well-hidden women shielded beneath their black abayas who had come to see the sinkhole as well. I can't imagine what they thought of us. I'm sure there's a word for nutty white person in Arabic...

I just can't get enough...

In every trip there are photographs that don't really fit into a story. For me, the photos of people, people I'll never meet, are the most intriguing, and I wanted to share these with you:

Here I need to admit a few things. I love photos of kids playing, people in shafts of sunlight, back views, action shots, and interesting, especially older, faces. You're going to see these again and again from me. I also have to try and be discrete. The children on the hill were waving to us...until the lens came out Bird Car's window. Then their faces fell and they fled. I felt bad for making them uncomfortable. The little fishing towns and desert bits of humanity were the sorts of things that need more than a thousand words to illustrate. The amazing everyday.

Life is a highway, I want to ride it...

After piling two adults in the front, two in the middle, and Bethy and Thomas in the back, bags behind, and plenty of pre-packaged junk foods and fruit, we were off on our first international trip in Bird Car. Our trip to Oman began with driving back and forth over the borders of the UAE and Oman. You see, there are several cross-the-border stations, some apparently unmanned, along the way where different things are supposed to happen. If you miss a step you have to drive back until you find the right station and get the correct slip of paper or stamp in your passport. Though we were highly ignorant of what to do and where to go, finally we were given the "all clear" and relaxed for the drive to Muscat, the capital and largest city in Oman:

I can't speak for anyone else in the car, but for me, driving up into mountains out of the desert plains was a sort of relief, like taking a deep, deep breath.

Plus, several of us in the car couldn't get enough of the very fuzzy and verbal goats. Here is a wild one, called a tahr:

Mike was serenaded along the way by the Aussie accent of Matilda, as we've christened her, our GPS. Matilda was very patient with us. Through Matilda we selected our first dining experience in Oman. She said it was called the Golden Goat Restaurant off the Al-Waquaiba Road in Sohar. We picked it solely on the name. Actually it turned out to be called Golden Goal. Pretty close, not quite right. This became a theme of our relationship with Matilda.

The meal, which consisted of rice, chicken, fish, french fries (always it seems there are rice and/or french fries) anyway, more food than any 6 persons could possibly eat at one setting, cost 9 Rials and 600 baisa (9.60 OMR). 25 bucks American. Good deal, we thought, especially since we'd spent 1,250 Dhs on a meal ($341) for just the adults at the Meat Co on New Year's Day.

We carefully watched to make sure our water came out of the sealed bottle, and wondered if we would get silverware. (We did). Then we tried out eating solely with the right hand. In Arabic countries one does not use the left hand for eating, or shaking hands, and so forth, since that's the hand one uses for what one author I read coyly referred to as "toilet ablutions". In other words, there ain't much toilet paper outside of Dubai, people. Only the coarsest, rudest, most culturally illiterate person would eat with their left hand.

Anxious to avoid that particular label, we all practiced. Also along those lines, we wondered if we should be dining in the "Family" dining room instead of the main area (it seemed OK that we didn't) and Colleen jumped on my bandwagon of trying to learn little phrases in applicable languages, and then trying them out. The meal ended with a small bowl of brownish-green licorice flavored seeds delivered to the table, which we later figured out were fennel. Hmm.

Helpful tip for travelers: fennel seeds should not be crammed with abandon into one's mouth as though they are after dinner mints. Start out slowly or have a napkin to spit into nearby, because they are strong.

The drive to Muscat from Dubai was about 400 km, and with side trips and GPS, er, issues, (Matilda wasn't up on the roads in Oman, and in fact wanted us to drive in the ocean more than once) we drove about 5 hours until we reached the cream and white city surrounded by the jagged sand colored mountains and ringed by stone watchtowers in strategic places. There, on the Oman Gulf, we checked into an attractively aged hotel whose rates had been described by the guide book as "reasonable". 180 Rials per couple for 2 nights ($938 USD total). They'd given us two rooms, then changed their minds on the second room and tried to give us a smaller room. I threw a modest fit and got the bigger room back. We couldn't believe the price...twice what the guide book had said, so I didn't feel too guilty about it. Other men were haggling and hassling the clerk about the room prices as well, though in Arabic.

Though that first night all we did was wander the nearby areas and beach a little bit, we would have had to be blind to not notice that something big was happening in Oman. It turned out to be the 19th Gulf Cup...soccer. You can guess, soccer is big here. (FYI: the UAE will be defending their Gulf Cup title against Saudi this Saturday in the semifinals; Oman also qualified and will be playing Qatar). Oman was playing against Kuwait. I don't know if normally the cars in Oman are decorated with the country's flag colors of white, red and green, but they sure were when we were there. People wore bright knitted scarves resembling the flag, and there was a general air of excitement and national pride.

The family, banners, and in the distance, one of the many watchtowers.

We visited Old Oman, and the Mutrah Souk. First we were guided to a parking spot by a helpful local along one of the narrow passages, then we wandered through the aged and beautiful buildings beneath the banners. Through a large archway and into the souk. (marketplace) The souk was exactly what a souk should be; colorful, vibrant, full of the smells of incense and languages swirling.

None of us turned out to be very good bargainers that day except for Bethy. She was amazing. She'd decided to take 2 Rials ($6) out of her "bank account" and she strode along with a discerning little girl's eye. Her greatest assets were persistence "No, I only have 2 Rials," and an impressive ability to walk away. This secured her a lavish pink fur and sequined outfit of pants and a coat from this gentleman, who was tickled to be outfoxed by a blond baby:

We walked and walked through the corridors, a thousand delights for our eyes.

Emerging on the bright harbor end of the souk, we were greeted by the splendid white hulk of one of Sultan Quaboos' yachts floating upon the blue waters, (a fascinating and complicated man, here's more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qaboos_of_Oman ), cruise ships disgorging German tourists,and a fort castle overlooking it all.

We tromped up many many stone stairs, though the fort itself was closed, for the view, which was astounding. White and blues, golds and creams. Mosques, towers, a vibrant and alive city, soaked in history. Dubai is about the now, the faster bigger and better. Muscat was something entirely different, and it was good.

We were getting hungry, and decided that this was the place to try out:

We figured we'd get a decent meal, hopefully without a side dish of dysentery.

Sitting at one of the tables in the tiny Taj Mahal, we tried to order, but soon realised with much effort from both sides of the ordering process and lots of hand gestures that there were only two dishes actually available, so we went with it. There were plenty of 2 liter bottles of water on the tables, but they had been refilled with tap water. They brought us at least one that was sealed, for sure, though Thomas managed to have one of the well-meaning waiters pour him a glassful from one of the other bottles. I switched it with mine as soon as I could without causing offense and had Thomas suck on a lemon, Rani's prescription remedy for eating anything potentially pathological.

A salad arrived, which we mostly avoided, and then rice and our meals.

Let me tell you, that was the best food I think I have ever eaten. Wow. The chicken Mike and I got was coated with red peppers and fried to perfection, along with the saffron rice and some sort of spicy chicken in sauce, and hot naan bread...I'm drooling even now remembering it.

The bill for our feast...from Mike and my new favorite restaurant? The Rial equivalent of 12 American dollars. They even gave the kids homemade cookies.

We wandered back and Bethy announced she needed to go potty. A prolonged search for such ensued. Finally I gave up and took her over to the police station. A talk dark north African Muslim gladly walked us part way, and then some Muscat police officers escorted us the rest of the way. Of course there were only the dreaded squat potties, essentially porcelain ringed holes on the floor. I braced myself for yet another duel with Bethy about the need to go vs the aesthetics of sit vs squat.

To my delighted shock she decided that she was cool with it. This is the kid who would NOT go in a port-a-potty back in the States, despite threats of bodily harm. We proclaimed her, then and there, the Princess of Squat Potties.

Let me reach, let me beach, on the shores...

We're back from Oman. It was a wonderful trip, and an amazing contrast from cosmopolitan Dubai. Friendly but foreign, exotic. We made new friends, ate questionable foods, and took a lot of photos.

Just one for now. Colleen and a Sea Turtle at the nesting grounds of Ras-al-Jinz at sunrise.

These are the days...

The kids are SO happy to be with Grandma Colleen and Pa. (We are too!) Here they are in the Gold Souk:

We're off to the Sultanate of Oman tomorrow, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oman) and will be away from the computer for several days.

This is good timing. Internet service in the entire Middle East has been iffy; apparently an underwater cable in the Atlantic was damaged and won't be fixed for several more days. So don't worry if e-mails to us get bounced back. Ours aren't going out either, very annoying. The blog seems to be working right now, so I'm posting quickly...

See you when we get back next week!