Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Let me start by saying that the breakfast at this hotel is absolutely top notch. About 20 types of bread and pastry, omelettes made for you while you wait, freshly-squeezed juices, lots of fresh fruit, etc., etc.: a real feast with which to start the day.

Muscat Souq was the main port of call today, located along the corniche. Locating it in the car was a bit hit-or-miss, but we located it and fed the parking meter with baisas (1000 of which form a rial, by the way. Incidentally, it’s odd to be dealing with prices in rials, since they require three decimal places for the baisas. All the other currencies I’ve ever dealt with divide the main unit into 100ths, not 1000ths).

The souq was very impressive. We bought some frankincense and some incense burners. The myrrh and gold was left on the shelf, although both could have been purchased here, too.

After a quick lunch, preceded by Eloïse’s afternoon nap, we headed off to the old walled town of Muscat. Yes, we’re already in Muscat, but Muscat these days generally refers to the municipality, not the actual town. The actual town is a tiny dot on the map, but greater Muscat is more than 50 km long and includes the areas of Mutrah and Ruwi.

The old walled town is very impressive, with ancient forts looking down from ominous looking escarpments. The forts are still in use by the military, so you can’t visit them.

The Sultan’s palace is here, too. It’s nice, but not outrageous. Donald Trump’s real estate looks decidedly tackier. The Sultan’s palace is quite tasteful.

Eloïse ticked off one of the guards by running across one of the Sultan’s beautifully landscaped lawns. Oops. The Sultan must love flowers, because his gardens are ablaze with flowers of every imaginable variety. Not only that, but the roundabouts and dual carriageways here are also festooned with dazzling displays of floral colour. It really brings the place to life and helps suggest a much less arid climate.

After this, we drove up to the viewing point at Bandar Jissah for some lovely views out over the hills, down to Muscat.

Dinner was at the hotel again, after a failed 45 minute attempt to find a restaurant we wanted to dine at.

We’re not normally so hopeless with our directions, so we should explain that most of Muscat’s roads have no name. That’s right, no name at all. We don’t mean only an Arabic name, no. We mean no name at all. Most residents therefore use a PO box to receive their post; they have to, because they don’t know their own address.

Think about that for a minute. It makes getting from A to B quite a challenge if you don’t know the city (and we don’t). Directions to any given destination are usually given by describing proximity to one of the city’s many roundabouts, which mostly seem to bear a sculpture of some kind to help make them more memorable. One has a gigantic incense burner, for example, while another has vases, complete with pouring water.

Anyway, the concierge explained how to get to this restaurant once we had got back to the hotel, so we’ll make another attempt at finding it tomorrow.

So, we ended up eating mediocre Mexican food. Thanks to globalisation, one can eat Mexican food in the Middle East, whilst listening to two (fake?) Mexicans, strumming Mexican arrangements of Beatles and Carpenters songs on their acoustic guitars. Hmm.

It was hotter today, at about 29°C.

We got up early today, at about 07:20. We seem to be going to bed earlier and earlier, which causes us to rise earlier and earlier with each passing day.

We took advantage of the early hour and grabbed some breakfast before heading down into the town of Sohar to see the fish market. It turned out to be a mostly indoor market and Sarah felt nervous at the idea of going inside, as there were no tourists to be seen anywhere and seemingly only men were involved in the busy trade.

Nevertheless, I led us into the building and we were greeted by the sight of fish of every shape and size. Traders were bustling back and forth, many of them holding a bunch of fish on a cord in each hand. Other traders cut slices of large fish for eager buyers, whilst others headed outside and down to the simple boats at the water’s edge to fetch more wares.

Outside, other traders were selling fish from the back of their vehicles. The prices must have been good, because people were clamouring to get a piece of the action.

After watching some crabs scuttling across the rocks down by the boat launch, we left and went to the Sohar Fort Museum, where we learned something about the history of the town.

Our final stop in Sohar was at the handicraft market, where we purchased some incense and charcoal.

After that, we grabbed a spot of lunch (shawarma for me; hummus for Sarah) and then headed off in the direction of the Omani capital, Muscat. There were some beautiful mosques along the route, but it was otherwise a boring drive. The road is almost completely straight and totally flat. It was absolutely made for cruise control, but our hire car unfortunately lacks this feature.

It was about 250 km to Muscat. Eloïse slept for the entire journey, which was great, but we’d timed our departure with this in mind.

Just outside of Muscat, I stopped to put petrol in the car. Looking at the receipt, I see that I put in 65 litres at a cost of OMR 7.800 (rials). At today’s exchange rate, that cost us €15.39. Back in The Netherlands, the same amount of petrol would have cost us around €95 – 100.

Both petrol and vehicles are very cheap in this part of the world. Given the abundance of oil in the region, that’s hardly surprising, I suppose, but it still seems bizarre when one is confronted with it in person. Cars have virtually no tax on them in the UAE and it’s probably the same situation in Oman. It’s a driver’s paradise, if you don’t mind the congestion (in Dubai, that is; Oman doesn’t seem to suffer from the same problems [yet]).

Our next stop was Muscat, where we visited the local LuLu hypermarket to stock up on nuts, water, chocolate (for Sarah) and fruit. What a great supermarket that is, by the way. I was sorely tempted to purchase large quantities of dates, but managed to restrain myself.

We then drove to our hotel, the Muscat Intercontinental, which is a beautiful place (on the inside, at least; the outside isn’t very impressive). We didn’t have enough time to go and explore Muscat this afternoon, so we went down to the swimming pool and paddled around with Eloïse, who had a great time walking up and down the steps of the pool and splashing around in the water.

Dinner, too, was taken at the hotel. We’ll go out and explore Muscat properly tomorrow. We’re scheduled to be here for four nights, so that ought to give us ample time to get through the things that interest us.

Today was a rather chaotic day and quite tiring.

It started with breakfast at the hotel, followed by a walk along the Bur Dubai waterfront. We were inclined to rent a boat for an hour or so’s cruise up and down Dubai Creek, but Eloïse was intent on walking, so that scuppered that plan.

We had to check out by noon, so we headed back to the hotel and grabbed a drink in the downstairs café. I read a copy of Gulf News while we relaxed.

After checking out, we took a taxi to the airport, but it was impossible to explain to our driver — who came from a part of Pakistan close to the border with Afghanistan — that we didn’t want to fly anywhere; merely go to the car rental area to rent a car.

Eventually, we enlisted the help of a third party, who told our driver to take us down to the arrivals area, where we already suspected we needed to be.

Once there, however, locating the Thrifty desk proved awkward. It turned out that it was in the secure, one-way only area for arriving passengers.

Undeterred, we pushed our trolley full of luggage the wrong way into the terminal and soon found the Thrifty desk.

We were due to get a Nissan Pathfinder, but they didn’t have one, so we were upgraded to a Mitsubishi Pajero. (I wonder, do car rental companies ever actually supply the car that you booked?)

The next surprise, slightly less pleasant, was that Thrifty allows its cars to be taken into Oman via only one border crossing. “Don’t use the Muscat crossing; please use only the Hatta crossing”, we were told. Sarah and I looked at each other and wondered how on earth we might use the Muscat crossing, since Muscat is nowhere near the border with the UAE!

The woman assistant then confessed that she had never been to Oman, so we pulled out a map of the UAE and Oman and showed her where Muscat was. There was little more she could say, other than that this was the information she had been given and that she couldn’t tell us any more than that.

Once we looked for Hatta on the map, we saw to our relief that it was the crossing that we intended to take, anyway. It seems that Thrifty will no longer sell you insurance for Oman and that you have to purchase it at the border instead. Apparently, only the border stop at Hatta allows this.

We were driven to the site of our car, where I loaded the bags and Sarah installed Eloïse’s car seat. After asking for directions to Oman, we were on our way. The question’s not as silly as it sounds, as there aren’t so many roads out here. After two right turns, it was more or less a straight line eastwards for the next couple of hours.

Eloïse soon nodded off, so we turned on the radio and found some groovy Arabic music. After about fifteen minutes of driving, the urban sprawl thinned out, replaced by scrub bushes and sand.

Dunes rose up on either side of us and camels appeared at the side of the road; an altogether more Arabian allure engulfed us.

After a little more than 100 km, we reached the border with Oman. No-one was stopping us on the UAE side, so we drove on into the first couple of kilometres of Oman and stopped first at the car inspection point, then at passport control there. As expected, we were told we would need to park our car and come inside the building to purchase visas for Oman.

Once inside, we were relieved to see a cash dispenser and an insurance company. We had a little more than AED 150 (dirhams) on us, but this had not been enough to purchase the three weeks of insurance that we needed at the last two roadside insurance companies we had seen as we had approached the border. We had been told there was a cash dispenser at the border, however, so we hadn’t been overly concerned.

Things then took a turn for the worse.

Firstly, we couldn’t get our Omani visas, because we had not received an exit visa from the UAE. We would have to go back, explaining to the Omani exit station and the Emirati entry station on the way that we actually wanted to be going the other way.

Worse, however, was that the cash dispenser would accept only Visa credit cards. It wasn’t much of a cash dispenser at all, really.

Worse yet, however, was that this insurance company, like the two before it, would not accept credit cards, so we didn’t have enough money to insure it for the three weeks we’ll be in Oman. The only option that remained, was to purchase just a week’s worth of insurance and then get the car reinsured when it lapses.

Even that option, however, didn’t leave enough money to purchase our visas, but the border official kindly offered to waive the fee.

So, we got back in the car and drove back to the UAE to get an exit stamp. At the entry station, we explained our predicament to the official and he told us there was a cash dispenser at a bank in Hatta, so we drove the ten or so kilometres to find it.

Sure enough, there was a cash dispenser inside the bank, so we took out 500 dirhams and headed back to Oman, stopping for a UAE exit stamp on the way.

Back on the Omani side, our car was reinspected, our insurance was purchased, the border official was true to his word and gave us free visas, and that was pretty much that. Just one checkpoint remained, where we handed in the form to say that our car had been inspected and we were then free to speed on across Oman.

To be fair to all of the border officials, everyone was very understanding and let us pass through very quickly, even when we were reentering the UAE without ever having been stamped out of the UAE or into Oman.

Incidentally, we met an Irishman at the border control post who had found himself in the same predicament a few hours earlier. Unfortunately for him, he had not found out about the cash dispenser in Hatta and thus had had to drive back the entire way to Dubai to withdraw cash! Until we found out about the bank in Hatta, we depressingly envisioned ourselves having to make the same journey.

So, that little escapade cost us close to a couple of hours of our day. On the other hand, we were consoled by the knowledge that it could have turned out a lot worse. Our ill-advised crossing to Ukraine from Slovakia last year, for example, could have been a lot messier. Still, we also learned to keep plenty of ready cash on us when crossing a non-EU border. No two are the same and you just can’t predict what might happen to you.

The Pajero, by the way, drives well enough, but it has an exceedingly annoying chime that sounds when the car is taken over the 120 kmh mark. It’s there to keep your speed within legal bounds, but all it does is irritate one. I can’t believe anyone would voluntarily purchase a car with such a device.

The drive on the Omani side wasn’t terribly interesting, I have to say. It was completely flat, the road was straight and in good condition, and there was hardly any other traffic.

Houses and occasional shops lined the dead straight road, which never actually blossomed into a town. It reminded be of strip-mall lined America, and I almost expected a tall neon McDonald’s sign to loom up at the end of each row of buildings.

Finally, just after 18:00 and just before sunset, we pulled into Sohar, our stop for the night, and soon located the Sohar Beach Hotel.

It’s lush here, and there’s a nice-looking beach right behind the hotel. It’s quite humid as well, so the overall impression prompts us to think of Hawaii.

We were all very tired after the rigours of the day, so we stayed at the hotel for dinner. I had a very tasty traditional Omani fish curry, featuring a local fish, the hamour.

Tomorrow, we hope to be up early enough to catch the town’s fish market.

Oman brings Eloïse’s total number of countries visited to fourteen, which isn’t bad for a girl who’s not yet turned two.

The alarm woke us again today, as we had to have breakfast and get all the way over to Jumeirah for our visit to the Jumeirah Mosque, the only mosque in the United Arab Emirates that is open to non-Muslims. There turned out to be little traffic, however, so we arrived with plenty of time to spare.

When we got there, we saw a sign, which read ‘Strictly no admission to children under 5’, but the man selling the tickets was kind and allowed us to queue for admission after purchasing tickets. We were warned, however, that the slightest amount of crying would see us ejected from the mosque.

Our guide was a traditionally-dressed Emirati fellow, who spoke good English and cracked a few jokes to loosen up the crowd (which was surprisingly large). He proceeded to show us how Muslims perform their pre-prayer ablutions.

It was then time to go inside, so Sarah covered her hair with a scarf and we headed up the steps, doffed our shoes and went inside. The mosque itself was attractive, but not stunning. More interesting was the explanation of the five pillars of Islam and what it means to be a Muslim.

Five times a day, the call to prayer emanates from mosque speakers all over the city. It’s unmistakeable and penetrates every corner of the city. To a westerner, it’s rather incongruous to be walking around a shopping mall full of multinational boutiques selling western brands, when suddenly the mall’s speakers, give voice to the takbir (i.e. the phrase Allāhu Akbar or الله أك), beckoning the faithful to come to the mall’s mosque to pray. I’m more used to hearing nauseating piped muzak coming through the speakers, so a call to Muslim prayer is a welcome change.

So, the call to prayer was explained to us, along with numerous other aspects of the Muslim faith. It was clear from even this short introduction that, much as one might expect, this religion is much misunderstood in the west.

Unfortunately, Eloïse tripped whilst running around in the mosque and started to wail. Sarah quickly took her outside and that was the end of her tour. I stayed until the end, however, and found the experience quite interesting.

After the mosque, we jumped in a taxi and headed further out down Sheikh Zayed Rd to the Mall of The Emirates. We could see the impressive structure of the Burj Al Arab hotel in the distance.

Whilst not as swish as yesterday’s Bur Juman Centre, the Mall of The Emirates boasts an indoor ski slope on real snow. I know this sounds pretty pathetic — an indoor ski slope in the middle of a desert town that reaches 52°C in the summer — but the scale of the thing has to be seen to be believed.

Ski Dubai is the name of the place and it’s such a strange sight, there behind glass, tacked onto a huge (and I do mean huge) shopping mall. It’s expensive, too; a situation no doubt partially caused by the unimaginable quantities of electricity that must be needed to cool the place and produce the snow.

The oddest sight of the day must surely have been that of the Arab women, clad in traditional abaya, hurtling down the toboggan run on a plastic slide mat, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world to do. And that’s just the point: here, it is!

Eloïse once again proved the star attraction for the other mall-goers. Arab and Indian women are quite taken with her. Everyone loves to touch her and run their fingers through her red hair. She continues to be a great ice-breaker for us!

Once again, we ultimately left the mall empty-handed and jumped into a taxi back to the hotel. I tried to make reservations at Gordon Ramsey‘s restaurant, Verre, but it was fully booked. Perhaps we’ll still get to go at the other end of our trip, just before we return home.

After a quick rest, we went wandering through the Bastakia Quarter, where restored Iranian merchants’ houses, replete with windtowers, suggest the atmosphere of bygone days and make one long to journey to Iran to see the real thing. That’s a trip for the future, however.

Dinner was in the courtyard of the charming and friendly Bastakiah Nights. The food and service were both very good.

And so ends our second full day in Dubai. Tomorrow — all too soon — we must leave again.

After picking up our hire car, we’ll drive east towards the border with Oman, which we’ll cross before driving on to the coastal town of Sohar (صحار), where we’ll spend the night.

I’m excited about Oman, but sad to be leaving both the city and emirate of Dubai, not to mention the home country of the UAE.

My curiosity is now aroused and I’d like to see Abu Dhabi and the other emirates, but that’s going to have to wait until we head back this way from Oman. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to see Abu Dhabi, but that’s probably the only other emirate we have a chance of visiting this time around. There’s just too much ground to cover and we’re only here for four weeks. Still, we’re guaranteed to have a couple more days in Dubai, at least, at the end of our trip.

So, from here it’s onward to the Sultanate of Oman!

Well, where to start?

Our flight was uneventful. I mostly read up on our destination, but there was enough time to take in an episode of Dragon’s Den, plus the BORДT film. If you thought Borat was outrageous and had come close to death before, you need to see his latest escapades.

Anyway, we arrived in Dubai yesterday evening, just before midnight. I’ve never seen an airport so busy that late at night. It was absolute bedlam, with people swarming all over the place.

Somehow, we managed to find the man holding a board with our name for the transfer to our hotel in the Bur Dubai neighbourhood. A quarter of an hour later, we were there.

A fast and efficient check-in awaited us, with a couple of complimentary glasses of pineapple juice to refresh us. A nice touch, I thought.

Eloïse was well past her bedtime, but behaving very well. We wanted to make the most of the next day, so we quickly got ready for bed and hit the sack.

This morning, we were woken by the alarm clock and went to breakfast in the hotel. It was fine, but it was standard western fare, and who wants to eat the food they’re already familiar with when travelling abroad? My mind turned to all of the Lebanese and Iranian delicacies we might discover in the course of the day.

After getting some money from a local cash dispenser, we took an abra over to the Deira side of town. From there, we walked through a number of souqs: the Spice Souq, the Gold Souq, the Covered Souq and the Naif Souq. The Spice Souq was the most fun, with its pungent odours and abundance of frankincense. Everywhere we went, people stopped to touch Eloïse’s red hair and remark on how beautiful she is. We know, we know!

There aren’t many places to eat around the souqs, so we headed back along the wharf and eventually found an Iranian eatery (we didn’t know it was Iranian at the time, as neither of us can tell Farsi from Arabic). It was packed inside, so we were forced to sit outside, but that’s no hardship in this weather. It was a balmy 25°C or so.

Ordering food proved a challenge, but another customer sidled up next to us and helped out. He turned out to be an Iraqi who also speaks Farsi and now lives in London. Once we’d got the food ordering out of the way, we got chatting and he told us his tales of torture at the hands of his Iraqi commanders during the Gulf War of 1990. He had been repeatedly stabbed all over his body with the bayonet of an AK47. Ugh.

Eventually, he was captured by the coalition forces and offered the chance to take up residence in one of a number of countries. He picked the UK and is now a British citizen. He is in Dubai to visit the rest of his family, who have since fled to Iran from the city of Basra.

Anyway, the conversation really added to our meal, which was pretty good in its own right: chicken with lots of salad, a cucumber and yoghurt dip, mango juice and something vegetarian for Sarah. Eloïse loved it, too.

After the meal, we took the abra back to Bur Dubai, relaxed for a few minutes at the hotel, then headed out again in a taxi to the Bur Juman Centre, an extremely upmarket mall about a ten minute drive from the hotel.

We shopped till we dropped, which for us takes only a few minutes. My only interest in the mall was the Breguet boutique, as I love that make of watches. It was fun to look at an official brand shop and scrutinise some of the watches.

As the Bur Juman is quite upscale, we were able to get dinner at one of the many decent restaurants there. There was none of the fast food and MSG rubbish you associate with American malls.

After dinner, we carried our purchases (which was easy, as we had bought nothing) to the exit and queued for a taxi, which turned out to be a long wait. Public transport here is virtually non-existent, so people take taxis for even the shortest journey, as they’re very cheap.

I noticed that the taxi we stepped into didn’t have a taxi sign on top, but thought no more of it until we got to our hotel and were asked to pay an exorbitant fare. I don’t bow to this very easily, so I stood up to the taxi driver, which became something of an altercation. Eventually, it was resolved (to my satisfaction, anyway) with our having paid only the fare we considered reasonable.

Now I’m relaxing in the executive lounge of our hotel, typing this to a cup of coffee as Sarah puts the small one to bed. Eloïse, by the way, behaved fantastically today. I can’t believe how far she walked and how much she put up with, with scarcely a whinge or a groan all day.

In the morning, we’re off bright and early to visit the Jumeirah Mosque. In the afternoon, we’ll probably head over to the over-the-top Mall of The Emirates, just to see it, as the malls of Dubai are famous and worth experiencing, even if one doesn’t plan to buy anything.

That pretty much describes the first day. Dubai is incredibly cosmopolitan and more tolerant of cultural and religious differences than any city that I can think of. Only 10% of the population is native Emirati, with the other 90% being made up of immigrants from all over the world. The atmosphere is amazing.

Anyway, this lounge is closing now, so I will, too.