03/05/13

I haven't felt the effects of the 6 hour time difference that's been forced upon me, probably because this was over the course of 35.5 hours travelling. That includes airport transfers, check ins, flights, waits and time differences. 35.5 hours in total it took me from Darwin to Muscat. But when I was sat on a boat in the Indian Ocean with a beer, an empty beach and catching up with a familiar face, I knew it was worth it. The comfort, hospitality and homeliness is something I have missed. Having my second Mum, Rebekka Rostrup-Smith, to share this with me is just awesome. So, I've kind written what I've done since I got here, but to clarify; I arrived late last night, shared a beer with Austin and Rebekka and hit the hay. I woke up fairly early had a shower, did my German practice and had 2 disappointed children enter the room expecting to wake me. Nice try kids. We played Foosball and had breakfast before heading off to the boat. I got to see a good portion of Muscat in daylight, albeit from the road, but it's exactly what I expected, a different world. Things got more surreal when we got on the boat and headed out along the coast stopping at empty beaches for a swim, snorkel and sun. The Omanian landscape has a contrasting beauty; the sapphire blue ocean lapping up against the hard jagged mountains which seem to glide into the sea. We headed round to another beach and had lunch on the boat, I played on the beach with the kids; frisbee, football, filling crab holes with water; the usual. I started to feel a little sea sick when we were anchored, just chatting on the boat and I had to go for a dip just to 'neutralise' myself again. The water is incredibly salty and the sun so hot, so on the way home, with a strong headwind my hair dried in no time, giving me what I may consider the worst hairstyle I've ever had. (maybe apart from the bowl cut during primary school) We got back and the day has just flown by. I'm still swaying from the boat.

05/05/13

My my, I am getting spoilt. Yesterday we went to the 'Intercon', short for Intercontinental Hotel, where Rebekka and Austin are members. The weather was sunny (as usual) and a grouling 39.c at 9am. This isn't a freak weather system. This is the Middle East. Yesterday was Saturday, the last day of the Omanian weekend, although this weekend was the first where it changed from Thursday and Friday. Friday being their holy day. Anyway, I'm digressing with the sudden change in culture. So yeh, the last day of the weekend so we went to the Intercon to use the pool. I spent my time either in the shade or in the pool (in the shade). This isn't because it's too hot or I'm scared of the sun, I just know my skin and even the 10 minutes I spend out of the shade, my shoulders start to change colour, and it's not brown. I spent the whole time playing with the kids in the water and came out for pizza that Rebekka and Austin had very kindly bought me. That evening, Austin made a curry, and what a curry it was! A Thai Red Curry with enough spice to give it a kick, and whole chillies for the option of blowing your head off. I decided against the latter option, but the flavours of the spices were truly awesome. There hasn't been a day where I haven't had a beer or two in the evening. But after this day, when Rebekka offered me a beer, I had to think for a couple of seconds before accepting. Would a beer send me to sleep? No, but we were still in bed by 9:30.

06/05/13

I feel like I'm writing a day behind, so I'll try to catch up today. Yesterday was the first day that Austin was at work all day and the kids were at school. Or they were meant to be, Daniel had a temperature so he stayed home. I did some of my favourite time occupying techniques; Deutsch lernen und spiele meine Ukulele, as well as teaching Daniel a few chords on it and playing xbox with him. Rebekka took me to the doctors to get some Malaria tablets, which apparently you can only get from the Malaria clinic, so we're doing that today. We went to the supermarket and I was slightly disappointed. Flora, Sprite, Daz and Lynx were just a few of the brands I managed to pick out. The supermarket is very similar to that of the UK or Australia. The only main difference is the Pork Section, a specific area of the supermarket for pork products. I'm not just talking Sausages and Bacon here, even things like Heinz Beanz with the ham sauce has its own little section. I know the reasons Muslims don't eat pork and diplomatically, I respect their views, but they don't know what they're missing out on.

Today was a weird day, me and Rebekka went to the Medical Centre to try to get some Malaria tablets for me and my trip around Asia. It was pushing 40.c at 10am and you really feel it. We got to the clinic and after Rebekka registered, we waited for an hour before realising that we could just make an appointment. We're going tomorrow morning. I thought I'd run through that quickly so I can move on to the actual experience. This was the first time I've really experienced any Omanian culture or interacted with any Omanians myself, and I have to say, they are really nice people. Clearly me and Rebekka didn't know what we were doing so an Omanian man, in typical middle eastern clothing, gave us some guidance. Now, I say 'in typical middle eastern clothing', but they all were. The women dressed head to toe in, usually black, clothing. The men in long white robes and a squared off hat. I'm sure I'll get the proper names and descriptions for these items so until then I apologise for my ignorance. We left and returned home for an early lunch in the garden, it must have been about 42.c by then. Rebekka left to meet friends and I did a few bits and bobs I needed to do on the internet; enquire about extending my travel insurance, upload photos, email Carrie (Helpx in Cambodia) and other things. Daniel finished school and was back at 1:45, 45 minutes before we had to pick up Emily. I had to drive to the school to pick her up. Drive. In Oman. The roads were pretty clear and the main issue was staying on the right hand side of the road. The first time I've driven on the right hand side of the road, and it was in Oman. How many people can say that?! The rest of the day from then until now, was filled with playing xbox with Daniel, chatting with Rebekka over tea, wine & beer and watching a nature documentary. Some people might think that I enjoyed today's activities and experiences, those people would be right.

07/05/13

Living here has sent two parts of my world wildly in opposite directions. The cultural normality, obviously has been thrown from being in a country which is very similar to the UK customs and laws to a middle eastern country which differs hugely. The other part of my life, the homely life has gone from having single serving friendships and living out of a bag in places I will only spend a few nights at a time to having the most wonderful homely feeling, helping Emily and Daniel with homework and Rebekka with 'Mum tasks'. So I need to do a bit more on the cultural side of things because I realised this entry really hasn't dug into that much at all. I think I should mention that not all my friendships were single serving, Yes, I have probably made a few life long friends on the trip, but the point I want to make is that none of these people really knew me before.

The 'hat' as I referred to it is called a 'Kumar' and the long white robe is a 'Dish-dash'. Rebekka and I went to the Souq this morning which is a very Arab-style market place. Unfortunately, because it's next to the port where middle eastern cruises dock, I got the feeling that they sell a lot of tourist junk, but there are a lot of genuine stuff. Rebekka bought some incents, burners and head scarves, doing as the locals do. Now, for a bit of a history lesson, the current Sultan has built the country from the ground up. 10 years ago, when he came to power, there wasn't a lot here. 1 main road through the centre of Oman and the main mode of transport was, as you'd expect; Camels. Punishments were harsh and judgements unfair. However, he brought in a very western and liberal approach to all this, whilst albeit keeping the Omanian culture. This, along with the strong relation between Oman and Britain, thanks to our assistance with them in the Dhofar War, has lead to a mixture of culture on the streets. KFC, McDonalds, Next, BHS, H&M, etc. It really is quite a bizarre experience. In the evening, at about 7pm, me and Rebekka were having a drink and in the warm air, you hear a mellow Arabic drone, this is the Muslim 'Call for Prayer'. I'd heard about it before and expected it to be louder, but it's really quite nice and reminds you that, even when you're at home in English mode, you are in fact in a different world. This I liked.

08/05/13

I have really enjoyed being looked after and the security of having Rebekka with me has been nice, but today I had to go out by myself. I could have stayed at home when Rebekka went out to do shopping but I figured I'd get out a bit and see Oman for a bit. So I walked up to the local plaza, a very small shopping centre with a few cafés. I got a taxi from there to the barbers and I feel I have had enough interaction now with Omanis to say that they are definitely nice people. I asked the taxi driver to take me somewhere I can get a haircut, I needed one. He gave me the option of Indian or Turkish, but I left it in his hands. He took me to an Indian barber shop where I had a haircut for 1 Rial. That's a whopping £1.60! A haircut that included a shave around the edges, a trim of my 'Thala Tuft' and finally an Indian head massage. The taxi driver waited for me to finish and gave me a ride back. That cost me 3 Rials (£4.80). But this was good, I got out and about, had my own Omanian experience!

11/05/13

I'm so tired, but I have to write this up before I forget and days merge together. The weekend this week was Friday and Saturday (today and yesterday). Thursday wasn't a very busy day, me and Rebekka baked a cake. Well, that's underselling it. We baked Nigella's Coffee and Walnut cake and it was divine. I can't really remember what we did the rest of that day, but I know the evening was very different. Austin had a shindig to go to down at the embassy, so I tagged along, chatted to some navy/army/raf guys and gals and had a pretty good time, when that shut down, there were a few of us who didn't have to go back to a camp, so we went on to 'Pavos', a Mexican bar near the house. I left at about 1ish, pretty drunk having had a great time and seeing Austin in a more relaxed state to what I'm used to. It was cool. What I didn't anticipate was the fact that we were out on the boat the next day.

That's when I slept whilst writing this...

But I'll carry on; The boat the next day wasn't too bad, my mild hangover managed to pass just before we left at 1pm after a second sleep. That could have been easily turned around if Poseidon wished it, however, he was good to me. The sea was flat and we were only going to a close beach, the last beach we went to last week; Rosie Beach. A beautifully secluded beach, we had a picnic lunch with Rebekka and Austin's friends and I, of course, spent most of my time in the water snorkelling and playing my Ukulele on the beach, it was bliss. When we got back though, after a night of drinking and a day at sea, I was all tuckered out, you'd expect that would mean I went to bed early, yes, but I didn't sleep. I decided to watch a film. ('I love you, man' is a pretty good film). So when I went to sleep at about 12:30 I was extremely tired. I woke up the next day to Rebekka saying we're going to the marina for a full english breakfast. If that didn't get me out of bed, nothing would have! So I got up, grabbed a quick shower and we left for one of the best breakfasts I've had since Café Number 50 in Yeovil and exactly what I needed to set me up for the day. Not that it was a hard day, we went to the Intercon for a swim in the pool. This time, I found the spa area, with the jacuzzi, sauna, steam room and most importantly; plunge pool. A freezing cold pool is exactly what I need in a country which is pushing 43.c in the middle of the day. Whilst I was in the spa I missed out on all the action, a group of German sailors had caused some agro and gotten themselves kicked out of the hotel for throwing a glass bottle, which smashed, into the pool. We left at about 3ish, after I had a snooze, and after getting changed, we headed to Simon and Fiona's, the guys we were on the boat with the day before. A wonderfully civilised evening with beer, wine and a buffet style banquet of gloriously scrumptious food. 3 plates later I am ready to sleep, and I was in bed by 8pm. This brings me up until now, the past few days have been spent doing holiday things and now, me and Rebekka are going to get some cultural things in before I leave on Wednesday. My time in Oman is almost up, time to start culture cramming!

13/05/13

What a crazy awesome couple of days! One, extremely cultural, the other explorational (is that even a word?).

Yesterday me and Rebekka went to the Grand Mosque, and my god (ironically), it was grand indeed! The grounds, pristinely kept by the gardeners, and the floors and walls kept so clean. It really is a wonder to see, but nothing compared to the main male prayer hall, something just spectacular was waiting there. Before we went, we had to dress appropriately, jeans and a hoody for me, Rebekka wrapped up completely, headscarf n'all. I regretted not taking my sunglasses as the light reflecting off the polished white stone was more than my squinty British eyes were used to, even after 10 months in Australia! We had to take our shoes off in every building, which obviously was fine, but getting from the shoe racks to the building was sometimes like a 'mind over matter' test. The floor was like a bed of hot coals. The first building we went into was the woman's prayer room, a lot smaller than the men's, which I'll get to, women are encouraged to pray at home. This (apparently) isn't to do with sexism, but more to do with the effort it takes for women to get dressed up, covered up, make up and jewellery on and to get to the mosque at least 5 times a day with all their women chores. Which does sound a bit sexist, but that's just the culture I guess. Even though it was a lot smaller than the men's prayer room, it still wasn't anything to be sniffed at! But the men's prayer 'room'; Wow. Until they were beaten last year, it had the world's largest chandelier and the world's largest single piece of carpet. The carpet, first of all, took 27 months to make, contains 28 different natural colours, weighs 21 tons and covers 4,200 square metres. The chandeliers around the edge, probably about 30 of them, were 3m x 5m in dimensions, that's pretty big. But this was dwarfed by the 8 ton, 8m x 14m wonder that hung from the 50m dome in the centre of the prayer hall. This chandelier had 1122 light bulbs and is the size of an average 2 bedroom house, and, ironically has 2 sleeping stations inside incase there's a big job inside that needs doing. We spoke to a volunteer who had a wealth of knowledge about the mosque and also Islam which, from his mouth, seemed like a very value rich religion. Some of the practices, including giving 2.5% of your earnings to the poor, but you must not speak of it. The modesty aspect there, is a fantastic value that other religions and cultures just don't have.

The next day:

I went to the Souq. My aim for the trip is to find a present for Rebekka and Austin for hosting me over the past couple of weeks. This would not be an easy task. They live here, so I can't get them something touristy or tacky. I scouted around a bit, and got enticed into a shop with a guy selling perfumes and oils. I decided to humour him, but Rebekka buys her oils from another guy and it's not exactly special if she buys it all the time. He tried to show me an oil container in the shape of the traditional Omani coffee jug, the coffee is a special coffee-spice blend called Kahwa and I tried for the first time yesterday with Rebekka at the Mosque, I recalled her saying she loves it. Bam. Done! I swiftly left the shop and proceeded to find one of these jugs, some cups, Kahwa and some dates. I'm getting quite good at bartering too, knocking him down to a reasonable price for said items. Perfect, job complete with little hassle. I left the Souq, my next goal was to see something awesome and get out of the touristy area. I went for a walk, about 200m from the Souq and decided to go down the alleyways to get lost. I saw a group of guys sat on a mat in the middle of the street drinking Kahwa, this pleased me as I knew it was real tradition and not just tourist tradition. I continued down side streets no wider than 1.5m and eventually saw a fort tower sitting high above the streets. I made it my mission to reach it, and after going up some dodgy steps and over what looked like a knocked down building, I clambered up the jagged rocks to reach it. It was guarded by wild dogs which were curious about my approach, but were more intimidated by my presence which was pretty lucky. Now I was king of the mountain, looking down at the houses and shopping streets. I was in a foreign land, much more foreign than I had ever experienced, completely alone (for the day), this is what I needed in Oman, I've been bathing in the homeliness that Austin and Rebekka have been showering me with but the time's almost right to start travelling again. I started to climb down, finding a tiny cave to sit in an down a bottle of water, the rocks were so hot, it was difficult to have my hand on them for more than 2 seconds, so my decent had to be carefully planned and perfectly executed. I grabbed a rock which came away, tumbling down the almost vertical drop. It's not very high, but the rocks are sharp and angled, it would definitely hurt. I reached the bottom escaping any mishaps, coming away with only a couple of scrapes and cuts. Now I was trapped, the 'mountain' behind me, houses in front of me, I could go right and climb over rubble, but I couldn't see what was around the corner, or I could go left, over a wall onto someone's doorstep and over a wall onto someone's porch and down onto the street. What? Like Aladdin? Yes. Exactly like Aladdin, in an Arabic country, jumping over buildings and roofs. It was awesome. I jumped down onto the street, adjusted my bag and joined the crowd back in the Souq. Maybe Aladdin/James Bond. Yeh, that morning was fantastic.

15/05/13

The night of that fantastic morning was also fantastic, completely uneventful, but Rebekka and I stayed up with a few more beers and glasses of wine than usual and just sat in the garden in the cool 32.c temperature chatting, burning Frankincense and a tin of some lovely smelling stuff, but the Arabic on the tin didn't give me any hints as to what it was.

It's 23:09 and I've just got through to departures. Rebekka dropped me off at 21:30, it was hellish, nothing like the order in Australian/British airports, people pushing in, coming waaaaay too close for my comfort and just generally ignoring rules. But I'm through. I still have just under an hour and a half until I leave Oman, and not wanting to leave this on a bad note: My time in Oman with Rebekka, Austin, Daniel and Emily has been fantastic. Genuinely fantastic. They provided me with a roof over my head, food for my belly and in return I helped out as much as I could, the kids with their homework and music, Rebekka filling her time during the day and generally trying to not being a burden on any part of their lives. I can't thank them enough for their hospitality. Oman as a country, or Muscat as a city was just been a completely different experience to what I've had with the previous 10 months, and with that in mind, I set my sights towards South East Asia, and fly out of Oman and on to Thailand!