al-salaam alaikum (hello!)

Hello from Muscat!! As I'm writing this, it's 5:38pm on Monday April 6th. I'm writing from a business center computer at the Ramsee hotel next door to the Qurum Beach hotel, where we are staying in Muscat.

The weather is hot (32 C) and sunny. The skies are clear and blue. It's absolutely gorgeous here, right by the ocean, and we have already had a very eventful day and a half!

Our journey to Muscat began around noon on Sat. We drove to Montreal, had tea and dessert with Hana's lovely parents, got a lift to the airport, and boarded our flight at 6:25pm. The flight was long (3 hour layover in Amsterdam, 1 hour wait on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi) but lovely - Jen, Hana and I sat together, toasted our impending vacation with copious amounts of red wine, and alternated between watching movies, playing video games, reading and sleeping. (KLM offers 10 video games and about 30 movies to choose from!)

We arrived in muggy Muscat around 9pm on Sunday. We had to wait for a bit to purchase our 1 month visa, and hopped on a taxi to the city. First impressions of the city at night - hot and humid temperature, beautifully smooth and clean highways, impressive white stucco buildings rising out of the flat lands completely lit up by flood lights, and lots of fancy cars.

We got to our hotel and met Colleen (who had just arrived herself after spending a day walking around and seeing the sites). We are staying in a 3 bedroom suite for three days, and the hotel and hotel rooms are fashioned in total 70s decor - lots of chunky brass mirrors, old fixtures, and quirky bathrooms fitted into small closets and cupboards. It's a great hotel - cool, clean, with friendly staff and the beds are incredibly comfortable.

We cleaned up and decided to take a walk to a Japanese restaurant that we saw along the beach (Japengo cafe). As we left, we met a very friendly man named Ali Mushaima who offered to drive us there. He is from Bahrain and was touring around Oman, writing a book about the top 101 things to do in Oman. We declined his offer of a lift because we wanted to move our legs, but accepted his invitation to join him for tea later so he could show us his photos and his Friendship Arabia Web site. [Check it out: www.friendshiparabia.com]

Dinner was delicious - we sat outside on a beautiful patio - and enjoyed some tasty dinner and ice-cold bottled water and lots of conversation. After walking back to our hotel, Ali called us and we met him in the lobby. Turns out Ali and his crew travel by car (Land Rover) all across the Middle East and Europe. He's published a number of magazines/books (Dubai to Dublin, Bahrain to Britain, 101 things to See and Do in Yemen) and is working on the new Oman travel guide. He does most of the photography, and has a team of photographers and writers who travel with him - chronicling the journey; the places the go and the people that they meet. And they meet tons of people! He showed us his photographs and talked about getting sponsorship for his adventures from national tourism organizations, GPS companies, Land Rover, etc. WHAT FUN!

It was about 11:30pm when we packed it in, as my eyes were crossing with fatigue, and we all wanted to get a good night's sleep before the next day.

Colleen and Hana woke up around 9am and got me out of bed so that we wouldn't miss breakfast (my favorite meal of the day). Jen was still exhausted so we let her sleep a little longer. We met up with Ali and one of his writers, Takah and spent a good hour or so talking about his travel adventures. They are off to Greece and Macedonia for a month this summer, and he was trying to tantalize us into being a part of his travel crew! (Can you imagine!?) He and his team left about an hour later, but not before we had a photo shoot with Ali, Takah, and the professional photographer Haider. (Maybe our picture will end up in the Oman book!?)

We packed up our gear and decided to walk to Muttrah, about 8km away. In the heat, we took our time, drinking lots of water, snapping photographs along the way of the interesting architecture and mosques, the ocean and the Muscat McDonald's. After about 2 hours of walking, we had hit a major highway, with no sidewalk and a very small shoulder, and we decided to grab a taxi. Good thing we did, because he took a completely different direction (we were on the wrong road)! We would have been walking for a while. HAHA.

We got to Muttrah, and settled in for some food. I enjoyed some yummy hummus, fatoush salad, and a fresh lime soda. Mmmm... We walked around the infamous souq for a bit, but it was 2pm, and the shops were closing for the afternoon nap time. Stores are open from 8am-1pm, and again from 4-9pm. We walked along the ocean boardwalk for a bit until we decided to take a taxi back to the hotel and go swimming.

The Crowne Plaza hotel is just up the road from our hotel, so we thought we could splurge and use their swimming pool for a couple of hours, but the $30 US (10 Oman Rial) charge, per person, was a bit steep for us, so we walked down to the beach and immersed ourselves in the glorious warm ocean water. It felt so good to float there for a while, and get the sweat and stickiness off ourselves. When we got out of the water, and while we were sunning ourselves to dry off our clothing, we met two friendly Turkish brothers. One brother (Cihan) lives in Dubai and was showing his other brother (Haakan) around Oman/Dubai. They were super friendly, inviting us to visit Dubai with them and to travel to Turkey and visit Haakan. Turns out they've got a 7-seater SUV, and are heading to Sur in a couple of days, which is what we are thinking about doing, so we may decide to join up with them and get a lift!

It's 2 hours before dinner, and we are taking a bit of break, so I'm going to go grab my book and chill out. I'll write again when I have the chance. Bye for now!

~ Lala : )