Crowne Plaza Hotel Sohar

... are all places on my tour and all are iffy as well due to death and destruction. I will gladly scramble to make alternate plans than be in the middle of it live while happening. Did you know that deciding to revisit the Balkans when planning all this is what saved me from being in Padang and Java when all that happened?<br><br>Inshallah the rest of my travels will be safe and I am off to Sri Lanka and then Malaysia now. I can't wait to see what I uncover the next few days!<br>

Finally, a touristy day!<br><br>Drove down to Al Ain and circled the town a few times.. nothing immensely interesting. Got quite confused though :(<br><br>We then drove up to the Jebel Hafeet mountain and the nearby Oasis which I can't spell to save my life, which is right on the UAE-Oman border. Didn't get to cross it, much to my annoyance..Oh ...

... until the 15th, but the rumour among the old staff that it might not be until the end of the month. As is the way here. It may take some getting used to.<br><br>I'm including some picture of the Al Ain Oasis. It's beautiful! Al Ain has 7 Oases, but this one is the largest. I only snapped a few pictures because I'm not too used to the heat yet, but I plan on taking more when it's a little cooler.

... words, but most people are fluent. There is a little trouble understanding accents, but overall we're making do quite nicely. I have met some great teachers already. Also new to the school this year are my friends Amanda and Lindsay from teacher's college, 2 other Canadians; 1 girl from Toronto and 1 from Edmonton, 1 lady from Ireland and 4 girls from South Africa. There are also 2 girls from Syria and one gentleman from Lebanon, but their English isn't too strong, so they don't chat ...

... along nicely. Thankfully the car doesn't have a hand brake or she would have been tail-sliding it round the hairpins. Further up we came to the village of Az Zamah, another remarkably lush oasis in the hot, dry mountains. Initially we missed the turn to head further up the mountain, and followed the main wadi to a dead end. There we found a spectacular gorge heading off deep into the surrounding rock. The first few hundred metres were flooded due to a man-made damn but ...

The flights weren't too bad - well i say that the first flight to Dubai was ok, plenty of room to lounge and work. Watched the remake of Day the Earth Stood Still, theres two hours i will never get back ...

... information about the tracks, we then swept over the tracks, so the next day, we wouldn't count them again. We found 6 and 5 Hawksbill tracks on the main island on each of the two days we checked. We also did a 5 hour turtle survey one night to count the number of females coming ashore. Unfortunately, none came ashore on the beaches we were watching that night. This is the off season for nesting - during the height of nesting, there ...

... very scenic rock formations to the city of Fujairah.I remained in the bus as it continued its way to the enclave of Khor Fakkan that is actually a Sharjah owned territory on the eastcoast. 6 emirates in one day, and happy to be back in Dubai for the night!

Une journée de tourisme organisé en perspective. Initialement c'était un tour en 4x4 dans le désert de sable que nous voulions faire mais le tour opérator nous a sournoisement revendu une excursion dans le désert de rocaille d'Oman à la place, soit disant parce que l'autre n'était pas programmé en cette saison. Bref, on a accepté en ...

... Il y fait bon malgré le soleil qui cogne implacablement. A l'écart de la ville se dresse une petite montagne au sommet de laquelle se tient hotel. C'est là que nous déjeunons au frais. Enfin, sur le chemin du retour, nous nous arrêtons au fort d'Al Ain, ancienne forteresse en terre. Malheureusement celle-ci est en réfection, impossible donc de la visiter.