Delmon Hotel Apartments Muscat

... towering above. At this time of year there's very little surface water in the wadi, but the water height marker bears witness to the dramatic flash floods that can occur when there is rain further up in the mountains. At various spots along the way, the canyon opens out slightly and tiny small-holdings appear along the margins, growing whatever they can on the only flat terrain for miles around. These 'farms' are really no more than over-blown vegetable patches, but it's ...

... Middle East' I think there is the lift the veil from below and slurp approach and the dangle the spaghetti and lift the veil from the top approach. Well, I guess pizza will be easier to manage. We then had a little wander about the nearby wadi that was now running like a river with the recent rain, amongst the many Omani families out for a picnic and a splash. We also walked about the old Tafuf town ruins - an old crumbling village of red mud that was destroyed in the Jebel ...

... fuss has been about. Although I do have a cup of 'home', as Lois put it perfectly! So all is good...we're getting there. I'm just thinking about Neighbour - it's taken her some time to settle and I don't think she's there yet.   The garden needs doing...it is dry!...there are olive leaves everywhere....but some beautiful pink flowers...the tiniest bird keeps landing on some of the orange flowers (don't know the name...if anyone recognises the picture ...

... the delegates reports were WAYYYYYY over the five minute limit specified. TG mine was so short. Reduced the chance of me screwing up. I'm officially OUT of clean clothes, so am commiting the sin of wearing jeans today. Sent everything else off to the laundry. (I wouldn't have but I've seen at least 3 ...

... 10) fee upon arrival in the airport arrivals hall. Simple. - People India is thronged with non-beef eating Hindus wearing Saris (women), pastel coloured trousers & check shirts (men) or almost nothing (religious freaks). Oman is sparsely populated by non-pork eating Muslim Arabs wearing burqa (an outer garment, typically black, worn by women for the purpose of cloaking the entire body) or jalabiyya (long robe, sometimes hooded, worn by men ...

Okay, this is a bit of a retrospective. I'm in Seeb Airport, trying to remember everything that happened over the previous five days; there was a level of freneticness, due both to travel stress and the desire to cram a lot in that prevented me from writing this during the actual time in-country. Regardless, dear reader, I ask you to remember one thing over the entries of this blog listed in Oman; this is a wonderful country, and I can't encourage you highly ...

Cyclone Gonu struck Muscat approximately 7 June 2007. Whether or not you heard about this on the news, it was a freak accident and a major calamity in this region. It left an unprecedented amount of destruction in its path, which I was later witness to when I visited Muscat. I mentioned in my previous entry that I only went to the outskirts of Muscat. Apparently, Muhammad told me ...

... and leather. We intended this stop to be a research expedition for our planned afternoon separate trip to do a little shopping. We decided that we'd postpone shopping until the next day in Salalah, Oman where most of the better incenses and spices were produced, and at a better price not having been shipped to Muscat. Well, we blew that shopping trip off since we (Cynthia) rightly decided that you folks wouldn't like the scent of ...

... No problem. I let Erica know that I if we were to run out of gas before we got to the end of the Jebel we would send this guy to get more. He was going to walk it anyway and now I wouldn't have to worry about being stuck in the dessert with no gas. Problem solved! There was a gas station just after we dropped off the hitch hiker. We were nearly completely empty and apparently for once in my life pretty lucky as well. We filled up both tanks of gas which I thought was ...

... as they are a lot cheaper in Dubai and we'll do one there on our way back to the UK. In Ruwi there was a main town square and not much else to see so we headed back to Muttrah and the famous Muttrah Souq. Megan enjoyed the shopping and we had some dinner of a chicken sharwama and a beef pizza - yum! One of the things we've noticed in Muscat is the extreme temperature and humidity. We've never experienced anything like it before. It's a concern sweating so much ...