Fujairah Hilton

... not $20 for the cab. Turning around grinning, I decided to rub some American salt into their wounds. Telling them in German that my cab was only $6 was very satisfying and the look of anger in their eyes made me smile. I also told them had they split my cab, it would have been $3 for me and $3 for them both. <br><br>There is a lesson here folks...They treated me like an idiot and some Syrian karma came back and bit their German behinds. The husband said, "We'll ...

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 ...

... and which have carved the moutains. In fact there was a subterannean river, coming up in places, and the seemingly dry and unhospitable wadi bed was full of vegetation and life, insects buzzing and birds singing. That such places did exist so close to the big megalopolos relieved me a bit, and made me decide that I could actualy spend some time in this country, provided I had the time to explore this kind of places. On the way back we stoppet at the "big sand dune on the ...

... crossed that imaginary line and I started to earn ridiculous amounts of money and I now have some nice bits of tin to wear on ANZAC day to impress the youngsters and tell lies about. Life is good. You may remember in my last missive that I made mention of some heavy weather in the Indian Ocean. Well that weather had more of a detrimental effect than just making the dinner line shorter. We used a bit more fuel than expected so we had to make a quick pit stop to grab some go ...

... huge couscous pans for dozens of people. There are mattresses and cushions, horrible printed fabrics, and even worse carpets. There were nice carpets too, but this was not the place to look for the reputable Persian workmanship. Across the road again, a strip of 200m of only cellphone shops. There was a ****** mall as well, small and old, so I went in to see locals just hanging out bored. Driving deeper into town to find ...

... where it was I asked the taxi driver. We said he would take us for 30dirhams, I told him he's crazy, 5dirhams was as high as I would go, he came down to 20, I said have a nice day, he chased us down and took us for 15dirhams haha you have to haggle around here, especially when you are the only white people in town. So I tell this cabbie to take us to the "fort" he says "ok port" and I'm like "no the Fort!" the debate goes back and forth for the entire 5 minute cab ride until we pulled up ...

... quite possibly the cheapest and most adventurous way to cross the border that anyone has yet devised. Here's what you do if you find yourself in this position: Take bus #16 out to the border town of Hatta; get off at the first bus stop you come to. Start walking to the border station, following the road which says "To Oman". Better yet, do what I did and was hitch a ride to the border, because it's several ...

... locals suggested not to pull over if approached by anyone up there) but I did see some stunning sights, that you don't expect to see in the middle of a desert country - lots of plants, birds and fantastic lakes (reservoirs?) of green and blue water. Sadly though this entire side trip to Oman was a last minute idea so we had no clue as to what else to do (and no Visa to stay longer in the country) so we headed back to UAE. Definitely a place on my "to do" list.

... of all shapes, sizes, nationalities. The pool table area appeared to be the safest area to hang around if you didn't want to be bothered, though really, not a place I'd visit a 2nd time around. As we walk out to leave for home (3am), I try to keep my eyes down and weave my way through the crowd outdoors. In hindsight, I guess I should have tried to 'see' more of the culture here, but yeh, it was a weird experience. Mark takes the long way home... coz he was trying out a new shortcut.