Novotel Ruwi

... br>We launched smoothly, gracefully slipping from the trailer and heading out to sea at a stately 8 kts. A mile out we decided the engine was nicely warmed and it was time to see what she would do.

2000rpm......2500.........30 00.........cough......cough...........s plutter............silence.

The next 45 minutes was spent trying to get it started again. We tried every combination of choke in, choke out, spare fuel tank, spare fuel feed line, engine ...

... laundry. I'm still tidying up. Wow. We've been watching the news on the snow at home. I'm so glad I'm not doing the school/nurs**y run. I crashed on the ice before on Lewes Road in Isfield. I couldn't bear to head out as it is now, I'd be scared stiff. Drive safely ev**yone! The shops h**e shut about 1/2pm and reopen about 4pm. So Colin had a few **rands to do so headed out. He went to buy a washing machine, sort out the phone at Omantel and pay ...

... form. Take it to another office and.......join a queue. Get to the front, take another ticket and wait again. Only 96 people in front this time. Take a break, go out to the car park and scream, punch or kick the car as appropriate. Re-fix smile and go back inside to wait. Finally get into the Resident Card issuing office. All you paperwork is correct, your photographs are suitable, your fingerprints have been scanned ...

... to experience it for yourself. Our journey begins in Muscat, as virtually all Omani journeys do. It starts, I suppose, once the bus takes me from the plane to the terminal and I've successfully rented the 4x4, with the drive into Muscat. The infrastructure is modern (again with the love affair with roundabouts -- and placing things in the middle, ranging from fountains to an entire sailboat). But Muscat is an amazing city. It started with a protected harbour, as ...

... entire sections of the center of Muscat have been cordoned off, and only governmental officials and other such people can enter. This is where there is the real destruction. People there are living in tents, have no running water, etc. Here's something you might not realize. Most people in Muscat and Oman don't live in tents with no running water anymore. Like most GCC countries ...

... the hotel and take a break. Not that either one of us was complaining about that. Right across from our hotel was the fish market. Both of us had hoped that would could buy something and then have someone at a near-by stand cook it for us. This turned out to not be the set up of this particular market. Instead we wandered the few stalls. I would have liked to take some pictures, but I didn't want to be rude. It wouldn't look ...

... incense (frank or otherwise) anyway. So we don't have a blog entry for Salalah because there really was nothing else to see there anyway, so we took the day off. We next stopped at Bait Al Zubair, a private museum housing collections of traditional Omani items, including weaponry, jewelry, clothing, household items, books and photographs, paintings and maps. As usual John, underwhelmed, took a smoke break. Driving along Muscat's ...

... to cost me more than it cost to rent the bloody things in the first place. But for 130 Litres of gas (damn this thing holds a lot of gas) it only cost us 15OR which is like 30 Canadianish Insane. I was thinking since everything in Oman is insanely expensive that this would be for sure. It used to cost me 50Cdn to fill the Matiz in Korea. Nuts. We made it back to Muscat, dropped all of our stuff off at the house and then dropped the car ff just in time. The rest of ...

... a couple of litres of water and still not having to go to the toilet for a pee! The culture is also a bit of a shock to the system. So far Megs has been hissed at once, ogled by boys and men many times and been the recipient of many a disapproving stare from old women. She has resorted to wearing one of Rick's long sleeved shirts and a long skirt but even that is not enough to keep the locals happy! Apart from that people are very friendly and always willing to help.

Scattered all over Oman is a large number of old forts that look over towns and cities as they guard them - or at least, as they used to guard them a long time ago. My grandparents had come over from Australia to spend Christmas with our family and to see Oman so one day we took them to see Al Khuwair fort. The photos speak for themselves so I will leave it for them to do the talking!

(this concludes 1986, now we head overseas in 1987 and see America)