Another really long story

  Muscat, Oman
Friday, June 15, 2007

This time I really did go to Muscat, or rather, the outskirts of Muscat.

My friend Muhammad in Oman sent me a number of messages, urging me to come to Oman despite everything.  I asked him, Didn't that make me part of the problem?  Just another mouth to feed and water?

Despite that, I decided I really wanted to go.  Mostly, I just wanted to leave the University for a while.  I randomly skipped out of my afternoon class and went into town.  I went to the bus station and asked about buses to Muscat.  The guy in the booth told me to go to another bus station, and I will come back to that point in a minute.

I decided I'd rather fly than take a bus, so I took a taxi to the airport, and started asking the people questions at the ticketing desk.  The cheapest ticket they could give me was 900-something dirhams, roundtrip.  Now, I don't understand this: I could just step down the street into an internet cafe and buy the same thing online for less than half the price.  They were joking, right?

Anyway, I wasn't sure when I wanted to return, and when a US national flies into Muscat, they demand a roundtrip ticket.  Nah. 

So I took a taxi back to the place where the guy in the bus station said to go.  Let me tell you about Dubai-Muscat buses.  If you ever want to ride on one, you will hear lots about it online; however, I couldn't find ONE mention online of where this place was actually located.  It is located near the Dnata building by the Clock Tower, only no one in Dnata gave me helpful advice.  I had to walk around the block asking everyone I saw.  This was all in the blazing, humid heat around midday with a large heavy backpack on my shoulders.

Finally, I discovered it in some alleyway behind the Dnata complex.  It wasn't really marked or anything; I just walked past a store, having given up the search, and saw Dubai-Muscat was written on the windows.  I went inside and started asking questions.  Turns out the last bus of the day left an hour earlier!  Nggg!  Stupid airport.  Stupid hidden businesses!

I told Muhammad that it looked like I couldn't make it after all.  He sent a message back telling me to come to the border (once again!) and Thayer, our friend who I met the first time I was at the border, would run me down to Muscat.

I always thought folks in the Arab and Mediterranean world weren't supposed to be that worried about being on time, but these guys certainly were annoyed when I showed up at 11pm, two hours later than I had intended.  Blame the bus service!  That's all I'm going to say about that matter.

Thayer looking sad

I can't blame them though, because it was still a three-and-a-half hour journey to Muscat from the border, and Thayer is kind of a weird driver.  Between him pulling over to show me his family's village, swerving to miss already flattened cats at the last possible second, constantly shifting, switching the music on and off, fidgeting, and regularly spraying perfume, we made it there by four in the morning.

I hope you know about Cyclone Gonu by now.  My friend Muhammad lived in this trailer which had been partially damaged by it, so that you had to climb up crumbling and partially submerged stairs to the door, and then jump across the threshold.  There was no running water, and in fact the area behind his home, which once had been a flat field, was now a very large wadi in which several dead bodies had been recovered after the storm.  Then he said that since I was a girl, I was technically not supposed to be there, and I suddenly felt very, very ashamed of my imposition on him.

Driving around Muscat

The next morning, we drove all around the area just to survey the destruction wreaked by the Cyclone, and let me tell you it was all very sad.  I saw trees buried in the sand and roads sunk into the sea and homes destroyed.  My friends were very eager that I take pictures of everything, so I'm going to shortly set up a second entry on this topic as I can't do it justice here in the middle of my really long story.

Unfortunately, Muhammad was expecting company later that night; his friend from Saudi Arabia was coming.  He offered to let me hang around, and I wouldn't have had any problem with that, but I wasn't sure that his friend would feel the same way.  So Thayer and I drove back to the border, all 400-something kilometers.  The story gets longer.

We got back to the Emirates after 10 pm, which means the last bus had already left.  Thayer volunteered to drive me all the way back to Dubai, but it was getting late, and I thought, Guy's done enough, driving me to Muscat and back in one 24-hour period.  The buck stops here.  I told him I'd be fine in Hatta, and just hang around till morning when the buses started running again.  As it turns out, this was (eventfully) not to be.

I was sitting around by the bus stop, wondering what to do next, and wondering how much the gravel would hurt to sleep on, when a police car pulled up.  I looked up.

"Hi," I said.

"Let me see your passport," said one of the officers inside the car.  It's a good thing I carry it with me at all times.  I handed it over, and he flipped through it several times, and asked me questions because he apparently couldn't see whether or not I had overstayed my time here.  That's probably because of all the entry and exit visas I have in the durn thing, all crammed in next to each other.  I had to show him the specific one.

"Where are you from?" he demanded. 

"The United States of America--like it says on the cover of my passport!" getting really aggravated by now. "I go to the American University in Dubai," I added, just to throw a little extra weight around.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm waiting for the bus to Dubai."

"Last bus left at nine or ten."

"I know; I KNOW.  I guess I'll just have to wait for the morning when more buses come.  I don't know what else to do!"  I do, however, know what the police could have done--they could have helped out a stranded student who goes to a school partially owned by the Sheikh. 

Instead, they drove off.  I guess they must have just been really bored.

Later, another car pulled up and the guy told me he'd take me to Dubai city.  The only problem was that he made a number of stops to fetch one of his friends and other silly stuff.  As if that weren't unnerving enough, he repeatedly told me not to be afraid--which I wasn't, until he told me that.  To make matters worse, he let his friend start driving, and started drinking a large quantity of beer.  As a Muslim living in the UAE, probably without a liquor licence, there is no way in heck he should have been doing that.  It was illegal, and from his own religious standpoint, immoral.  But I was pretty much horrified when he offered one to the driver.  The driver said, "But I'll only have one".  Right, and there are no troops in Baghdad!  I said, Pull over.

I got out of the car and threw a fit--how am I supposed to trust two drunk guys driving a car at 100 miles an hour, who are above the law?  I plunked myself right down by the side of the road and refused to move, and told them to go away.  Heck, I do dumb things sometimes (like taking a ride from them in the first place!), but I'm not suicidal, nor do I even wish to have physical or emotional harm inflicted upon me.  I waited until they fell to their knees, saying they couldn't just leave me alone in the middle of nowhere.  "I am a good man!" the first one swore.  A good man, but a bad Muslim, I suspect!

Finally, having sufficiently reduced them to a state of panic, I climbed back in the car, telling them the Sheikh would probably not be happy if something happened to a student at a school he partially owns.  Ha ha!

Of course, they made fun of me all the way back to Dubai; for instance, overly deferentially asking if they could drink a beer; and making me take down the car's licence plate, so in case anything bad happened to me I could report it.  Make fun all they want--I was now the one in power.  And they left me at the University and drove off, undoubtedly muttering in their native language something to the effect of "crazy-ass bitch".

And now I've finally learned why you're not supposed to hitch-hike!