Yes, another visa run has us spending the night in Muscat, Oman with the decision made to play tourist and enjoy the sites. It was a bit of a surprise to find after we returned home that this particular weekend was the point in time that the Omani people decided that Tunisia and Egypt were getting too much world press and to start protesting against their own government.

We saw nothing at all the entire two days to suggest that even one local citizen was unhappy as everyone in Muscat was friendly with smiling faces – probably at the prospect of separating us of our money since B had her shopping face on the entire time. Apparently there were anti government protests in some of the rural areas of the country which to me seems somewhat of marketing blunder as there aren’t many people out there in the middle of the desert. If you ask me how to get attention, go to the big city and throw rocks at the Presidential Palace.

Nary a rock thrower in sight at the Sultan's Palace.

Perhaps the Omani citizens are merely shaking their proverbial sticks in the air and scowling in front of the cameras to see what goodies the Sultan will give them, seeing how some great reforms have been granted in some of the other neighboring countries for the same kinds of actions.  Sure enough, The Sultan was spooked enough to announce a few days later that the minimum wage had been doubled, a few of his cousins had been thrown out…uh…replaced in high government positions and a dialogue would be opened up with the people, a popular promise in this part of the world over the past few months.

Fun at the Muscat Festival

We attended the last night of the Muscat Festival, a kind of Fatacil (for my Algarvian friends) and felt very comfortable walking among everyone. We were even interviewed by a local radio station – typical questions. How do you like the festival? Where are you from?  So thank you to the dozens of our American friends who expressed their concern that we might have been beheaded during the weekend but we are fine, rested and ready to explore again during the next visa run, probably to Qatar next.

The incident took place here.

B was spending a couple days in Dubai last week working at her “paid-volunteer” job and staying at the Citymax hotel in Bur Dubai. The company I work for has two offices, one here in Abu Dhabi and the other in Dubai. She’s been working since early January and splits her time between the two cities with a promise of a contract and a salary but continually being put off with various excuses as to why she hasn’t been signed on or even paid. At least they reimburse her expenses.  I will force the rotating blades of the air cooling machine to receive a fermented load of excrement next week if this situation is not resolved.

Anyway, B calls me from the hotel room in a bit of a panic telling me there had been an incident at the hotel.

“A voice came over the loudspeaker in the hall way stating there had been an incident in the hotel and we were to stay in our rooms until further notice,” she stated.  “I’m really freaking out.”

My first thoughts were terrorist attack or a murder in the hotel but not to make B worry even more I decided to play it down.

“Well, look outside the window and see if there is anything unusual looking in front of the entrance,” I replied.  Her answer came back negative.  “I’m sure it’s nothing. Why don’t you call the front desk and ask?”

About twenty minutes later B called back. “It took me forever to get through downstairs. The incident is over, we can leave the room now,” she informed me. “Someone lit a cigarette in a non-smoking room.”

Will smoking in the hotel get you this?

Relieved that no one had died, I wondered if the culprit had been taken away in shackles and jailed for a few months.  How did they know this had happened? Are there security cameras in the rooms? Did everyone stay in their rooms as instructed? Was the culprit’s room locked from a central security station so he couldn’t escape? I have a lot of questions. The safe and secure feeling you have living in the UAE is countered, I’m afraid to admit, by a really Big Brother in the room.

It seems these visa runs come more frequently the longer I live here.  A series of SNAFU’s, bureaucratic red tape and a very laid back management at the company I work for still have me in limbo between the category of a tourist and a worker here. Therefore I am taking these visa runs as an opportunity to see other countries as a tourist rather than just an airport to jet in and out of.

We took an overnight trip into the Musandam region of Oman and stayed at the Golden Tulip hotel just out of Khasab. What a beautiful part of the world with arid mountains directly on the coastline and an undulating coastline that is nicknamed “The Fjords of Oman”. Khasab is a small port town with fishing and tourism as its main reason for existence. I also hear stories that it is a main artery for illegal smuggling of goods, mainly electronics from Iran in exchange for what I don’t know. But don’t quote me on that.

I’ll let my pictures tell the story in this post so enjoy.

Approaching Oman

You know you are getting close to Oman when you see the mountains suddenly jut out of the landscape.

Omani Coastline

The road to Khasab skirts the thin line of land between the mountains and the sea.

Caution, cattle crossing - literally

Livestock abounds, both in Oman and the border towns of the UAE as you approach Oman.

Everyone has a few goats in Khasab

You can’t go anywhere in Khasab without seeing goats everywhere.

A local resident lets us take a photo with him.

This local resident let us take a photo with him at the Marina.

Catch of the Day in Khasab port.

Fishing is a way of life in Khasab.

Sunrise in Oman

I awoke early the next day to catch this photo.

Vacant beaches in Oman

Wide open beaches with plenty of room to spread out.

Local Khasab family

A small family sits ouside their house.

High and Dry Dhow

Someone forgot where their marina slip was.

Khasab Mosque

This mosque was located near the marina. Nice view of the mountains in the background.

Golden Tulip Hotel

The hotel where we stayed.

Khasab Marina

The marina at Khasab, Oman.

Hope they has the car waxed.

As I said, goats are everywhere.

Beachfront View

Just a short walk from the hotel.

Seaside village in Oman

This can be seen from the hotel.

Larry, Moe and Curly

B and I walked to the Khalidiyah Mall this morning rather than take the taxi in an attempt to pretend it was exercise and to take a look at the back streets of Abu Dhabi. We needed to stock up on groceries in order to break the chain of perpetual eating out, which is taking it’s toll on the pocketbok and the waistline. Plus, as I mentioned before, Abu Dhabi’s restaurant scene is quite varied but disappointingly tasteless, relying more on the generally excellent ambiance of their physical plants to attract customers rather than the taste of the food. The lure of home cooking had moved high enough up on our priority list to get us off our behinds and do something about it.

No business for old men.

Just for fun I took my camera along for the twenty minute or so walk and was not disappointed at that decision. It’s Friday morning, the one common day off work shared by both government offices and private businesses, and shops that are open today generally don’t do so until the afternoon. So our walk was quite enjoyable with very few cars on the road, very few people outdoors and weather nice enough to prevent one from breaking a sweat.

The first interesting thing we came across was a computer store that either sold old antique computer systems or was owned and opererated by the elderly, which made me question if they would even know enough about computers to have a viable business. The store was closed so I could not enter the shop to find out.

The Sniper Grocery Store

We then walked by a grocery store that was either owned and operated by ex-military sharpshooters or was warning us of our fate if we were caught shoplifting. Again, this impeccable local business was closed and I couldn’t find out the answer to that question. Probably they were at the local armory stocking up on theft prevention supplies.

Further on down the road we saw an interesting skyscraper under construction. Obviously, the Pisa Construction company from Italy was requisitioned to build this future Abu Dhabi icon. Fortunately, it seems that it won’t be more than the usual 20 stories tall, which used to be the height limit for all construction projects and gave one the impresion that Abu Dhabi had some sense of city planning. Had the Pisa brothers had a local partner tied to the ruling family, who apparently get to build anything, anywhere and any height they desire, despite the city plannning guidelines, and put up a 50 story tower, I’m afraid it would have bumped into its neighboring building.

Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi

We finally arrived at the mall to discover that the LuLu supermarket was promoting it’s vast supply of organically grown fruits and vegetables. The center of the Khalidiyah Mall currently contains a great display of  colorful, fresh, neatly arranged and displayed fruits and vegetables, which instantly caught our eye. We browsed the several aisles of produce, constantly oohing and aahing at the quality food before our eyes. However, there were no bags with which to purchase our treasures nor were ther any supermarket staff on hand to help us.  A security guard quiclky educated us to the fact that these items were on display only and we had to go into the LuLu supermarket, over to their produce section, to purchase the organically grown items.

The trouble is that the organically grown produce in the supermarket was generally outdated, withered, turning brown and wrinkling. Apparently the fresh recently delivered produce goes out on display for several days, where you aren’t allowed to buy it before it’s brought back into the store to sell, which by then it’s basically unedible. Who thought of that marketing strategy?

The longer I live here, the smarter I become, comparaively. Never a dull moment in this country.

I have found a new and exciting pastime while eating breakfst in the UAE. When I was a child, cereal boxes usually had a game or puzzle printed on the back  to keep me entertained while mindlessly consuming the artificially sweetened cellulose they passed off as nutrition. I guess the marketers figured they could sell more boxes with the entertainment value printed on the outside of the box rather than hope to sell the taste of the contents in the box.

Censored Cereal Box

I am reliving my childhood once again with the slick marketing campaign designed on the outside of UAE cereal boxes, disguised as censorship. As you can see by the photo, the innocuous looking model on the back of the cereal box has been turned into a suggestive sultry maneater by the addition of two carefully placed censorship stickers over her immoral parts.

They say that once you aren’t allowed to do or see something, you desire that thing even more than before. When we moved to Portugal 11 years ago, there really wasn’t a minimum drinking age. Minors were allowed to purchase beer and hard liquor for their parents. At first we were shocked having come from California where you can legally go to war and kill people at age 18, but can’t drink to anesthesize that experience until you are 21. However, in Portugal, there wasn’t an underage drinking problem because alcohol wasn’t demonized by a law banning alcohol until an arbitrary amount of time had passed living on this planet.

Damn! Better luck next time.

These censored cereal boxes remind me of a bizarre type of adult Advent calendar. You know, each day of Christmas has a numbered window that you open, behind which a cute drawing of some sort of holiday icon is revealed. Now I look forward to breakfast and my morning cereal box as a challange of my manual dexterity and to the unrealistic fantasy that I will uncover much more of a visual treat that I know is really there.

Abu Dhabi Taxi

1.) Indian Cab Driver (as another cab almost collides with our cab): “Those Pakistani cab drivers are crazy, they don’t know how to drive”.

2.) Pakistani Cab Driver: “Where do you come from?”

Me: “I’m from the USA originally”

Pakistani Cab Driver: “Your drone attacks kill many innocent people in my country.”

Me: “Well, I have nothing to do with that and don’t necessarily agree with everything my government does.”

Long uncomfortable silence during the remainder of the ride as the driver seems to be a bit more reckless in his control of the vehicle.

3.) Muslim Cab Driver: “What you do in Abu Dhabi?”

Me: “I work in health care.”

Muslim Cab Driver: “You are doctor.”

Me: “Technically, yes, but not a physician.”

Muslim Cab Driver: “I have a very important medical question for you, a question that I think of all the time.  Is it possible for a woman to still be a virgin on her wedding night but to have lost the proof of her virginity?

Me: “What? This is not my area of expertise.”

Muslim Cab Driver: “You are a doctor, you will know. Can a woman still be a virgin without a hymen?”

Me, thinking I’d better not make a joke about this: “Well, I guess a very athletic woman; one who competes in sporting events could be so active that it could tear.” Somehow that came out of my mouth without skipping a beat.”

Muslim Cab Driver: “Yes, That is correct. That is very good answer. You very smart. That is very good answer.”

4.) Pakistani Cab Driver (as another cab almost collides with our cab): “Those Indian cab drivers are crazy, they don’t know how to drive”.

5.) Pakistani Cab Driver: “Where are you from?”

Me: “I’m from America.”

Pakistani Cab Driver: “Obama bombs my country and kills my people.”

Me: “Well, I haven’t lived in the USA for over 10 years and am not up to date on word politics, but I am sorry to hear that.”

Long uncomfortable silence during the remainder of the ride as the driver seems to be a bit more reckless in his control of the vehicle.

6.) Sri Lankan Cab Driver: “Today I am a very happy man. My wife gave birth to a son three hours ago.”

Me: “Congratulations. Why are you working today? You should be with your wife right now.”

Sri Lankan Cab Driver: “I drive cab. I work every day.”

I gave him a good tip.

7.) Me: “I’d like to go to the BMW showroom in Khalidiya.”

Elderly Cab Driver: “You know how to get there?”

Me: “What? That’s your job to know that.”

Elderly Cab Driver: “This my first day working as driver.”

Me: “Well, I have a map. Do you know where we are now?” (I had been walking and wasn’t sure what intersection he picked me up.)

Elderly Cab Driver: “I think Electra Street, I get directions at petrol station.”

Me: “Wait, you’re going the wrong way.”

8.) Pakistani Cab Driver: “Where are you from?”

Me: “I’m from Canada.”

Pakistani Cab Driver: “Canada! Very good, very nice.”

Liquid Sunshine in Dubai

I saw the first signs of the changing season here with a small rainstorm today.  Dubai has two seasons; a really hot and humid summer and a mild summer. We were in the Ibn Batutta mall having lunch at the Lime Tree cafe (our favorite restaurant so far) when the previously impotent cloud cover opened up a bit and showered the open terrace with a refreshing light shower. The cloud cover has been a bit threatening over the past few days but this is the first official wet spot I’ve noticed. I hear that early next year to expect a few heavy downpours that will flood the poorly engineered street culverts and identify all the holes in the roofs on the uppermost floors of most buildings.

Christmas Tree

You wouldn’t think that there would be any hint of Christmas here in a country where Allah has the upper hand over God, but you couldn’t be more wrong than Daylight’s Saving Time or skin care for men.

In a country whose national pastime is mall cruising and shopping, what better way to get the tourists and 85% of the non-local population to add to the GNP during the month of December than to pander the commercial side of Christmas.

If the idea of a young girl dressed in the traditional black abaya with her head covered in a black scarf sitting on Santa’s lap seems just plain wrong you have to remember that Father Christmas is just a pagan tradition, along with the Christmas tree, gift giving, hiding your brooms and the Festivus pole. These traditions do not conflict with Islam whatsoever.

Santa in Sandyland

You won’t, however, see any Nativity scenes or shop closures on the 25th. In fact, today is just another working day like all others and after opening our presents this morning, we are going off to the Marina Mall to do more shopping. Merry Christmas from the UAE!

The Infamous Tree

Not to be outdone by the gold vending machine, the Emirates Palace has again proven that its public relations budget is well worth the allocated funds and again sparked world attention by erecting the world’s most expensive Christmas tree. The appropriately named “$11 million Christmas Tree” has been criticized by many as a grotesque display of wealth during tough economic times, but regardless what you think of the concept, the Emirates Palace has succeeded. Marketing mission accomplished.

I went to see what all the fuss was about last night and the experience was a bit of an anticlimax. Yes the tree is beautiful and very tall, well decorated with traditional ornaments and a bevy of beautifully wrapped fake presents at the base of the tree. The source of the extreme price tag is not immediately apparent until you get up close and personal with the branches of the once living pine. Well, you can’t actually get that close as security is tight and the circular railing surrounding this icon of UAE excessiveness is well beyond  two arm’s lengths and your average forty-something’s focal length. I had to use my camera’s zoom lens to get a good view of the controversial ornaments.

Mere baubles adorn the tree.

Big deal! It’s just a normal (tall) Christmas tree with a bunch of expensive necklaces hung out on the branches. It’s not like $11 million was spent on the tree. 99% of the visible value in front of your eyes will be returned to the donating jewelers store front window after Christmas. I look at the situation as a Green environmentally friendly display case, a unique and creative way to get public exposure to some beautiful original designer trinkets and another marketing hole-in-one for the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

Camel Beauty Contest

Nearly 20,000 camels from the UAE and other Gulf Arab countries have converged on Abu Dhabi’s western region for one of the world’s biggest camel beauty contests involving prizes worth nearly Dh35 million ($9.5 million).

The camels have been brought from various parts of the UAE as well as neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and other Gulf nations for the week-long beauty competition in the western town of Dhafra.

The contest, which started on Thursday, will stretch until next Friday and officials described it as one of the largest camel beauty pageant in the world in terms of the value of prizes and number of camels.

More than 800 camel owners from the UAE and other regional nations are participating in the event, which is sponsored by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces. It is organised by the Culture and Heritage Authority.

Although I was not able to make it to this year’s pagent, this is something I am putting on my “to-do” list for 2011.