Oman by www.born2travel.it

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After six hours by bus from Dubai we reach the Omani capital! The border checks were very stressful! I got a bit scared when they started checking every single piece of luggage... I was afraid that some of my uniform might pop out of my camouflage backpack and who knows how they would have taken it... They're Arabs after all!

Muscat (OMAN) 26.10.09

A busy morning among Muscat's many travel agencies. We went round loads of them and the funny thing is we sorted nothing out. Tourism here is almost non-existent. When we asked whether they offered travel packages to visit this or that area they looked at us blankly as if we'd asked for a pound of prosciutto in a jewellery shop! Morphologically, Oman seems very similar to Jordan, where tourism is instead booming... so why can't the Omanis get organised?

As I was saying, a whole morning "spent" but not wasted, because when you travel it's also fun to chat and haggle with the locals to organise a tour when the solution was under our nose all along... At the hotel we meet Faisal, who will turn out to be our winning card as well as a great friend throughout our stay in Oman!

Muscat (OMAN) 27.10.09

[Nick]: "The souq of Mutrah is very characteristic and authentic... It's made up of little squares and alleys where everyone calls you over to show you their wares; the smell that fills the souq is incense... Satisfied, we eat two "shwarmas" with the usual freshly squeezed orange juice along the Corniche...

Mark even manages to organise a football match with some local lads he's just met!"

We go back to the souq to buy a pair of shoes for tomorrow's match! The trip is starting to take shape!

Muscat (OMAN) 28.10.09

In the afternoon everyone on the "pitch"! Everyone, absolutely everyone... there must have been about forty of us in all! A game with no rules, no throw-ins and no goalkeepers, but playing inside a stone quarry, with the mosque next to it (like a little suburban church), paid us back handsomely!

In the evening, with the legendary Faisal, after putting on a "dishdasha" and "kuma", we took a stroll around various shopping malls, immersing ourselves in the Arab atmosphere like never before while our friend explained to us the "techniques for approaching" girls in Oman... From exchanging glances (when they don't have their face completely covered), until she gives you a sign that you can come closer to swap mobile numbers, after which you have to vanish... or the craftier technique of sitting in a big mall and switching on your phone's Bluetooth to see if some other girl was connected and willing to chat over the phone... What a stress!

"But when do you want to get married? How does it work?" Well, in that case, as happened to him, the sisters or the mother are let loose and they show you loads of photos of potential suitors... so you can choose (it's assumed your future wife has no say in the matter!)

Ibra (OMAN) 29.10.09

Off to discover Oman! [Nick]: "The first stop is at Hawyat Najem, a hole that appears to have been formed by the impact of a meteorite. The second stop is at Wadi Shab. As far as I understand, these wadis are oases formed by little lakes, small streams and waterfalls that follow one another for kilometres inside natural canyons... We decide not to stop at the nearby Wadi Tiwi after the lovely trek in the previous wadi, and head for Sur, a fishing town where we visit a small craft workshop making dhows (traditional boats) assembled entirely by hand, from cutting the logs to the bolting, etc. Mass tourism truly hasn't reached here; along the whole route we never once met a souvenir seller... Inside Sunaysilah Castle I bang my head on the doorpost of an ancient stone door and split my head open! What pain! The day is still long.

After eating roast chicken with our hands (the Omani way) we head to Wadi Bani Khalid. An interesting wadi for its backdrop of palms amid the mountains. It's almost sunset. We try to quickly reach Bidiya and its Wahiba Sands desert with its fine red sand..."

What remains of this lovely day lived so intensely, even in traditional dress... Certainly the wonderful sunset in the desert... It might sound like the usual touristy thing but I doubt many people have experienced it as we did... Three spotless white sultans... Silence broken only by the moaning of the camels around us and by a plastic bag carried by the wind... The light of the half moon faintly lighting us and our thoughts... Some thinking about work; others, like me, about how lovely it would be to always live with a backpack on your shoulders, a camera slung across your body, a diary in the big pocket of your tactical shorts and the desire to travel, explore and discover something new every time...

Nizwa (OMAN) 30.10.09

[Nick]: "In Nizwa we visit the fort and its souq. Nothing much compared with ours in Mutrah! The fort, though, I liked a lot, we even gate-crashed a traditional dance. The last stop is the Hoova Cave, a cave discovered by chance a few years ago... An interesting visit but even more characteristic was the typical lunch sitting in a room with carpets and big cushions: a huge platter of rice, chicken, camel meat and off everyone eating with their hands from the same dish..."

Back in Muscat, Faisal wants us to meet some of his friends and relatives... Although it was already midnight we all meet at his cousin's house to watch the Italian football league matches... Never mind the time difference, for them football is a sacred thing!

Muscat (OMAN) 31.10.09

Here in Oman I had the same feeling as in Belgrade... I remember the same fears I felt while reaching the Serbian capital and the same feeling of being so at ease and protected everywhere shortly afterwards...

Today, while I was heading back to the hotel after checking my email at the usual internet cafe, the muezzin chanting his litany from the minaret, me surrounded by Arab things as I strolled blissfully, I felt more and more like a citizen of the world...

The courtesy, hospitality, good manners, politeness and generosity of all the Omanis I won't easily forget!

Oman: the place where shopkeepers leave their goods outside their shop even after closing time "no one touches anything anyway!" The place where the taxi driver, after you've paid and are about to leave, calls you back because you left your phone in his car; the place where the restaurant owner calls you back because you paid with a 5 Riyal note instead of 1 and you're about to walk off... The place where someone offers you a drink, where someone introduces themselves by giving you a "welcome" instead of saying their own name... This is the Oman I will always carry in my heart.

You never stop... We're already planning the next move to Bahrain! The teamwork with Nick is legendary. At the internet cafe, on two different computers, in 5 minutes we organised the two days of the next destination, shouting information at each other like a stock exchange... I checked the activities to do or the things to see there while he, in parallel, checked the hotels closest to the areas I pointed out... A few minutes and we'd found the right hotel and even booked it! Brilliant!

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