Day 3: Beachin’ It, Omani-style

Monday, we awoke to the bright Omani morning and headed off to breakfast at the hotel. We were joined in our morning meal by an awful lot of Brits and Germans, as well as some Afrikaners. My father would be happy with the breakfast, as it offered a wide variety of American, European and Middle-Eastern delicacies. (We specifically chose a hotel where the breakfast was included so we could eat a substantial morning meal and not be starving at lunch if we were out and about.)

Erin had booked hair and nail appointment in The Chi spa for 11am, so I walked her over there after breakfast so she could enjoy the facilities before her “treatments”. I then meandered over to the beach/pool, though befoire applying what I thought was as a nearly ungodly amount of SPF 50 sunscreen. The air that day was hot and heavy, like a wet awrap around your shoulders. You would sweat just standing there and looking around.

First some background. There are three hotels in the Shangri-La resort complex. We are staying at the southernmost one, the Al Waha. The one immediately to the north is the Al Bandar, and it has the nicest pools and the better restaurants. The Al Husan is the 6-star hotel in which we are not allowed. It is supposedly rather swanky. But we have no regrets. We have a very nice room, great view and the service has been wonderful.

Anyway, the spa was close to the beach/pool area. Basically there is a man-made beach with a nice grassy area in front of it, and a bunch of pools behind that. The grassy knoll, if you will, was where I made a brief homestead. Two loungers under an umbrella were set up for me almost immediately by a cabana boy (“Cabana Boy”: great stage play. I highly recommend it.) who put out towels and brought me a cooler with bottles of water. From there I dove into my book, “Game Change” by Mark Halperin & John Heilemann about the 2008 presidential election. Good stuff.



Erin joined me at around 2p and we spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach area. Erin’s haircut at the salon had her looking like Ron Wood from the Rolling Stones. I dubbed the entire affair “questionable” and was roundly dismissed for my insensitivity.

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Around dinnertime, we headed for our hotel room, took showers and enjoyed some of our Duty Free Heiner-Ken before ordering some kabobs and hummus from room service and having a quiet night.

Day 2: Doha to Muscat

This is a little late in coming, but the day of travel and checking out the new environs in Oman took up some time. I also gave the camera a break, and by break I mean that I stupidly left it in my bag in the trunk of the cab in Oman….

Sunday began with some quick preparation for our trip to Muscat, Oman. We packed light and got a car to the Doha Airport. The people at the airport in Doha, once they see your American passport, don’t really pay you much mind or hassle you in terms of security. They do, however, very methodically check your passport at immigration for any stamps from Israel, which would be a deal-breaker for entering pretty much any Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

We flew Qatar Airways on the 1 hour 5 minute flight to Muscat. They were very friendly and entirely staffed by petite, fair-skinned women of Southeast Asian descent. Erin informs me that the darker-skinned Qatar Airways workers are relegated to gate-agent work and other lesser jobs. This seems to be the case in general for the employment hierarchy here in the Mid-East. At the bottom of the totem pole are the Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Indonesians, Filipinos and some Indians. A step above them are the Nepalese and other East Asians like Thais, Laotians, etc. And then the fair-skinned, non-native Arabs…there are a ton of Jordanians and Lebanese in Doha, all of whom have decent jobs and form a small middle class. The native Qataris sit atop the social strata and don’t really do much other than count their money.



Upon landing in Muscat, we paid for our entry visas and cleared immigration. (Erin was given a discount on her entry visa because of her Qatari residency, while I had to pay the full cost.) The immigration guy was very pleasant, welcoming us to Oman, something that we would find a common trait amongst Omanis. From there, it was on to the Duty Free shop before we hit Customs. Each entering visitor is allowed to purchase two liters of alcohol (or 1 case of beer) to bring into the country. With alcohol prices at the hotel bordering on the absurd, we were urged by Erin’s coworkers to purchase or ration of drinks at the Duty Free store. A bottle of wine, some vodka and some Heineken (it was the only beer they sold) later, we were past the smiling customs officers, and into a cab for our 45 minute cab ride to the Shangri-La.

The Arab men like to talk to Erin quite a bit, as most mistake her for an Arab because of her coloring. She is nice to them and responds politely to their overtures, which are innocent. I end up standing there with my pasty flesh and blond hair while this goes on, clearly not anywhere close to being mistaken for an Arab.

Oman is much prettier than Qatar. It has been ruled for 40 years by Sultan Qaboos, whose picture adorns all the money and can be seen hanging in places of business, even the lobby of our hotel. The Sultan is more or less a benevolent dictator who has spent a lot of money modernizing the country. Most things have his name on them, such as the Sultan Qaboos National Sports Center, and there seems to be a conscious effort to create green areas such as parks to provide recreational spaces for the natives. Oman is quite tolerant – especially compared to its neighbor to the south, Yemen - and is trying to cultivate itself as a tourism and vacation capital of the region. It makes one wonder if the whispers about the Sultan’s sexuality are not reinforced by the tolerant nature of the country and the friendliness of the people.

Sultan Qaboos

The landscape reminds me a lot of Arizona as the mountains abut civilization, but also of Palm Springs in that there are seemingly artificial green areas. Frankly, it just seems a lot cleaner and less blemished than Qatar, even though it is not nearly as wealthy.

Our cab ride took us down the coast from the airport in the north to the Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa on the very southern edge of the Muscat metropolitan area. Along the way we passed the Grand Mosque, home of the largest prayer rug in the world; Mutrah Souk, which is purported to be the most authentic of Arab markets; and a number of old Portuguese watch towers on cliffs overlooking the sea, remnants of the Portuguese colonization in the 16th and 17th centuries.

We checked into the hotel, had a drink and then went off to a dinner of traditional Arabic cuisine, and then an early night. The heat and humidity here are rather remarkable. The air is thick and heavy, which makes people move rather slowly. I can’t blame them.

Day 1: The Multi-Colored Baby Chickens of Doha

I arrived last night actually, at around 11pm. Lufthansa didn't tell me that we'd be making a quick stop in Riyadh. Riyadh was as advertised, which is to say not at all. We descended in the dark night sky only to find ourselves in the equally dark desert. It was eerily calm on the tarmac in Riyadh, as I could not see any workers. Most of the passengers disembarked while those of us bound for Doha were relegated to our seats to wait out refueling. A very bumpy 45-minute flight later, I was in Doha. The customs and immigration people were rather laid back, though I think they were a bit preoccupied with the Boeing 777 full of Indonesians and Filipinos from Jakarta that had just landed.

Day 1
It began this morning, Saturday, with a 9:00am wake up call that found me rather disoriented given the +7 hour time difference from Washington, D.C. A shower and a trip over to La Cigale for lunch proved a good remedy.


That wall is full of candy. It seems that Muslims, just like many of those recovering from alcoholism, replace alcohol with sugar, caffeine and nicotine. Not surprising I guess. This also means they have an exquisite selection of fruit and vegetable juices. I had lemonade with a bunch of mint leaves blended into it. Very nice.

From La Cigale, it was on to some primo Doha sight-seeing in Erin's surprisingly zippy Kia Rio. The white cars here outnumber those of any other color by at least 3 to 1. The native Qataris seem to prefer large BMWs and SUVs. The entire place is completely under construction. The streets, the lots, the buildings - everything.

We drove through downtown along the Corniche. The Corniche is the roadway along the waterfront of Doha, and is full of grassy areas where families will walk when it cools off in the evening. It was then on to The Pearl, a man-made island with lots of unfinished high-rise condominiums. From there we could see the "Ziggy-Zag" buildings.


Weird.

We then headed for the Old Souk. Souk is Arabic for "market", and this one had a wide variety of middle-eastern novelties as well as a bunch of more practical items. There was a pretty even mixture of tourists and Arabs. Many of the men were in traditional thobes (long white robes) and dishdashas (head wraps with black braids). Some accompanied women in full black abayas, though the styles of these varied.

The more observant Muslim women had their full faces covered, or only their eyes showing. The more moderate ones had colorful designs embroidered onto their abayas, their faces were fully exposed, and they had the head covering pulled back to reveal at least a little bit of hair. For those who recall some of the pictures from the Iranian street protests last summer, it can be quite a statement for a woman to pull back her headscarf enough to show her hair. One constant among all the abaya'd women was their multi-thousand-dollar handbags. Similarly, the shobe'd men were sporting iphones or Blackberries and designer sunglasses more often than not.

We also ran into the federal police on patrol on horseback.


After some Moroccan tea and people-watching, I was in the mood to purchase some multi-colored baby chickens. So we went to the multi-colored baby chicken store.

Now I love a plate of Buffalo wings as much as the next guy, and I'm not sure if it's illegal to dye baby chickens those colors, but it probably should be. Erin, it turned out, was more in the mood for a plate of bunnies. Thankfully, we found one not far from the multi-colored baby chickens.

Not yet tired of this completely bizarre place, we ventured over to one of the alleys and a small store in which a man was selling art. The art was the handiwork of a woman from Bahrain who works at her day job as a dentist. After some friendly haggling, we secured a reasonable price on some nice pictures and other souvenirs.

As we headed to the parking lot, I was able to get a shot of one of the nicer buildings in Doha, the Qatar Islamic Cultural Center.

It, along with the Islamic Art Museum are two of the more beautiful examples of traditional architecture in Doha. Unfortunately, buildings like this have been overshadowed in large part by the onslaught of western culture and food. Case in point.

Time for bed now, as it's late and we have a flight tomorrow afternoon to Muscat, Oman. I hold high hopes that the Internet connection at the Shangri-La is up to snuff, but if this little experiment goes radio silent until Thursday, you'll know why.

Zee Germans!

Boondoggle /ˈbunˌdɒgəl, -ˌdɔgəl/ Show Spelled [boon-gog-uhl, -daw-guhl] noun
1. a project funded by the federal government out of political favoritism that is of no real value to the community or the nation.

2. The United Airlines Economy Class International Check-In process at Dulles International Airport.

Following the inexplicable check-in and security situation at Dulles, Our Traveler has arrived in Frankfurt, Germany and spent the past few hours wandering the disappointingly sterile Frankfurt Airport. There were such high hopes for the diverse array of travelers bustling to and fro international points of transit. Frankly, (ha) is has nothing on Heathrow for the sheer level of chaotic, polyglotic humanity.

But, like I always say, when in Frankfurt...

...eat a frankfurter. Delicious.

And now, on to Doha.

T-Minus 7:40-ish

All packed and hopefully ready to go. Despite Erin's answers to my packing and attire questions, I still have no idea if I packed the right things. I did make sure that I left all of the usual pork products I bring on international trips at home. Some other items that are prohibited in Qatar:

Antiques
Furs
Gambling Devices
Ivory
Plant products
Playing cards
Alcoholic Beverages
Pornography

Playing cards....really? Really. Calvinists.



Man, this blogging thing is so self-aggrandizing.

HT: R.D. Barthel can claim naming rights to this little experiment.