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.