Oman – arrival and impressions
We’ve been in the western part of Oman for two days now after arriving yesterday morning from Yemen. Border formalities were slow but uncomplicated, and it was certainly the first time I’ve crossed a border between 1am and 3am!
Instantly, you could see that Oman is much wealthier than Yemen, even after just crossing the border in the middle of the night – in the roads, the cleanliness (Yemen is one of the dirtiest countries I’ve ever been to, maybe the dirtiest) and the quality of cars. Salalah, the second-largest city of Oman, is (gulp) very similar to Doha, but fortunately we discovered a fabulous Indian restaurant last night to make up for any other shortcomings.
We slept for much of yesterday recovering from the bus trip, and today we went to the coast for the day. It’s incredibly easy to hitchhike in Oman, and this became our backup plan after we were told there were no microbuses. We stuck our thumbs out four different times on the way to Mugsayl, and each time we were picked up within a minute or less. We spent a few hours at a lovely beach with some waves and cliffs, and saw the day’s catch being brought in by some fisherman (with the seagulls devouring the leftovers). On the way back we were picked up by the second car that passed us, and the Indian family inside took us all the way back to the centre of Salalah.
Now we’re preparing for our third 10+ hour bus ride in five days, as almost all the attractions of Oman are at the other end of the country! In a typically unexplainable Gulf move, almost all the buses leave in the afternoon or evening, so we’ll arrive in Nizwa at 4am tomorrow morning. Not ideal, but this happened to us a few times in Burma, so by now we’re used to it…
I’m currently uploading some photos of the skyscrapers of Shibam, and of today’s expedition to the Omani coast, so hopefully you’ll be able to view them in a few minutes here.
Tags: Arabia, beach, coast, Oman, Travel
Nick