2/25
I ate as many of the donuts Salim bought for breakfast the morning of our last day in the region as I could. There were traffic jams on the way to Muscat airport, but I suspect Salim’s connections might have been in play as we saw police stopping traffic at opportune moments for us to get through in plenty of time for our flight, though the people at the airline desk really didn’t seem to know what they were doing. Salim and Ahmed bumped noses with us and shook hands with the women in our group, and they stood waving at the door as we crossed the security stage.

Back in Amman, we had to get landing visas to enter the country, or else hang out at the airport hotel under guard, but although Basem and Fahed met us at the airport, for some reason the group decided to go to the hotel and then decide if we wanted visas. This meant going to the hotel, deciding that (of course) we wanted visas, then going back to the airport to get them, and then waiting for Basem to come back. By this time it was nearly night, and we could have watched a brilliant moonrise over the old city from the Royal Gardens and the mosque there. Alas, everything we do as a group on this trip simply takes forever so by the time we made it to the park it was dark and cold. Still, it was good to chat with our Jordanian friends again and see the city a bit more. The dry air took me by surprise after Oman, which is relatively humid I guess. My nose and throat really felt the dry, dusty air in Jordan the whole time I was there.

Mohammed showed up and took us to a coffee/hookah shop he visits every day, and we had drinks. I had a kind of thick milk with cinnamon, leading Fahed to say I was “a real Jordanian now”.

“You guys might want to rethink your immigration procedures,” I said, sipping the delicious hot liquid.

The free hotel rooms included a free dinner at “The Golden Tulip”, which we enjoyed after Basem and the others dropped us off and bade us farewell. We showered and napped until it was time to go check in again. We were shooed away from the gate entrance by a guard who indicated that the people in nearby seats were actually in some form of line. It didn’t matter, but it made me think that, even when the grand new airport goes into operation, they’d better retrain everyone there, or everyone will still think it a dinky little airport just from their mindset.

I have been very impressed, however, with the cabin crews of Royal Jordanian Airlines; I thought at first it was a fluke, but each time I’ve flown with them on this trip they’ve been polite, accommodating and even funny. They must have good training, too, because it seems to me that many passengers tend to not bother with petty things like rules about seat backs, seat belts, or even seats much of the time. In any case, I took the equivalent of a Nyquil and dosed all the way to Bangkok, then to Hong Kong, by which time my ears were failing to pop each time we descended, most likely due to the combination of the dry air and Ahmed’s cold. By the time we landed in Taoyuan my head was a mess. I think I might have broken something in there in my attempts to try and equalize the pressure by pinching my nose and blowing.

Anyway, that’s our trip. I enjoyed both Jordan and Oman and took quite a bit of video. I didn’t take many photos, due to the size of our group, our itinerary, our gracious hosts’ plans, and a general lack of space, both mental and physical, in which to take pictures, but I would like to visit again some day by myself or at least with a smaller group, and do some wandering in both places. Then we’ll see.

2/24/2013
After our market-related concerns yesterday, Ahmed and Salim took us around several markets this morning, including a fish market and a general goods market along the shore where I felt I did a good job of negotiating the price of three hats. Ahmed came into the shop and, just to show off, got them to throw in another hat for the price.

We visited a small but intricate fort, with a knowledgeable guide who was (surprise) another one of Salim’s friends. He was proud of the old ways and traditions, and obviously took a great deal of pride in being able to show off the fort to outsiders. “Ask him why they don’t turn it into a hotel for tourists,” Chenbl said after the tour.

“I don’t think I will,” I replied.

We drove a while longer to another fort, this one much larger and surrounded by date plantations, crisscrossed with irrigation canals from a nearby spring. I sat in the turret for a bit trying to imagine being a guard there, looking out over the plain for enemy forces. Later we bathed in the hot spring waters, in little cubicles over the stream leading directly from the spring. The women’s baths were downstream from the men’s, which kind of sucks for the women, but the water was probably hot enough to destroy the nastier things. We waited for the others to pray as the sun set, and then headed back to Muscat, where we dined at Ahmed’s lovely home, of course never setting eyes on his wife, but his little son and daughter ran in and out of the living room while we ate. I’ve gotten used to eating only parts of meals here in Oman; our hosts keep plying us with huge meals, and it’s impossible to finish one. They even bought me the entire Dunkin Donuts inventory after I wondered aloud if they tasted differently here than in other countries. All of our hosts here have been just great; we’re very fortunate to know them.

Tomorrow we start travelling again, back to Jordan, and then back home. And it seems that I’ve caught Ahmed’s cold to boot. Ah, well.

2/23/2013
I woke up at 6 a.m. in the tent, just before sunrise. Ahmed had fled Chenbl’s raucous snoring and was sleeping outside under the stars. I walked up the dunes to a high point to see the sun rise, but I was a bit early, so I did some tai-chi forms to pass the time. That felt good, as this vacation has had a lot more sitting in vehicles and not as much walking around as I’m used to on my personal trips.

As I said, this spot, while technically in the desert, is not as remote as Wadi Rum. I could still hear the roar or a distant highway, and I could see buildings in the distance from the top of the dunes as I watched the sun rise. After breakfast back at camp, the Bedouin fellow took us on a rip-roaring ride over the dunes in his truck, ending up at the top of a huge dune overlooking his village. We sat there for a while in the growing sunlight, watching the sand trickle down beneath our feet, like water one second and solid the next. Our guide took a couple of flying leaps off the cliff, trudging back up the sand. I wonder if he often went up there as a child.

When we tried to leave the camp, both of our vehicles became ensnared in the sand, Salim’s Ford more seriously than Ahmed’s Porsche Cayenne. We had to let air out of the tires and dig them out before we could move on to the highway, where we crept along at a snail’s pace due to the deflated tires, until we could fill them up at a place filled with staring men.

On the road back to Muscat, we stopped at a large round fort with “murder holes” above and below its entry passages, to drop things onto intruders, as well as to drop intruders onto things. The light was very nice as we walked back through the market to the cars, and we felt that we should stay instead of going on to Sun Mountain, but this decision took rather a long time to make as our hosts had so far been puzzled at our priorities. We took in an abandoned village before turning back to the market, which was of course by this time much more populated and much worse lit. However, it was nice to get to just walk around a bit, do a little alley-prowling, etc., before we drove back to Muscat.

2/22/2013
The hotel in Sur put up a good breakfast, which we ate as Chenbl regaled us with tales of a ghost tickling his feet the night before. “They’re probably curious,” he said, unconcerned. It turned out that the hotel, which features an echoing, multi-storied atrium with each floor a different color, is actually located next to extensive burial grounds.

Sur is home to a large concentration of mosques, and once they start up with the calls to prayer, it quickly becomes rather cacophonous. We walked around the boat museum, Ahmed pointing out boats that his grandfather captained. Offshore we spotted a couple of sea turtles lounging around in the bay. The area nearby is Ahmed’s family’s historical home, and he is related to everyone there, it seems.

We walked around the shipbuilding factory, looking at the large wooden craft being made there by Indian workers. Then we walked along the shore again. Sur is a pleasant place, a sleepy town where there was once only a spit of land by the sea.

Ahmed and I talked about Islam as we drove south again. “It’s ‘Issssslam’, not ‘Izzzzlam,” he said, correcting my pronunciation. Lunch was tuna on the bright blue carpet adorning the floor of another friend of Salim’s (my, but that man has a lot of friends). We passed scene after scene of brilliant light and wonderful compositions, but I took no shots as it was all going by too fast. Dinner was had at a locally famous diner/mosque on the old road out to the desert, where we munched on fried things and tea while Ahmed and Salim prayed next door. After that we drove out to the desert to play with some camels and goats in the gathering darkness, before following a bedu fellow in his Landcruiser out to our camping site, located in a hollow, surrounded by dunes. The Bedouin was thin and talkative, while his partner seldom said a word. We settled in our tents and then sat out on a platform talking for a while. It wasn’t as isolated as the Wadi Rum camp, but it was nice.

2/21/13
After another late start (there is definitely a loose standard here for “on time”, which I can completely agree with), we set off south and east this morning from Muscat in the two cars. After days of sitting in cars, Arabian music is starting to grow on me, though I can’t understand much, and much of it still sounds the same. Ahmed said that most all of the workers we saw along the way, and there are not a few as most of Oman seems to be under construction or newly built, are not actually Omani but Indian, Pakistani, etc. Omanis tend to be traders and fishermen, he said. His family is a combination of both; his father’s family are fishing people, while his mother comes from traders.

After a few hours, we came to a large dam and reservoir, where a few other visitors, most Saudi Arabians, stood looking at the great expanse of water, while Indian workers hustled into a spurt of gardening as a police car pulled up.

Our next stop, down the coast, was a sinkhole that was apparently caused by an ancient meteor strike. Stream water filled the bottom with a deep blue pool, and small fish flitted around. I missed what might have been another good shot because I’m still uneasy photographing people here too closely, and both of our hosts seem wary of such pursuits. It’s unfortunate, as the light and people of Oman seem quite photogenic. There are Western tourists here and there, but they seem disinterested in normal life.

Further still down the coast, we stopped at the foot of a valley, bridged by the highway. We took small boats across the shore and hiked up the gorge between high stony cliffs, passing a group of young men struggling with camping equipment, including a generator. Western tourists passed the other way occasionally, all dressed in swimming attire, and we eventually came upon the reason why; the river was dammed and filled the gorge upstream with gorgeous green depths. Some of us elected to climb further up the valley, walking along the edges of old irrigation canals. It was a beautiful scene as the sun sank in the sky and the moon came out.

Later, we drove on down the town of Sur, from which both Salim and Ahmed hail. It was dark when we stopped at the house of Salim’s relatives. We had dinner on the carpeted floor, eating rice and chicken and other things with our hands, drinking tea and being sprayed with various perfumes and oils by our hosts. The perfume thing must work; by far the worst-smelling people I’ve come across here are the Western tourists.

The women, as has become usual here, disappeared into the women’s quarters for a bit before we left for the hotel on the other side of Sur’s new bridge. Salim argued with the desk clerks over the price, saying that he was personally acquainted with many of their more famous guests. It seems that the face game, practiced so widely back home, is alive and well here as well, and it has become somewhat of a battle between Chenbl and Salim, who are both masters at the game. It’s fun to watch them try to outfox each other over each meal or expense.

After settling in at the hotel, we headed out to the coast for a look at some sea turtles. It used to be that one could drive out, camp on the beach, and witness dozens of sea turtles coming up onto the beach to lay eggs, but it’s now a restricted conservation area, and only by booking months in advance can one secure a spot for the nighttime tours. Unless you’re us, in which case you can slip in at the back of one of the tours with a wink at the guide. We walked out a long, rocky road to the beach in darkness, muttering to each other. “There’s only one turtle tonight,” the guide said, adding that cameras and photography were strictly forbidden, flash or no. When I asked why, the guide said, “Of course flashless cameras don’t hurt the turtles, but then someone with a flash on their camera will see you taking shots, and they’ll start, so we just ban them all.”

We waited a bit for the signal, and then crept up to the mother turtle, who was edging her way back to the sea after failing to find the site satisfactory for some reason I cannot fathom. After the waves carried her away, we spotted some baby turtles making their way over the sand dunes towards the ocean, and the guides kept us from stepping on them until they too made it into the water. The sight of the turtles disappearing into the wet black void was rather stirring, at least until a strange noise nearby alerted me to the fact that Salim had snuck a baby turtle onto Chenbl’s hand, surprising him. It fell off and wandered to the sea as well.

2/20/2013
The boat we hired was ready for us at the marina when we arrived this morning, the other tourists looking on in what I imagined to be jealousy but what was probably in reality closer to apathy. We charged out into the ocean, full throttle, the wind making the Omanis’ robes billow up in a cartoonish fashion, until we came upon the little group of vessels milling around trying to keep up with various schools of dolphins.

The dolphins did put on a great show, I have to admit, jumping completely out of the water and flying through the air for a surprisingly long time. After a bit of this, we left the group and tooled along the coast, past some interesting forts, geographic formations, and luxury resorts.

It was to these 6-star resorts that we headed to afterwards by car. Ahmed was driving his brother’s Porsche, so they let us into the luxurious lobby. We walked down to the immaculately groomed lawns along the beach, staring at all the rich white people, who stared back from behind their oversized sunglasses and Dan Brown novels. I wondered what they did with their lives otherwise that they were able to afford such a place. Canals between the pools had a current so that tubers could waft along without the hardship of paddling, and Indian caretakers worked meticulously to keep the shrubbery right and the tourists happy in their hammocks and lawn chairs. Out on the water, the seawall was composed of granite. The line between the greenery of the resort and the bleak, barren native rock of the area couldn’t have been more stark. I wondered what, if any, of Oman these people would see during their vacations.

Our next stop was a restaurant on the waterfront, which we promptly changed for something indoors after being attacked by flies. The food was good, but besides an aging writer looking thoughtfully out the window while making notes, we were the only patrons. Salim and Ahmed, just like Chenbl, always order too much food.

We came back to the hotel for a rest, and then we went out again for dinner at Salim’s house, which is large and comfortable. The women disappeared at one point to an area of the house where men are apparently not allowed, and we couldn’t see Salim’s wife, either, due to custom. The food was delicious, though. And there was too much of it. Salim and Ahmed demonstrated how Omani men apply various fragrances via oils, rosewater, and smoke. “Now don’t shower for a week,” they said.

2/19/2013
The hotel breakfast was very nice, as are the suites. In fact, there’s even a swimming pool on the roof, though we haven’t had time to use it. It seems people here stay out late; we’ve ended up eating dinner around midnight every day of the trip, it seems. Salim and Ahmed showed up around 9 and drove us to the huge Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which was filled with both worshippers and tourists. We navigated the well-kempt, manicured grounds, including shallow streams of water, to the mosque itself, first touring the women’s prayer hall, which was very nice, and then the main prayer hall for men, which was constructed in such a way that the first words out of anyone’s mouth upon entrance tend to be OMFG. It is incredible. The intricacy of the carvings, the massive chandeliers, the humungous dome, the light on the carpets – it’s really just spectacular. We walked around in our bare feet, our pants making corduroy noises on the carpet, before taking a look at the washing procedures as demonstrated by Salim, and then proceeding back to the parking lot. Before we got there, however, we were on the receiving end of one of the mosque’s holy men’s introduction to Islam, which included poorly designed literature with bad clipart and multiple fonts on the cover. I’d think that the people behind these things would put a little effort into them if they really want to convert anyone. Not to mention that the text inside made very little sense. They should just lead people into that main prayer hall, gesture at it meaningfully and say, “Uh-huh? Yeah?” with plenty of eyebrow motion.

Anyway. After that we visited Muscat’s old gates, a Dali exhibition at a history museum, and the Sultan’s hangout again, where I was motioned at for holding a camera in someone’s general direction. It’s very difficult to explain to people of a society that is convinced that photography is inherently dangerous that the result of such attitudes, especially in this ever-more-connected world, is a gradual disappearance from public reality of their entire country. But I guess that could be seen as a good thing, unless you’re banking on any kind of tourism.

Lunch was delicious rice and chicken dishes at what seemed to be the Arab equivalent of a fast food joint. Salim and Ahmed told us to eat with our hands, that it would taste better. I’m not sure it worked; the food was already pretty good while using the forks. It’s a Saudi franchise, and would probably do well in Taiwan.

We returned to Salim’ pimped-out Ford Edge, while the others took Ahmed’s 6.0-liter V8 Chevy Caprice out to the marina, where we booked a boat tour for tomorrow. Then it was back to the hotel for some rest while the sun went down. Ahmed has a cold, it seems, and needed a break. I guess everyone did. After a nap, I went up to the hotel roof and looked at the pool and the view of the various construction projects in the vicinity. Lots of Muscat is really only about 30 years old, and much of it is actually new.

Salim showed up around 6:15, and Ahmed considerably later. We drove up the mountain and over to the Muscat Festival, which is being held in a park. There we saw lots of cultural exhibitions, stalls, rides and shows. I rode a camel, which was surprisingly smooth except for the jerk it does when it sits down. I got the feeling I was expected to take pictures of the various exhibitions, but I’ve never been that kind of photographer. In fact, photography on this trip so far hasn’t really panned out. Then again, I knew it was going to be this way; there’s really no other way it could be. Logistically and mindframe-wise, it’s nigh on impossible, and that’s just the way it is. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

2/18/2013
Today was mainly about getting from Jordan to Oman. We rushed out of the hotel, breakfast still dripping from our mouths in the cold morning air, to the airport van, only to find the roads enveloped in thick fog. Fortunately this did not prevent our plane from leaving, and we were winging towards Dubai more or less on schedule, in spite of an impressive level of inefficiency at the Amman airport. When we were checking in, the staff member checked in four of us and then simply walked away without a word, leaving the other three. No replacement came, and we had to find someone else to finish the job. We also went through several X-ray machines for some reason.

When we got on the plane, a woman was sitting in my seat. She seemed intent on sitting in that seat, and I had to get the stewardess to explain to her that she was in my seat. She certainly didn’t seem happy about leaving it.

The flight was ok, and we dropped down into the smog surrounding Dubai just as I finished watching the Amazingly Unnecessary Spider-man Remake. Dubai Airport is an impressive mall that happens to have airplanes. However, despite its reputation as an international air hub, surprising pockets of ignorance show themselves at times. The man in charge of transit for Omani Air was adamant that the “China” in “Republic of China TAIWAN” on our passports meant we were from the PRC. “But it says CHINA!” he kept saying to the other person on the phone. Then, when he reported that our passports were in face green, not red, he relented.

I walked around the huge mall complex, played with a Fuji XE-1, and tried (in vain) to find something to do on my phone with the wifi that Saudi Arabia would allow. After we actually got on the plane to Muscat, a tiny, smart job, we had to wait for 45 minutes just to get a pushback out onto the runway. The flight was only half an hour or so, barely enough time for the staff to hand out blueberry wraps, but the British Businessman behind me seemed to really be enjoying his chat with an Omani man in traditional robes behind me.

Our Omani friends, Ahmed and Salim, met us as we walked in the door of the terminal, even before we’d had a change at immigration. It was a good thing, too, as the air staff were singling us out as we deboarded, asking us if we were truly going to enter Oman and not just fly off somewhere else. It was rather racist, really.

Salim and Ahmed drove us to our hotel, where we have suites, and then out for a small tour of the town, including the harbor, markets, the Sultan’s HQ, and dinner at an outdoor Turkish joint. Both appeared wearing the traditional Omani long robes and flat hat. I need to get my hands on some of those.

2/17
I got up at 7 a.m. and walked out into the desert a bit to watch the sun rise. It had just done so when the call of nature had me back in the latrine, so I missed a bit of the drama. Still, what greeted me when I got back was impressive, the scrub shadows slowly pulling in and some semblance of warmth pouring in from the sun.

As much as I would like to have stayed, we had to head on. Nabil overslept and had to be prodded into service at 9. I’d just discovered a nifty little path up into the rocks behind the camp, but there was no time to explore it, alas. Next time, perhaps.

We took a 4×4 back to the paved parts of the world, and piled into the van again. “To Aqaba?” I asked Nabil.

“To Aqaba!” he replied, smiling. Nabil is another Lawrence of Arabia fan and knew the film well. We chatted about it along the way, about what was accurate, what wasn’t, etc.

Aqaba is a lovely seaside town, it turns out, trendy and modern, with better weather than Amman. We took a glass bottom boat tour with a guide who explained the coral formations and pointing out a sunken tank and the remains of a WWI ship in French-accented English, despite the fact that he doesn’t speak French. Bubbles kept getting in the way of the view out the bottom of the boat, but it was pleasant just tooling around the Red Sea, in view of the three countries of Jordan, Egypt and Israel. Saudi Arabia was just around the corner as well, our boatman pointed out.

After the tour, we walked up the street and had some rather terrible food. Now, this was the point where I should have remembered that the family of a friend of mine, Khaled, actually owns and operates a Taiwanese restaurant in Aqaba, but my head was still so full of the amazing desert scenes of Wadi Rum, and my stomach still full of something rather nasty, that I completely forgot until we were well on our way back to Amman. I felt terrible about that, and I really will have to make another trip to correct this oversight.

We drove for about four hours, stopping again for Nabil to pray just before sunset, and though I was exhausted when we arrived back in Amman, I still managed to go out again with Basem, Mohammad, and Fahed to walk up and down the trendy Rainbow Street area, where Mohammad gave a kid 15 dinar for cakes that cost 20 (meaning the kid got the money and Mohammad didn’t have to eat the cake). Later we drove past the Palestinian refugee neighborhood where Basem does a lot of his work, and had a late midnight dinner at Hots.

2/16
Our driver Nabil, the same one who took us up north, showed up at 5 a.m. We piled in his van and headed south, past the Dead Sea and into the desert, where we stopped so that Nabil could get out and do his prayers before the sun came up. The cold, vast blue of the pre-dawn desert was something to behold, especially with the smoking van and Nabil’s prone figure set against the lightening sky. Distant phosphorus mines looked like castles on the horizon.

We stopped for breakfast at a roadside stand, lit impressively by the rising sun, as drivers of cars, trucks and buses came and went, all demanding food from the busy kitchen and staring unabashedly at the women of our group. We continued down to Petra, which seems to be more Impressive Tombs than an Impressive Ancient City. As we entered, men kept trying to get us on horses and donkeys and into carriages, claiming it was included in the ticket price. I preferred to walk though the maze leading to the Treasury, however, humming the Indiana Jones theme as I did so. I imagine I wasn’t the only one. Petra is another amazing city, though rougher. Bored older men stood in front of monumental tombs that reeked of urine, wearing bad centurion costumes, and the donkeys’ brays made me realize where Lucas came up with the Sand People noises. We got about halfway through it before realizing that we stood no chance of seeing it all in the allotted time, and turned back. Nabil had taken our spent batteries to a restaurant for charging, handily enough, and he was waiting at the treasury for us. Lunch was had after our discovery that Jordanians and non-Jordanians have different price structures, or at least they do at a certain Shwarma restaurant in Petra. Still, it was good shwarma.

We drove up out of town and through increasingly barren terrain all the way to Wadi Rum, which is truly spectacular, the massive outcroppings becoming bluer in the distance. Nabil pointed out the huge broken edifice that constituted the Seven Pillars of Wisdom from Lawrence’s book. After we’d gotten as far as we could by road, we took a jeep into the desert where Lawrence and Faisal met, saw the tracks they attacked, and a monument to them. Our guide wrote “Welcome to Torden” in the sand, and then changed it to “Welcome to Lorden” before the editor in me couldn’t help but grudgingly change it to “Jordan”. We watched the sun set from a rocky outcropping in the desert, the temperatures dropping rapidly, before heading to the camp, which is pretty nice. Our tent is on a slope and the food is too cold, but all in all it’s a cool spot.

After dinner, while the others sat around a small fire listening to music on Chenbl’s MP3 player, I walked out the camp’s gate, out into the middle of the desert. The vastness of the valley around me contrasted with the deep silence in a combination that threw me back into some forgotten state of mind, and I just stood there, enveloped, listening to the blood roaring in my ears, taking in the huge, ancient shapes of that world.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been informed that the camp shuts the power down at 10pm, so I was caught completely lathered up in the showers when I was plunged into complete darkness. Still more unfortunately, my stomach took great exception to the cold fare, and stumbling over rocks as I walked though the pitch-black camp at night to the latrine several times was not exactly pleasant either.