As some of you may have heard, Pete and I have jumped on the "why the hell not" bandwagon and moved to Salalah, Oman. We've spent the last few days at the airport trying to retrieve our luggage *never fly Oman Air, or at least bring all baggage with you on the plane and don't check ANY OF IT*, snorkeling with Iranians, being introduced to "His Excellency," wandering around the ridiculously large and marbled new palace we've been offered as part of our work contract, drinking free, freshly and locally grown and squeezed any-fruit-you-want juices at the Hilton *where our work is based*, chasing camels, goats, cows, gazzelles and sheep out of the middle of the road, and watching heaps of dolphins and hairy fat men jump around in the ocean. It's been quite an experience so far.
This is all started when we realized that work at the dive shop in Railay, Thailand was really not to our liking. Not to dwell or anything, but the manager was a completely disgusting, shamelessly sleazy, nauseatingly nefarious, rotting fucking alcoholic warthog with absolutely nothing to offer the world in the way of usefulness, reliability or management skills. Actually anything related to sobriety was beyond his realm of understanding. So.... we did a little talking and a little emailing and here were are in Salalah, and about a gazillion times happier. It took a week of being holed up in a 5 star hotel in Bangkok due to the airport closure, with only 100 dish buffets 3x daily, steam rooms and delightfully fluffy King sized beds to jump on, to offer us solace. After staying at fairly ratty hostels and a house furnished with a bed and random cupboards that smelled of low tide when you were so unfortunate as to turn your face into them, we found ourselves quite tickled and thanking those Thai PAD protesters while we forked into the 7th course at breakfast. *OK, it wasn't that gluttonous, but damn near close.* I'm using a Slovenian computer and can't find the parentheses button, so sorry....
So Oman. A few things: Oman is surrounded by Saudi Arabia and the "Empty Quarter" to the west, UAE to the northwest, Yemen in the south and 1,700 kilometers of coastline on the eastern side. The Sultanate is really full of wonders. His Majesty Sultan Qaboos is gay *don't tell anyone, it's not exactly kosher around here, even tho the man has almost single-handedly made this country as successful as it is today and is very highly revered despite his gaiety and gayness. Salalah has been a major trading port for Frankincense for ages, and altho the smell reminds me of my Grandfather's Catholic funeral when I was 12, it's not so bad. I guess. Yesterday I stopped the truck for camel crossings at least 5 times, turn on the Emergency lights and W-A-I-T while they sniff the air for the stench of their personal leader: the poopy ass one foot in front of their face or maybe they will stoop down to see if there might be some grass growing from the pavement by your window. Stupid and funny looking animals. If you hit one in the daytime apparently you can be fined up to $100,000. So drive slowly. Hitting one at night relinquishes you of responsibility, so you can drive as fast as you want. And people do; I think the worst drivers I've ever come across have all congregated in Salalah, and the ones who couldn't handle just driving shitty without alcohol all moved to Cape Town where the beer is cheap and readily available.
The camels aren't really used for anything but status symbols it seems, and occasionally milk and beheadings on the auspicious occasion of Eid-Ad-Adha *the Feast of Sacrifice*, at the end of Ramadan beginning December 8. Beheadings happened at intersections, on the sidewalks downtown, on the left hand side of the road, on door stoops, anywhere, really. And then, apparently the Indians who live in town, most of them vegetarian, have to then clean up after the decapitations. Very nice.
So far we've been hanging out with the Tomb of Job from the Old Testament, archaeologists excavating a 4,000 year old settlement down the road, a civilian F-16 instructor, His Excellency of course, dolphins and guitar sharks. And, thank Allah, our bosses could not be any sweeter this go-around.
The weather here is clear and a lovely 26 degrees. Yesterday, and amazingly the day before were exactly the same! This will continue until March at least. And coming from rainy rainy Thailand, we're quite happy. Nights are deliciously cool and quiet, minus the Call to Prayer *which still wakes me up every morning at sunrise. I'm sure that soon I will be able to sleep through that, the hollow banging noise coming from the patio upstairs, the doves cooing into the air conditioning, and Glen, the snoring Canadian with a badly tuned French horn for a nose at night. Soon....
I will try and write more *if this is possible after the quarterly novellas i always send out and will take photos and upload them to flickr. And I finally joined facebook, so stop telling me I really need to; I've got a nasty head cold; my luggage is slated to arrive "tomorrow"; I got the company van stuck in the sand the other day and had to have some local Bedouins drag it out for me with their Land Cruiser while I sheepishly tried to pretend it wasn't me who was in charge, *this happened the day before yesterday to the boss, so I don't feel so bad now*, tonight is "Mexican Night" at the buffet and I can't wait to start eating.
