Category Archives: Oman

Day 245 – Back to school (8th Month-i-versary)

Today, we had the amazing opportunity to accompany our friends Lina and Michael to their workplace. They both work here in Sohar at an international school; one teaching secondaries and the other a bit younger ones. We tagged along on our bike, with the chance to meet staff, visit a class and have a general look around.

Sports Hall

Sports Hall

When we left at noon, it was once again one of those times where we had to pinch ourselves to believe that we really keep on getting these amazing encounters. Being able to sit with a class and see how much better school can be compared to what we were both used to from our own time at school was elevating. On top of that, we had the chance to hear an amazing author talk.

First we got a grand tour of the school. It is relatively small, even though it covers all from kindergarten up to the A-levels. A gym, dance and music halls and even a swimming pool on the grounds. We also got to say hi to a lot of staff, including George from Spain, who passed us on our way to school on a beautiful KTM 950 adventure. Always great to meet fellow riders.

Looking towards the building for secondaries

Looking towards the building for secondaries

After that, we joined Michael’s class for a lesson. They are just old enough to transition to a more self-managed style of learning. It was so great to see these kids picking up skills that a bunch of professionals I encountered in the past struggled with. As a bonus, we even got the chance to work with some of the kids. We both got interviewed for their current long term team projects.

Pretty impressed, we joined back up with Lina after the lesson and learned that we could hang around and listen in to Lorie Ann Grover presenting to Michael’s class and another one. Lorie Ann is the mother-in-law of another teacher. We already got a chance to hang out with her, her husband and daughter during our wadi trip on Thursday. Back then, we did not quite realize how much of an amazing person she was. We were also once again impressed with the kids. The were fully switched on during the talk and with their questions afterwards.

The shadow of the safety railing on our curtain. So pretty!

The shadow of the safety railing on our curtain. So pretty!

With a full day’s worth of new impression collected by lunch time, we got back on the bike and made our way “home”. Along the way, we stopped at the local mall for lunch and more importantly shopping at Carrefour for dinner. We promised Michael and Lina to prepare dinner for them tonight and Michael opted for Nachoes.

We came back with plenty of time to get everything ready. Imported Avocados from New Zealand proved, unfortunately, much better in Gisborne that Sohar. Overall, I hope it was still nice enough. Our hard working hosts definitive seemed to appreciate the gesture.

Day 244 – Oh gosh, it’s early…

First day of school. Well, not for us but, in solidarity, we got up at 6.15am as well to have breakfast together at 6.45am. So far so good. After a week here, this felt really early. And I was still soooooo tired.

View from the breakfast table

View from the breakfast table

So after Michael and Lina left, we exceeded in chilling. It contained napping for most of the morning, having a lazy lunch with Michael’s home-made hummus (delicious!) and then starting to look at the Lonely Planet recommendations online to get a feel for a possible route through Oman. But yeah, all in all, we didn’t do much.

When Lina and Michael appeared again around 5.40pm, they were incrediby tired, had things to do and tests to mark so we only enjoyed the Indian take-away food before everyone headed off to their laptops/kindle and did their own thing for a bit.

Day 243 – Stats 106 Thailand (and Pizza)

Today, we chilled … a lot. Shisha on the balcony, nice food all day long. Not really much to report other than my successful delivery of pizza after a nine month hiatus. Even improved my technique a little for that crispy crust …

Country data #6: Thailand

Full screen version of the map

  • 3853 km traveled (4030 km of GPS tracked) – odometer was out of order for a time
  • 286 km towed
  • 15 travel days, 12 days holiday, 39 days total
  • $23.91 Average cost per night (37x room, 1x camping, 1x airport, no invitation)
  • 188l of standard fuel for $  201.83 (5 l / 100km)
  • ~$25.86 for food every day, always eating out with some invitations
  • ~$10.250 in total, including medical, flights and bike shipping costs.

All $ values are converted to NZD.

Day 242 – Ancient lands

The Easter holidays of Lina and Michael’s international school were coming to an end. Today was the last day for any shenanigans as they needed the last day to prepare. Yes, school starts on Sunday. Which makes Friday and Saturday the weekend days. Now that I know, it seems very logical but really, I haven’t thought about it so it took me by surprise.

The road to the grave site ended quite abruptly

The road to the grave site ended quite abruptly

Another lovely long breakfast was had and then we decided to have a pot luck of sight-seeing. School colleagues had given Lina and Michael their GPS with many, many points of interest in the area on it. Not knowing what a lot of them were, we decided to check them out anyway.

The first one led us to old graves which lay very close to the road. A sign gave us at least the information of “old graves” and the information that violators will be persecuted. Apart from that, we were left to make sense of the scene ourselves. Slightly unsure, we looked out for stone heaps which we thought might mark the graves and pottery shards. Michael had been at an archaeological site with his class. Once you know what to look for, he said, you’ll find shards everywhere. So we kept an eye out for them, looked at them and then carefully placed them back. We pretty much did the same with interesting rocks we found.

Two very different qualities apparently from very different time periods.

Two very different qualities apparently from very different time periods.

From here, we went off road as the next point of interest was only 8km away. Maybe these tracks would lead there? Also Michael was keen to drive more off roads tracks. The scenery, again, was beautiful. When the tracks turned into a washed out riverbed, we stopped and hiked up to the ridge of the hill to have better views. Up there, many ruins of walls and houses could be seen. Also, the whole area was littered with pottery shards so we were especially careful. Here, we saw shards with patterns and even some with glaze or colour. I’m not an archaeologist by trade so my knowledge is not better than anyone else’s but as an art historian, this was amazing. Even just to look at without knowing much about it. Once back at home, Michael compared our photos with an archaeological guide book and the ones we saw were about 2000 years old.

The wadi has no flowing water, but the green shows where the water is hiding

The wadi has no flowing water, but the green shows where the water is hiding

Oman seems to be full of ancient relics. So many in fact, that some just won’t be worked on for decades to come. Not, if there isn’t an amazing new fund that sparks more interest in that particular site. However, the government is interested in preserving the past so that archaeologists check the areas that have been green-lit for building.

After this hike, we tried another point but couldn’t really find the off road tracks that would lead there. The one after that turned out to be an industrial mine (at least we think that’s what it meant as we ended up in one) so we stopped for the day. Instead, we had a lovely evening coffee at the mall.

Dinner was a homey affair. Lina and Michael shared their tradition of comfy burgers with us. To accommodate Nina, a vegetarian burger patty recipe was tried out. It was delicious and just the right finisher for an all around great day out.

 

Day 241 – Wadi picnic

Just keep following. And don't bump your head

Just keep following. And don’t bump your head

We had been thinking of going camping all together, but the recent heat made that a less appealing idea. Thus, we were keen to join when colleagues of Michael and Lina’s asked us to join on a picnic trip to a wadi nearby.

Wadis are valleys and rivers carved mostly by rain water. Some of them have running water at all times, some just after rainfalls. The one we went to today has water all year round enough for a swim in some places.

Mats are useful all around the world. Might need to buy cheap ones again

Mats are useful all around the world. Might need to buy cheap ones again

Given that we want to have as much time as possible for my arm to heal and we did not know the road, we decided to stick this one out in our friends’ 4×4. It turned out to probably have been the wiser choice nonetheless, since the road up the wadi had deteriorated quite a lot since our guides had last been there. Michael clearly had fun with it, which may not be true for everyone in our little tin can. Either way, Gandalf the White (their car) did a splendid job with the gravel track.

The picnic spot was superb and would be just as good for camping. Nice, even ground raised off high enough off the wadi floor and river to drastically reduce the risk of being caught in a flash flood (not that there was rain today, but people die every year in these). The view was great, the water was pleasant and there were perfect swimming holes nearby, shielded from the road.

Least appropriate swim wear. Exposed shoulders and legs are a no no...for men and women

Least appropriate swim wear. Exposed shoulders and legs are a no no…for men and women

So we enjoyed ourselves – first with a great picnic of delightful turkish food and later with a refreshing swim in the wadi. It was a bit awkward since we have the least appropriate swimwear for a Muslim country, but the good old Rarotongan sarong came in to the rescue. The water was beautifully cool and clear.

After a couple of hours we quickly packed everything up. The sun had come out in the meantime and the views all around were just stunning. Eager to have a bit more fun with the car, Michael convinced Lina and the rest of us to go and explore a bit further down the track and up the wadi. We drove up a hill, down the other side, crossing the river twice for about 800m when the little convoy was stopped again.

The recent rains seemed to have had a bigger impact than just making the road a bit worse. Here, the entire road has been washed away since our guides had last been here, down to the bare and jagged rock underneath. Even the decent 4×4 were not ready to cross the 60cm steps of rock that now lay were the road has been. It was nice enough, we walked around a bit more and enjoyed the landscape on foot before finally turning around and heading home in the golden afternoon light.

After all this excitement, we were all pretty hungry again. Instead of cooking home-made burgers for two hours, we went for lazy pasta which was soon done.

Day 240 – Exploring Sohar

look at all this food - wohoo!

look at all this food – wohoo!

It was late yesterday…for Lina and Michael who waited for us to arrive and for us who needed to ride to Sohar and clear a border in between. Thus, we were all rightly tired and took it slow. The best start into the day is a rich and long breakfast so Lina did her best to impersonate her parents who have perfected that art. What I am trying to say: Breakfast was amazing. From a breakfast egg to fresh bread to the veggie platter. As always, I ate too much and as Michael put it, breakfast took three hours. 🙂

By the time we were ready to explore Sohar, it was 1pm. Sohar is not really a tourist destination as we found out when we looked for things to do on the Lonely Planet website. To be honest, it asked us if we’d “gone off the beaten track?”. However, there are still things to look at so we started with a trip to the ocean. When we had looked at the temperature in Oman last week, it was around 25 degrees but today, the car showed a lovely 34 degrees outside. Lina and Michael assured us that it changed only a day ago but such is our luck…it is hot here as well.

These things looks the same all around the world ...

These things looks the same all around the world …

After a stroll along the beach, we drove to a Portuguese fort. There are renovations going on at the moment so it was closed to the public but we still managed to take some lovely shots of it.

The next attraction on the list was Sohar’s only mall. Recently, a “Chocolate Room” has opened there (Lina told me this a couple of weeks ago) so it was definitely a destination. Also, I really needed to keep my eyes open for a headscarf as the improvised black cotton would not do in this weather. So we entered a lovely little shop full of pretty scarfs and traditional male headwear…which were too pricey for us…but Lina said I can have one as a combined birthday gift. 😀 I now got an amazingly pretty, coloured, Kashmir-silk headscarf. So happy!

After this surprising gift, we went to the Chocolate Room and had hot chocolates. Can the day get any better?

Tired, we got home again. Too tired to cook, food (too much of it) was ordered. Well, since a picnic was planned for tomorrow, we were now all set of this as well. 🙂

Day 239 – Customs

We had a great breakfast among Afghan and Pakistani expats in a little restaurant near our hotel. Fresh bread, good coffee and tea all for 7 dirham (less than $3 NZ). Nina wisely ordered a second helping of flat bread to help us through the day should things not go to plan.

Pick-up of our passports with the visa in it!

Pick-up of our passports with the visa in it!

The Iranian embassy was a breeze – half an hour wait and we got our passports with the long desired visas back. We also met another overlander waiting there with us. He actually came from Iran with his family in a big truck but was now in the process of organizing to go back. His story was heartbreaking and another reminder that you just can’t plan for all that can happen on the road.

By the time we dropped off our rental car back at the airport, we had gotten an email status update on the bike. Unfortunately, it was a bit nondescript. Last night we were told it would take at least until noon to get it ready for pick up. Not sure what to do we decided on the half way solution of chilling for another hour and then getting over there to pick it up (which later turned out to have been a bad idea).

We knew that the bike needed to be picked up from cargo village further towards the inner city from the passenger terminal but we had no idea how far it would be. In the end, we decided on public transport because of our bags. After waiting 20 minutes on the right bus, we found out that it was only 5 minutes away. In the bus, I also landed my first cultural faux-pas by plonking down in the women and family section of the bus without realizing it. Another expat in the bus was kind enough to explain and I moved to the back of the bus before collecting a fine.

After wandering a bit in the massive area, we found ourselves in the equally massive customer service area of Emirates SkyCargo. We did not know whether or how much additional fees we would need to pay. 250 dirham was painful but still ok. After that we wandered conveniently over just across the corridor to the Emerati customs office to complete the import formalities.

This is where things went wrong for us. I knew that the U.A.E. is a carnet country and had all our documents ready. What I had not found out in time was that for us to be able to clear customs, I had to have insurance for the bike. The customs officer kindly directed us to a place in the next building where we could browse the internet to try and get Rocinante insured. It was made harder by the fact that we chose not to buy a SIM card for the two days in Dubai (we will sure never make that mistake again). We spent an hour but no insurance I found was willing to insure a non-resident. Defeated, we therefore went back to the customs officer. He was able to help us out and got us in contact with an insurance broker that would sell us one month worth of insurance.

Finally, we had made our way to the insurance company in a mall

Finally, we had made our way to the insurance company in a mall

From there, unfortunately, it took us almost two hours to get to the place where we could buy the insurance. In a series of follies we walked with all our luggage back to the terminal, did not find free WiFi, bought a SIM but realized that activation would take three hours, spent even more money on WiFi and finally hopped into a taxi to what we hoped would be the insurer’s office, with 40 minutes to go before they would close at 4 pm. Luckily, it was close to the airport and we got there in time.

Staff was lovely there and when one of the assistants heard about what we were doing, we got interviewed in-depth to the entertainment of all reception staff. This, together with the insurance certificate really lifted our spirits when we hopped into a taxi back to the Cargo Village.

This time we had all the required documents, but it was getting late. There had been a shift change in the meantime and the new customs officer got right to work. As often on our trip, we realized soon that we were the big exception in the way we travel. Having to deal with carnets does not seem to happen often. After the initial paperwork and payment of another 35 dirham, we were directed to the warehouse for a final inspection and to collect the stamps in the carnet.

Rocinante being delivered to us. Right afterwards, I was told off for taking pictures

Rocinante being delivered to us. Right afterwards, I was asked not to take any more pictures.

After all was said and done, the warehouse foreman looked at me and asked where my pick-up transport would be to get the bike delivered to. When I pointed at the bike he was confused, but soon I could get across that I was indeed intend on assembling the bike and riding it out. They dropped the pallet with the bike on an empty space outside and I got to work.

Nina’s worries that we would not be able to put the bike together were quickly dispersed. A bunch of warehouse workers were eager and helpful in uncrating and assembling the bike. By the time we finished, it was quarter to seven and the sun was about to set. What should we do?

I was keen on getting on the road. After putting Lina and Michael’s address into the GPS, I even thought we should stick with our initial plan and ride there all the way. After all, it was only 230 km. The only uncertainty was if the border would be open all night. Riding in the dark was far less of an issue. We saw from the plane that all major highways are lit at night.

Roadside fast food...really necessary as we skipped lunch

Roadside fast food…really necessary as we skipped lunch

We rode out of the Cargo Village and stopped at the next petrol station to fill up. The attached Pizza Hut provided the long overdue dinner and a chance to check with Lina regarding the border. By now, our phone was activated and we had 3G – wohoo! The border turned out to be open 24/7, so by 7.15 pm we were finally on our way (we planned to leave at 2 pm).

Just as we were finally cruising on the motorway, another issue came up. The ABS light was on and I suddenly realised why: The front sensor was not working … because I put the front wheel in the wrong way. So we pulled over in front of some car wash places and with the help of some volunteered Indian expats flipped the front wheel around in record time.

The road was smooth, in perfect condition and well lit.

Good roads, well lit, almost no traffic. We made good progress

Good roads, well lit, almost no traffic. We made good progress

We made it to the U.A.E. border in a little bit more than an hour. Leaving took a bit of time since we only found out after getting our passport stamped that the customs check point was actually before the immigration one.

Next up was Oman. The visa on arrival was straight forward – if a little painful for our strained wallets at this point. We decided to play it safe and went for the 30 day visa instead of the 10 day one. One last check of our bike insurance and we finally made it through at 11.45 pm.

Knackered but happy we arrived at our friends’ place. With just a hint of terror, we pushed the door bell of the flat we thought would be the right one. Luckily, regarding that it was 12.30 am, it was the right one. We got a warm welcome and collapsed soon after into an incredibly comfortable bed …