An 8 Hour Bus Ride

I wrote this a few days ago, but never posted it:

I just got to the crew yesterday after my two days of getting paid to sit in Muscat : ) Cause the dirt runway in Nimr is still wet, I ended up taking an 8 hour bus ride instead of the usual 1 hour flight.

I saw date farms. Rows and rows of big palm trees with what looks like giant bunches of yellow-brown grapes. There were this strange brightly colored fruits in a few of them, which I later realized were children. They had shimmied up to pick some dates. Their feet were up next to their hands. All I saw was a curved back dressed in a colorful shirt. Tucked in between the big palm leaves it looked just a fruit.

I discovered a new favorite food. Every 300m of road, throughout Oman, there are little coffee shops with the name "Golden ___ Coffee Shop". You may fill in the blank with a word such as sheep, spoon, castle, goat, camel, etc. They remind me of street vendors in Philly. They sell chicken sandwiches that are to die for. Curried roasted chicken, cucumber, fresh cabbage, sourcream, and hot sauce, all wrapped in a fresh chewy pita. They are small, I'd get 3 for lunch. The shops also always have a variety of smoothies. I get mango. They take the mangos right off the shelf and blend em up with ice and yogurt. Fresh as can be. Such a meal costs around 500 baisa (a buck twenty-five in US money).



At an omani truck stop. I peed in a bathroom that wins the title for "Most Disgusting Bathroom I've Ever Seen". The floor was covered in 1/2cm of brown liquid. The toilet was pit style, just a metal encassed hole in the ground. The wet floor made me fear that some people had missed. I squatted. Then I went to wash my hands. I turned the grimy handle, a cold trickle came out. As I rinsed my hands I realized the water was pouring directly through the drain to the floor.

Now I'm back at crew. I'm currently overwhelmed with work details that I forgot, but I'm sure it will come back in a few days. Its been raining so much over the past couple months that there are toads all over camp. I had a real nice first day of welcomes from everyone. I'm happy its my third shift and I'm not new anymore.

Muscat and Cyclone Gonu

I just returned to Oman after a wonderful 25 day vacation. (imagine a monday multiplied by 10)

I had the unique experience of seeing Muscat one week before Cyclone Gonu hit, and then again two weeks after it hit, as if I were set up to do a scientific before and after comparison.

Before the cyclone hit, I took four days of my vacation to explore Muscat. It was a good time. I went snorkeling. I swallowed a bit of sea water getting the hang of it, but once I got the hang of it, it was great. I saw a sea turtle and lots of pretty fish and lobsters and anemonies. Later, I walked along the beach and saw lots of critters: crabs and clams of varyious shapes and sizes. I braved Ruwi, an older, crowded shopping district where people haggle. I was the only person who was not a dark-skinned male. It felt like walking around in a clown suit.

Another day I tried to drive down the coast to a city named Sur. I only made it halfway. I ended up getting lost...or rather, I got lost many times, and around the 10th time I got lost, it was in this village with a mainstreet the size of a sidewalk. The street was lined with sofas, seated on which were white-bearded Omani grandfathers who were watching kids playing and goats roaming....and the strange foreigner in a rental car. I felt like an intruder driving through someone's living room. After driving through twice in search of the correct turnoff, I just couldn't bear driving through a third time, so I turned back. It was okay, my wanderlust had been well satisfied for the day.

When I came back from Muscat a few days ago, the first evidence of the cyclone I saw was was a Toyota dealership a quarter mile from the office. It was completely destroyed. It resembled a nasty highway pileup involving one thousand cars. Car after car was smashed into the car in front of it. In one place cars were piled three high from the water.



It was raining down south when I arrived in Oman, so the dirt airstrip I usually land on in Nimr was unusable. While waiting for it to dry, I got two (paid) days to explore post-cylone Muscat. Luckly that Toyota dealership close to my office was the worst damage I saw. If the whole city had been as damaged, there wouldn't be much of a city left. The beach, however, was also quite affected. It was 1/3 of its previous size. Parts were completely washed away, causing me to detour through empty city streets. I hardly recognized spots I'd been to before the cyclone. Occasionally, I'd see a storefront I recognized, but the beach itself was completely reshaped. I couldn't find my sandbar with all the hermit crabs : (

I hope the city recovers well. It's so nice to see a thriving friendly city in the Middle East. I've gotten attached to it.

And a side note: Oman makes me feel more bad about global warming. It's a country where they heat is at the limit of what is habitable. If it gets any hotter it will cook the Omanis. Also, since the interior is so desolate, all the life is on the coast, which is exposed to hurricanes and floods and the like. Suck.

an article about the cyclone from Gulf News

Alright, that's all for now.