So... Thursday, Day 4 I got up and tried to get to the Jumeirah Mosque, which is the only one in the UAE that lets in non-Muslims. They do daily tours at 10am, but sadly I got stuck in an hour's traffic in my cab and missed the tour. So instead I tooled around Bastkiyah, which is this resurrected old town that mimics the Dubai of a couple hundred years ago. It was neat! But also 110 degrees out and I had no water, so I was wilting fast. I walked down to the river (actually an estuary) and walked along that to the Textile Souk, then recovered in a random hotel's air-conditioned lobby. God bless air conditioning.
I caught a cab over to the Mall of the Emirates, which is the big-ass mall that has Ski Dubai in it, the indoor Ski mountain. I didn't want to pay the money to play in the snow, but yes, it's a full ski slope and snow-fun-area inside of a mall. Pretty nuts. I also wandered the mall (all the food and drink places were closed) and sat in a massage chair for 15 minutes and got my rocks off from that. Then back to Orion's...
At Orion's I packed up all my crap, and we loaded up and drove to OMAN, baby!!! Oman is right next door to UAE, and was about a 2.5 hr drive (plus traffic). The Musandam peninsula (our destination) is considered "the Norway of the Middle East" because of its stunning fjords, so we wanted to take a day-long boat cruise on Friday to check it out. We drove up and checked into the area's nicest hotel (The Golden Tulip; don't get to excited this is Oman) and had a delish dinner in their restaurant. We hung out for a bit (closed this place out too), then crashed. Before falling asleep I heard smuggler speedboats coming in down the road from us from Iran, and also some insane cats that freaked me the fuck out and gave me weird nightmares.
Friday, Day 5 (today!) we got up early (I was up at 6:30am), and got ready, packed, had this ridiculous spread of a breakfast, and then met up with the tour operators. We got on the boat by 9:30 and were off on the Dhow with a bunch of random French (from Perpignan!!), Italians, Swedish gay boys, and 2 mixed American families. Oh, did I mention homosexuality is completely prohibited in the UAE (and likely Oman)? Poor little gay boys. :(
Anyways... like 5 mins into the cruise our boat was flanked by dolphins for like 15 mins, swimming aside us and leaping out of the water. How awesome is that! We basically spent the day cruising the fjords, swimming, snorkling, playing with dolphins, peeing in the water (maybe that was just me), and doing various other fun things. The tour guid Mohammed was hilarious... he played reggae for me and Orion on his phone, and showed us some funny youtube-like vids and some hardcore porn. Ah... the wonders of satellite internet. Random people who would otherwise face government-censored content get to explore all kinds of fun shit. Good for them!
But in summary, the day was awesome. I love Oman. The water was perfect, the people were super friendly, the Iranian smugglers were just trying to get some cigs, man, and hopefully won't get killed by pirates before they get home (sadly, it's likely they will)... we had a great time. The Dhow cruise was so fun... I highly recommend that anyone visiting Dubai take the time to do the day-long cruise from Khasab in Oman.
After the cruise, Orion and I cleaned up and drove back. Orion picked up a hitchhiker, but we only drove him like 15 mins down the road. =D He took me pretty much straight to the airport (where I am now), then headed home. So... I've got some pending posts on Dubai that I'll probly write when I get home (cause they're more general about Dubai)... other than that I think I've regaled you enough.
I sort of feel like I'm not doing Oman justice. I got an entire page in my passport stamped to hell by my ins and outs from Oman... oh, the sunset was beautiful tonight on the Persian Gulf. And, we were going to go off-roading in Oman (the Musandam peninsula is great for it) in Orion's Range Rover, but we ran out of time. :( Sadness. Probably for the best, though, as I was sure we'd break an axle and plummet off the side of a mountain to our deaths. Good times.
Annnnnnnyways. Signing off. I'm theoretically boarding my flight soon and will promptly get trashed on the free high-grade alcohol. I'm so tired from all the swimming today in the intense sun. And all the great food and snorkling and wildlife and dolphins. Oh, what a life... whoa is me!! =D
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