Logic of the hotel

Why is it, in hotels, that the bottle opener (fixed to the wall) is in the bathroom? Why not somewhere in the bedroom near the bar fridge? Maybe there's a real reason for this, I'm no hotel expert, but here are mine:

1. Most people drink their beer on the john: when they sit down and discover that these crazy foreigners don't use twist tops, it's mighty convenient to find that bottle opener there.

2. To discourage binge drinking: if you can't make it from the bar fridge to the bathroom to open that beer, you probably don't need it.

3. Safety of the kiddies: if the bottle opener was next to the bar fridge, every 7-year old would figure out why.

Any other suggestions?

The Muddle East Awards

Some overdue highlights.

Neolithic breakfast waiter: The Mercure, Luxor

This is where Sophie and I discovered that hysterical giggling keeps waiting staff at bay. This one particular guy would lumber over bearing a pot of coffee and kind of let out this long, deep grunt. It was too much to bear, and it wasn't long before we were practically snorting with laughter. We are nice people, really.

Identically cloned policemen: Egypt

I thought I was seeing things. Cast from the same mould, I tell you. Black hair, chiselled jaw, neatly trimmed moustache, serious yet handsome. All of them. Every single one. Pristine white uniform with pistol and rifle... sexy.

Bounciest bed: Crowne Plaza, Petra

After much jumping, flopping, crashing and diving onto, these came out on top.

Briefest flirtation: Holiday Inn, Amman

A series of smiles and waves between balcony and lobby in the space of about two minutes. What a smile it was.

Strangest dream: Crowne Plaza, Petra

My memory of this dream begins in a sort of department/hardware store, though I dimly recall something leading up to this point. There with me is Ian, an acquaintance from Melbourne, whom it would be difficult to find someone with a more disjunctive personality to my own. He is being violent, smashing things and I am failing to subdue him with words... then somehow or other, I think someone else says something, I have the realisation that Ian represents another personality inside me, and so it is in fact me that was smashing things. At this point I let out a soul-wrenching scream and collapsed to the floor, blacking out. I came to as people were carrying me into a whiteish building. But it was not nurses and a hospital, but people I used to work for at Linden art gallery, carrying me into their own splendidly decorated home. I groggily noticed white walls, nice rugs and a side-board w/mirror, and then through an interior window I saw a collared cheetah resting on a lounge. From the side-board, a kitten of similar markings to Krupnik stretched out to attack my hand, and left strange holes in it from which blood did not flow. Anyway, that's all I really remember. I blame it on the food.

Back in Muscat, almost home

I almost can't believe we survived our 10-day tour with so few hiccups. Maybe it will only be later that I discover that I picked up a rare fungal disease from putting my hand in the Nile. No, it looked very clean, very nice. It was so good to hear the Bulgarian girls again this morning. Coffee is sort of the reverse here as to Oz: you can find Turkish coffee everywhere and usually made quite well, espresso is rare, but 'American' (ie: filter) is common. Sophie still hasn't found her resident or drivers licence cards; I've told her to give in to the fact that they're currently doing the rounds of the Gulf black market. Having dinner with Lakshmi and her family at their home tomorrow night.

Dubai redeemed

The book on Keith Haring turned out to be a lovely cloth-bound edition published on the occasion of an exhibition of his work. Carefully selected works and essays, with special features such as a piece of black card similar to that which covered old New York subway advertisements that he would draw on in chalk and a centrefold. It was a bit dusty and but hardly what you would call tatty, however Sophie, ever the discount girl, suggested I ask for one. The guy at the counter carefully inspected the book inside and out, and pronounced a 20% discount! Had probably been sitting on the shelf for five years. Nice. I'll show it to you next time you visit.

This is the Muddle East

Are hotels all over the world surprisingly inept, or just here? We ordered breakfast to our room this morning, two of the "Healthy Breakfast": Bircher muesli, yoghurt, sliced fruit, dried fruit, nuts and fruit juice - yum. Sophie asked for tea, I asked for coffee. What did we get? Three weet-bix, toast, a bowl of yoghurt and two pots of coffee. Ok, at least they got our fruit juice right, and the grapefruit turned out to be the pink variety, which is extra nice. But what the f*#k is going on here??? We had to call reception to get the rest of our breakfast delivered, and even then only ended up with about 1.5 servings - hopeless! I don't want to seem like too much of a whinger (but you know I am), I just want to highlight the simple things that get bungled. In Amman, the driver dropped us at the airport, but he dropped us at arrivals instead of departures. Speaking of Amman airport, there's free entertainment in the carpark (as in Petra town, too): stray kittens playing around a tree. Mmm, very cute, but kinda sad, too. We saw many stray cats in Jordan, most of them quite young. Passed a pack of stray dogs on the way from Petra to Amman, as well as a dude hearding his goats, one of the dogs even had a go at the car.

Dubai

Been here since yesterday afternoon, and although it has very little of the traditional Muddleness, the city is fairly lacking in soul and heritage like Muscat and Amman. Currently in an Internet cafe/bookshop which is really curious in its book selection... there's heaps of books, but as I perused, I realised that I did not recognise a single book (yes they're in English). It seems to be a repository of failed books. Books that just didn't make it. It's mostly textbooks or pseudoscience, let me reel off some titles that I can see: UFO, World War 3.0, Knock 'em Dead, Banking Symbols, Supermotivation, The Incredible Machine, Model Memos, Fighting Words... every cliche in the book is here (ho ho). However, I did just spy a large hardcover book on Keith Haring, so I'm going to finish up and check it out. I'm quite ready to be back in Melbourne, or at least amongst my own culture... even to just hear some good music, have a normal day, talk to ordinary people instead of hotel staff, etc. Oh, went to check out the Soot music shop here in Dubai, one of only three or four in the world.... this multilabel clothing store called Five Green had a measly eight or ten pieces of vinyl. :( Oh well.

Welcome to the Muddle East

So most of what I've been saying has been recounting events, but now I want to try and share a bit of the flavour. They couldn't have organised crime here because of what the name implies, instead they just have corruption. Gina's husband Peter is almost at his wit's end doing business here, because nothing gets done without bribery. Or take the airports for example, there is rarely a queue in existence: you'll be checking in for your flight, and the next guy is leaning his elbow on your counter holding his passport, waiting for you to leave. Egypt was the craziest, especially the roads. Ignore the lanes, forget your indicators, just go for it and honk like crazy so that others hear you coming through. But everyone is doing that at the same time, on three or four lane roads without traffic lights that bend and swerve and do round-a-bouts and fly-overs and such. It seems that the only rule is that if you get in first and honk the most, others give way. It felt like you don't need to look behind you, because everyone is actually watching out in front of them to see what you're doing, because you might do anything. The only time indicators really get used is when you chuck your hazard lights on in the middle of traffic, just to let those behind you know that you've had to slow down to 60 km/h. Our first taxi driver had, honestly, six or eight mirrors all over his windscreen so that he had eyes in the back of his head. The second taxi driver just had a huge convex mirror, and liked using his arm to indicate turning left. They're funny salesmen in the tourist area the Egyptians, no-bullshit phrases like "I don't know what you're looking for, sir, but I'm sure I can sell it to you. Just tell me how I can get your money from you as quickly as possible." Or the Jordanian at Petra offering a ride on his donkey "Ferrari? Air-conditioned taxi?" Getting back to the 'organisation', I was reminded of a class at TAFE many years ago, where in order to explain different organisational structures, the teaching aids (props) gave racial names to them. So there was the Western model, which is your typical pyramid hierarchy, one box at the top connected to more below by lines and repeated. There were one or two more structures, maybe a flat model which is just one horizontal row of boxes, one connected to the next. The last model was just a whole lot of boxes scattered randomly with no lines connecting them at all; this was the Arabian model. Yes, schooling really taught you things back in the days before rampant PCness. Oh, when we went to catch our flight from Luxor to Cairo, our ticket had 11:15am, and our boarding pass had 10:30am. And, there was no-one at the gate or anywhere nearby to ask about it. It wasn't till about 11am that some dude yells out "Cairo! Cairo!" that we were sure. Then when we get to Cairo, a member of airport staff tells us that we have to go upstairs to get our connecting flight. He then says, "by the way, can I use your passport to buy something from duty free?" Then there's the passport photo issue - some customs officers didn't even look at my photo. I'm fairly sure about this, because it usually took two or three looks and a shake of the head before the rest would dubiously stamp it and return it to me.

Amman

Boring. Caught a bus to downtown, the old part of the city. Stayed on the bus till the terminus, which is surrounded by stalls. It stinks badly there, and there are lots of locals doing shopping for crap. I just noticed that the brand name on the mouse that I am using is "Nopoos". Downtown was more crap. The people here dress in fairly ordinary western gear. Most women's clothing is bad '80s stuff, but of course they wear a head scarf, too. So when I noticed a Gulf Arab in his pristeen white dishdasha with three or four black abaya + burka clad wives in tow, it really stood out.
We had dinner in the Chinese restaurant at the hotel, which is called Beyond Rangoon (which is in Burma), and met the chef, Chung, who was quite friendly. There were one or two weddings on at the hotel every day, punctuated by loud Syrian percussion (apparently). Lady that worked in the gift shop was, not surprisingly, sick to death of hearing it.

Luxor

Luxor is something like a thousand kilometres south of Cairo, and also on the Nile. It's where the Valley of the Kings, Karnak Temple, Luxor Temple, and a swath of other crumbling places can be found. They like their obelisks, too. Anyway, we reached Luxor after an overnight train trip that wasn't too bad, although I'm surprised that I slept at all because the train seemed to continually shudder and vibrate, and the door made this awful metal against metal squeek sound at the big shudders, but I fixed that by stuffing a curtain between the door and the jam. Which reminds me: When is a door not a door? When it's ajar. Hah, hilarious, no? I'll try it on the Jordanians and see how far I get. Which is actually where I am now, a dingy Internet cafe in Amman near the bus terminus. But anyawy, Luxor... look, I have to say that I have generally been under-awed by the ruins and temples, etc. I love the history and ideas behind them, but seeing them in the, uh, stone isn't always impressive. Luxor temple was pretty cool because you were walking amongst gigantic pillars, and the sheer size of them was impressive. This feeling was even surpassed at the sound + light show at Karnak temple, where similar pillars were lit from below, enhancing the towering sensation. That, however, were the only good few minutes from an otherwise crap 'sound + light' show. What's more fascinating is the people we met, but it's certainly trickier to explain. It's so strange leading the 'tourist life' or being on the "tourist trail", as it's so far removed from my every day life. Here, we tend to get ushered from one tourist trap to another, whether it be a ruin or a restaurant, where the locals see you as a walking ATM machine. Pop you in the right chair or shop, and comes the money. Fortunately we're not completely foolish, just partially, and usually avoid the traps. But I'm so sick of the crap quality of everything that we keep experiencing, that they can get away with just because you don't know where else to go, or because it's covered in the varnish of "being on the Nile", etc. Like the hotel and restaurant, ok, the hotel wasn't crap, just tacky, but the restaurant food was crap, and we didn't even get to see a menu when we ordered so we didn't know what the price would be. It was more than we expected but not exorbitant, but then they didn't even accept VISA and they exist to rip off tourists!! Bizarre. So we had to stiff them 4 Egyptian pounds since we didn't have enough to cover the bill. :) Our tour guide, Ahmed, did select the restaurant for us because they were also able to provide an authentic Arabian minstrel to soothe our ears, so I can't complain too much. Well, yes I can. Not about the music, which was cool - the Arabian version of a guitar and a soulful crooner more reminiscent of the Imams that sing the call to prayer than of a typical guitar singer-songwriter. Earlier in the day, we did have a felucca ride on the Nile before sunset, and that was fucking bliss. For the actual tours of the ruins, etc in Luxor we had a nice guide, Hala, who was actually an Egyptologist, and she was pretty funny once she warmed to us. I think it was the first time I had a chance to flirt with anyone for the whole bloody trip.

Is that a huge moustache in your photo or are you really a terrorist?

It finally happened: the staff at our hotel in Luxor didn't believe that I was the imposing looking man in my passport photo. (At the time of my passport photo, I had a huge moustache that curled at the ends like Dali, and long hair that fell in front of my ears - the photo is somewhat intimidating.) So they asked for more ID and asked me to replicate my signature... fascists! Most customs officials look at it, look at me, and just smile. But then on the way out of Cairo, at the last flag, this policeman said something to me in Arabic whilst pointing at the photo. I gave him my best stupid tourist expression but he insisted on making his point. Again he pointed at the photo, gestured the moustache shape whilst saying something in Arabic, and finally gave me the big thumbs up. Phew! Wish I still had for this trip, I think they would have worshipped me.

Cairo 2

The second day in Cairo we had to ourselves, and we just caught a taxi to a place which turned out to be a tourist haven, but there was some great architecture. We walked off and found Al Ghubri mosque, which was built in the 1500s and was beautiful inside. We even got to climb the minarette to the top, the experience of which was a little reminiscent to climbing one of the spires of the Sagrada Familia (or however it's spelt). However, 10 of the steps were in pitch darkness, which was a little nerve wracking at first in such a confined space. The view at the top was fantastic, though. Anyway, kept wandering, very friendly locals. Saw a guy at work doing blacksmithing or something. Cairo rocks! Arrived in Amman last night after a day in Luxor. Am very sick of being a tourist, was ready to hit someone yesterday. :)

Cairo

Wow. First impressions on the drive from the airport to the hotel are that Cairo looks amazing! Gritty sand-coloured highrise apartments and accommodation that range from squalor to passable are everywhere, interspersed with mosques, churches and other European architecture. Busy roads with lots of honk and tooting, everyone weaving in and out of each other, miraculously without crashing.
Saw the pyramids and sphinx yesterday: they're not very impressive in real life. Hah, sorry! Museum of history was pretty cool, though, there's so many pieces from temples everywhere that reach quite high that it's like walking through an actual temple at times! Had dinner at a cool restaurant that was a little like a cross between Momo and the Supper Club, but not quite as elegant. Must dash, more later!

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

That is the title of a book that I just read. It only took me a few hours to read it, as it is quite engrossing and somewhat like a children's story. It is somewhat like a children's story, because it is written from the perspective of a 15-year old with Asperger's syndrome, which you can look up on Wikipedia. The author is Mark Haddon, and... I really recommend reading it. A curious mathematical puzzle from it that I want to share with you is called The Monty Hall Problem:

"You are on a game show on television. On this game show the idea is to win a car as a prize. The game show host shows you three doors. He says that there is a car behind one of the doors and there are goats behind the other two doors. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the door is not opened. Then the game show host opens one of the doors you didn't pick to show a goat (because he knows what is behind the doors). Then he says that you have one final chance to change your mind before the doors are opened and you get a car or a goat. So he asks you if you want to change your mind and pick the unopened door instead. What should you do?"

Interlude: The Glue-sniffing Omani of Ruwi

Ruwi is the Little India of Muscat, and it is there that we encountered the glue-sniffer. I had been nagging Sophie to visit Ruwi since I heard that it was an ideal place to buy Jubba or Kurta (and pajama), two types of traditional Indian garb. I thought it would be suitable for the hot weather here, and I'm not particularly keen on the giant art smock frocks that are the traditional Omani style. Getting into Ruwi was a feat of intuition in itself, as we had only a map drawn by someone that didn't drive a car (which is essential unless you're Indian in which case taxis are cheap) and Sophie's confusion of left and right to guide us. Incredibly, we came upon a busy street lined with shops that jiggled something in Sophie's memory, actually is mostly incredible that it jiggled something in Sophie's memory rather than the fact that we found the street. (She is reading over my shoulder as I write this.) We turned onto this busy street with a mixture of positive hope and desperation that there was no other choice. Within moments we were almost hysterical with glee as we pulled into a parking space directly in front of our holy grail of hindustan attire, Fashion Planet. It was as we fumbled with 25 baiza coins and deliberated on which shop might change them into 50 baiza coins without expecting us to buy something that he appeared. Drawn of face and arched of back, he lurched into view on the busy footpath in his dirty dishdasha, clutching his can of 7-Up. Sophie and I knew what was coming next and locked our doors. (As a rule, I don't give money to beggars, but not out of disregard for their plight.) Gesticulating enigmatically with jerky affect yet moving at a viscous pace, he moved around the car to saw and grasp at the air with his free hand before Sophie's window, pausing occasionally to drink awkwardly and ineffectively from his softdrink can. Feeling threatened and awkward in our ignorance of the social mores of this society, and resentful of the untenable position in which we felt ourselves placed, we looked at each other and conversed stiffly about what to do. Meanwhile, the mostly toothless mouth in the centre of the saggy, stubbly skin continued to bob to and fro outside. Sophie's resentment overcame her feeling of embarassment, and we waited a tense few moments until he ambled off back to the sidewalk to pester a local about our lack of generosity no doubt. Quickly, we left the vehicle and made a bee-line for Fashion Planet. Our transferal from one safe haven to the next did not go unnoticed by our persistent friend, however, and he pursued us at his halting step, into the shop. Like good timid Westerners, we just let the staff of the shop confront and usher him out. Sophie half watched him go, and thought she even saw him kick our car on his way past. That little incident over, we went upstairs where I selected a jubba & pajama outfit from the enormous range of two (in white). It has some pretty embroidery around the button placard and at the seams where the sleave joins the shoulder. Unfortunately, I think it has a lot of polyester in it, 'cause I was sweating terribly on the day I wore it. However, this is made up for by the fact that the brand name and logo is "Swastika".

Two memorable days, part two

Then on Saturday, we did the hotel thing! First we had lunch at The Chedi (which means something like temple-shaped), which is styled in a beautifully simple Asian way, using Middle Eastern influences. External walls are white and mostly geometric, windows have dark wood lattices, there's the occasional rock pool with large stone slab steps through it. A very tranquil feeling in the grounds. Inside the lobby is very comfy with like a huge bed in the middle, except it's higher and softer and is square with a large pole in the middle that is surrounded by sumptuous cushions. Natural light comes through a strangely translucent domed ceiling. Around the wall are unpartitioned cubicles comprising a couch, table and 2 chairs or such, again with dark wood frames from memory. Dining area was well presented, though uncomfortably formal. All the waiters were Indian, nice simple uniforms. But you know, that expensive atmosphere doesn't usually make Sophie and I comfortable, but we relaxed into it after a while. After lunch, we walked around the premises, had a look at another cafe area which was open to the environment and looked across a dark-tiled swimming pool to the beach. All the lawns were perfectly manicured, etc... very picturesque. Next we drove to one end of Muscat, to the Al Bustan hotel, which is set out by itself at the end of a little peninsula. It looks like a squat, fat, ugly sand-coloured space ship. You enter through two sets of typical dark-tinted glass doors into what is essentially the lobby, and that's about when your jaw hits the floor. If you think you might ever go there, and you don't want the surprise ruined, you better stop reading now. There is an octagonal atrium situated in the middle, with a side length of roughly 12m (area ~700m²), and a height of over 30m, capped by a domed ceiling that lets in natural light through eight portals. The huge arches on each side which reached around 20m in height are plated in gold, the internal walls of the atrium have a greenish Arabian style pattern on white tiles.. actually, you can see for yourself here: http://al-bustan.intercontinental.com/mschb/photo_05.html
A completely different feeling to The Chedi (http://www.lajoiedevivre.co.uk/spa_mideast/chedi.htm), as you can see. However, we got chatting to the floor manager, Murli, and after we mentioned that we'd been to The Chedi, he asked if we'd like a little tour of hotel! Of course we accepted, and my goodness, he took us everywhere, and I had no idea how HUGE the building was until we'd seen the numerous restaurants, function halls and auditorium! We even got to peek into the locked room that the hotel was built for the purpose of, the special room with flags of probably Arab nations hanging at the back, where the big wigs from different countries came for some special conference. Cool stuff, lots of rooms that look like they're straight from the world news or a James Bond set. No time for details now, must dash!

Two memorable days, part 1

Friday was great. The Omani that we went bowling with the night before, Khalid, invited us to a traditional lunch at his place on their holy day (Friday). He lived out in what looked like the Doncaster of Muscat - big new estates with no landmarks or shops, but they have roads that are straight (unlike most of the country). The house had a somewhat Italianate style to it, oh, all buildings in Muscat are either white or cream or similar, by decree of the Sultan. Big dark wooden front doors... I actually don't remember the details too well, but there were definitely pillars out the front. And steps that lead down and fanned out from the front door to the front yard, which had no soil or grass. Anyway, interestingly enough, we weren't invited to see around the house - we entered by a front door that lead straight into a lounge room for entertaining, and I noticed that others were entering and leaving the house by the other front door that lead into another area also adjoined to the lounge that we were in. Anyway, in this lounge, white walls, curtains & rugs in mostly creams with brown details, big lounge-suite in, oh, kind of orangey-camel colour? With fringing, like on cowboy shirts. Yeah. So there's picture frames kind of built into the walls, no colour just a raised and ornate pattern in the shape of a frame. In one of these faux frames is hung an old fashioned hunting rifle. So we talk about hunting and the politics thereof for a bit, what you can/can't hunt (Khalid's English was good but not great), apparently you can't hunt anything in Oman anymore. Then he left the room to check on lunch, and of course I couldn't help making the smart arse remark to Sophie that I'm sure hunting Kurds was still ok. We started snorting with nervous laughter at the inappropriateness and only just managed to control ourselves before he came back into the room. We met his mother, but it was only brief, as she didn't speak English.
OH, before I go any further.... first there was the question of the suitability of a rose. Sophie decided to bring a present, and so she bought some chocolates (how suburban) and a _single red rose_, for Khalid's mother. I couldn't help thinking that the single red rose, with or without chocolates, was going to convey an ambiguous message, regardless of culture. Don't ask me where Sophie gets these ideas from. So yeah, we skipped the rose.
Lunch was served by his mother, and there was a large dish of rice, mixed with small pieces of chicken and the odd vegetable - but primarily rice (reminiscent of fried rice). And the rice was one of three types of rice that they serve, it was slightly off-white in colour, the other two types being saffron and plain white. Then there was fried fish that was eaten in pita bread with a stick of lettuce and lime juice. A plate of grated carrot and some green vegetable salad, paranthesised with chillies and limes; homemade pita bread; yellow dates, from their own farm; a fruit platter with bananas, cherries, Omani mango, Pakistani mango and oranges; that's all I can remember from the initial course. It was all laid out on a mat on the floor, which we sat around. After we'd eaten for a while, his little sister brought in two courses of desert and coffee: the first was like a rice pudding with cardamom, except that the consistency was more like jelly - there were no distinct rice granules. The second course was an ice-cream and biscuit cake that I wish I'd had more room to stuff myself with. Both were delicious, combining subtle flavours and delicate consistencies. All the food was great, and like the desert, usually subtle in flavour. Only the natural flavours of the fruit were strong. Omani coffee, unfortunately, is disappointingly like tea. It's weak and thin, even though it's apparently made in the same way as Turkish coffee (which I love for living up to the quote of being black as hell, strong as death and as sweet as love). The coffee was served, however, using traditional crockery (not quackery)... which was nice.

In the early evening we visited one of Sophie's teaching colleagues, Gina, and her husband Peter for an altogether different experience. They live in what might be called the British quarter of Muscat, just near the British Council. They are British, after all. The area seemed more verdant, from memory... the Omanis aren't particularly interested in gardens. Anyway, Peter had spent a couple of years in Muscat before the current Sultan's coup, back when Omanis were still bedouin and there practically was no electricity, around 1970. He was a soldier at the time and only hinted at stories of slave ships from ... damn it, I've forgotten where exactly... but Oman's main industry was still slavery and gun-running up until the coup, but it's very hush-hush and very few Omanis want to talk about it. He specifically recalls a ship with a dozen or so black eunuchs on their way for the Sultan. Crazy times, for sure! As I said, now it's all bloody paved roads, Mercedes Benz and Starbucks. In Muscat, anyway... the Interior seemed more interesting and 'authentic', but our escort at the time wasn't very patient. That was Thursday. But yeah, Gina and Peter were really nice, and their house actually had a large garden, which is a change from the usual rocks, stones and concrete that I see. Learnt a lot about Omani politics, too much to relate here, and we had a charged discussion about drugs and addiction, me pushing my usual naive idealist perspective.
Anyway, that's enough for now. By the way, you can post comments to these if you like, just have a look for the button somewhere. If I'm really being far too verbose, just let me know, as I'm a bit conscious of it at the moment, not having a personal written diary to complement this public blog. Yeah, whatever.

Ask and ye shall receive

11:30am - I don't if blogger.com is going to get the time correct, so I'll just include it manuall for now. Anyway... taking it pretty easy here in Muscat, as I soon discovered that it, and Oman, don't really have much to offer. :) Ah, yes, I'm so hard to impress, I know.... but honestly, the Omanis (stop me if you've already heard this) are enthralled with modernity and have made little effort to preserve their own culture. We went for a drive yesterday with Gerard, who also works here at Hawthorn Language Centre (that's what it's called here in Muscat, as it's the sister to a school in Hawthorn back in Melbourne). Anyway, we saw a few 17th C. forts, but... well, they just didn't do it for me. Took a few photos, sweated in the heat, etc. Yeah, sorry Oman, but you're just not that fascinating. Anyway, later in the day we were back at the shopping malls... bought some sandals and again encountered these public anti-drug notices that are pinned up in most of the malls. They're quite an extreme demand-reduction approach, suggesting that drugs lead to (this is my favourite) "death, destruction and hell", or that cigarettes lead to injecting, with pictures of skeletons to demonstrate. Mmm, subtle. So, a little concerned that I would give the wrong impression, I took a deep breath and inquired if I might be able to acquire a copy of one (my favourite). Well, the Indian guy that ran the till on that floor called out to some Omanis on a floor below, they rushed up and he explained to them, they rushed off again, the Indian smiled politely "Wait a moment", I smiled back and prayed that Allah would be merciful to my whimsical request... sure enough, the two Omanis came back with about a dozen posters that turned out to be on thick card, and I walked away with two copies of three different designs. They're really hilarious, so backward in terms of approach, I can't wait to show them off.
Last night, well, I can still hardly believe this myself, but, we went bowling. Yeah, not my idea of fun, but it was ok, except that it tore part of my thumbnail off (delicate flower that I am). But, as I might have said, I've realised that Muscat is not going to be a cultural extravaganza, but just a chance to relax and have a holiday. There's still a souk or two to check out, but I'm not holding my breath. Not much music to listen to here, unfortunately, pretty much limited to a couple of Dead can Dance albums and the Bulgarian country girls. However, the music shop that we popped into did have a vast array of locally produced cassettes that I'm tempted to invest in maybe even just for the tacky pictures of the performers on the front. Yeah, there's some local culture for you. So anyway, although Muscat/Oman is disappointing on the culture/entertainment aspect, I am enjoying being here, meeting people, laughing at tall men in flowing white robes trying to bowl graciously, and picking sand out of my food (no, not really). And, I'll probably need the rest before our intense 10 day tour of Egypt, Jordan and the UAE on the 8th.