Tis the season to be Jolly......Salalah lalalalala!

March 28

Salalah, Oman

So I realize I haven’t blogged about this place yet. I was going to, but nothing incredibly memorable happened here. So, read on if you care to pass the time haha. So, we get out of the boat, and immediately we are told it’s going to cost 20 bucks a person just to get into the town. The surroundings looked unimpressive by the port. Just miles and miles of desert and brown. Not the pretty kind of desert like Dubai either. I think Osama Binladen may have once been hiding in one of these dunes….(too soon?)haha Anywho, we decided we would take the free shuttle to outside of the port gates and see what kind of deal we could make with the thousands of taxi driver men who were desperate to have us as customers. There were 6 people with us as a group, so we wanted to go in a van….and we negotiated with one of them 5 bucks there, 5 bucks back. That’s it. So, we get into the van, and we try to tell him we want to go to Jobe’s Tomb (which we later found out that this tomb was one of the many tombs and he never actually lived, he was just a fictional figure) haha oh research. But our taxi driver said it was too far. He was yelling at us for about a half an hour and we finally asked him to take us into Salalah. What an ordeal….He kept saying (in a thick middle eastern accent) “ill take you where you want, no problem for me”….but the funny thing is, every time we said we wanted to go somewhere, he would be like,” first, I take you to the 5 star hotel”. No matter what we said, even when we were really specific, he took us somewhere else. I was beginning to think that he might kidnap us….I kid you not.

The first place we stopped was a Frankincense museum and we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside. Funny thing is if people were to take pictures of the inside, NO ONE would pay to go in. It’s really uninteresting. The best part was that there was some air conditioning and a picture of the different kinds of fish around the area (yepp, it was pretty greatJ) so, after, he took us to an outdoor souk and I bought a few things and tasted Frankincense. I was not aware you could eat it, maybe because it’s the worst tasting thing in the world. Well, not the worst, but honestly I love trying new things, but not if I don’t like the taste and then it finds a way to stick into the crevices of my molars. Yuck! After that, we just HAD to go to this 5 star hotel….(honestly, we had no choice…..haha) I think it was a Country inn (something we have in the states..not sure) and yea, it was nice….but why? Also, there was a pool and tons of people from our ship swimming. I thought it was ironic that you must be respectfully covered from head to toe everywhere except the pool. There must be some sort of bikini loop whole haha. Then, we were really hungry and asked if we could head back to the 5 star hotel, but he wouldn’t take us, so then we asked to go to the Hilton…right by the port, so we could get out of there asap. He was so difficult. So, we ate lunch at the hotel, and met up with our driver once again to take us back. But he really didn’t want to. We then gave him our money and a great tip…and he counted it….and yelled at us. He said, “I asked for 5 each way from all of you, but what about paying for my time? “ I was unaware that you could charge for the distance…without including the time. But we stood our ground since he really didn’t take us anywhere we wanted to go, so, he threw the money back at us…and pouted. It must have been a pride thing. I felt so bad after that. I mean, that was probably groceries for a week for his kids. And we paid him plenty. Such an odd day. Next stop, Egypt, yes we get to go, and I have IPM L bummed out, but they can’t see the pyramids anyway….and I get to see Jerusalem and Petra…..so excited!

Oh by the way, I decided after this contract, I am packing my bags, and moving to OMAN, I think this was my favorite port.

April fools J