Salalah

In southern Oman lies the region of Dhofar and and on its southern most tip is the city of Salalah, looking out onto the Arabian sea, famed for being the only place in the Arabian peninsula for having monsoon weather in its summer months. Given the average temperature here in Al Ain during the summer months is almost in the fifties, off we set on the epic 1000km (that's right, you heard me!) adventure across the desert.

For hundreds of miles all there is to see is the barren empty desert and the dusty road ahead. this is a solid 12hour drive (without stops) which is only broken up by the occasional petrol stations and on this occasion the tourists flocking southwards as we were. Though the road is empty here, at times it was a little like wacky races as everyone was going hell for leather to try and reach Salalah!

After what seemed like forever (driven all night and arrived the next morning) you eventually reach the Dhofar mountain range shrouded in a blanket of mist. Given the air temperature is still in the mid to top forties where we took this picture, a strange but welcoming sight.

This is where we start the ascent up into the hills...

Once inside the hills the weather changes dramatically with temperatures plummeting to the low twenties, mist, fog and drizzle abound not unlike an autumn day back in blighty but the most shocking sight of all is the greenery....there's vegetation everywhere!

Once over the mountain range we enter salalah city itself, a very naturally green place with an abundance of palm trees everywhere but hang on a sec...these arent date palms...they're coconut palms!!!

Here's me checking out the local fare, as well as coconuts, there are banana's, mango's, sugar cane, papaya etc. You would be forgiven for thinking that you were on some tropical island on the Indian sub continent instead of Arabia.

The man from Al-Ain says...yes!

After getting some rest, the next day we went off exploring. The area pictured is Mughaysal beach.

A spectacularly carved shoreline with monsoon waves crashing down on the cliff face made this an awesome sight to behold!

Duh...enough with the words, heres a video!

Mughaysal is locally renowned for the spectacular blowholes that have been carved into the rocks!

Two nutters...all it would take is one abnormally large wave to come crashing down and off they go to meet their maker!

This is Khor Ruri (or Ruri creek), an inlet to the ancient ruined seaport through which the lucrative global trade of Frankincense (once, weight for weight, more valuable than gold!) was once conducted.

And this is the ruined city of Samharam, a UNESCO world heritage site overlooking the creek. It is very likely that the frankincense, as in one of the gifts carried by the 3 wise men, would have come through this city on its way northwards and also reputed to be where the Queen of Sheba would have appropriated her supply of frankincense.

after driving down the hillside we reached mouth of the creek.

with a very nice beach...

and what are the chances...camels on the beach!

Wadi Darbat

This is one of the reasons why thousands of people flock to Salalah` from miles around. Wadi Darbat is a valley of picturesque green that could be something straight out of our own Lake District.

surrounded by misty hills...

and a tranquil lake at its centre next to which you can relax and while away the hours till the cows come home (yes that is actually a herd of cows on the other side of the lake!).

Whilst out exploring, we came across this travertine (type of sedimentary rock) cliff face.

normally there is a water fall here as the rain water that collects in wadi Darbat comes cascading over the cliff face.

Its not obvious but it was quite a mission scrambling up here in the 4wd with a very potholed graded track that required me to engage all the the gadgets on the 4wd (low gear, centre and rear diff etc.) and some skillful driving to negotiate the climb hence the look of achievement! I only wish i could have caught it on video for you folks at home :-(

In and around Salalah there are a number of historical claims to fame including the tomb of the prophet Imran (and family, as.) and the tomb of the prophet Ayub (biblically known as Job as.). Personally i thought it would be more appropriate to buck the trend of turning the ritual of paying ones respect to prophets deceased into a touristy photo shoot frenzy. Hence there are no actual pictures of their respective tombs. On the other hand when we went to visit the tomb of Ayub (as.) it was a winding and at times treacherous journey through steep and narrow mountain passes (I wonder how he ended up there - it really was a mission to get there!). As the time for Magrib (evening prayer) approached the mist and fog really set in reducing us down to zero visibilty and with the onset of drizzle really did turn the mood into one of foreboding dread on the thought of the journey back down the mountain when suddenly the mist cleared a little and out in the middle of nowhere was this mosque that came up on us as an abandoned ghost ship would do out of some Victorian horror novel. The mosque was very eerie, no doubt due to its location, so we made haste to pray quickly and be one our way.

On one of our last trips exploring the local sights and terrain before we left Salalah we went to visit the Tawi Atayr (or well of birds) sinkhole, at 180m in diameter and 211m deep, one of the biggest in the world and a surprising find in one of the more quieter neighbourhoods that is planet earth.

If you listen carefully you can actually hear the birds! however as always I just couldn't capture such a spectacular scene with my camera phone so here a better picture...
http://www.ngsprints.co.uk/popup_image.php?pID=118271ℑ=0

Land Ahoy!

Recently i took a trip over to Lu Lu island just off the Abu Dhabi coast. As you can see, i'm still in good health...making sailing look good ;-)

As with alomost everything in the emirates its still a work in progress so there wasnt much to see or do on the island. However there was a sort of lake in the middle of the island for swimming etc. and most of the island did have secluded empty beaches all the way round.

I took this opportunity of a lack of things to do to travel on a traditional 4x4...

To be honest i havent done this up until now for two reasons, namely iive feared for the camel however he took it in his stride and managed to haul me up easily and secondly its a long way down from up there should i wish to inspect the ground very quickly.

I think i'll stick to what i know best and walk.

The new beast...GRRR!

So here she is, the new beast! ths is a Toyota Fortuner, 4.0l V6. it has a low range transfer case with a centre and rear diff lock. This car is based on the Hilux pick up truck and as far as i am aware is not available in europe so you wouldnt have seen it before. (ps. click on the images to see better high resolution pics).

Unlike the pajero this has a 5 speed auto gearbox so it is great around town and given that
its is the land cruiser prado's younger sibling makes it easier to live with in terms if its size. Nevertheless this is still a seven seater so has got a decent load capacity for those roadtrips.

Now if you are wondering, performance wise this jeep is excellent! i took it down to
Hatta to do a little rock crawling on the river bed and it didnt skip a beat.

The rear diff lock really paid off making sure i got through the ruff stuff
without getting caught out on some minor axle twisters.

Good approach, departure and ramp over angles coupled with the cars height meant no grounding out on any rocky outcrops.

All in all a good all rounder with many miles of happy motoring to look forward to.

Who's that fella over yonder?!

4X4 by not that far

As some of you have figured, i'm a bit of a petrol head so its about time i added something a bit more meaty car related. You may recall from previous blogs i used to have a 2 door pajero and here it is.

I really liked this car because its a proper off roader with...

• a low speed transfer box
• plenty of torque
  
• and a diff lock

coupled with the fact that its got a short wheel base it was awesome in the dunes and would go just about anywhere. tThe only draw backs it had were that despite being a V6 it was only a 3.0 litre so felt underpowered and had a 4 speed gearbox so driviing around town could get a little frustrating (the steptronic did make up for this a little though).

Anyway to cut a long story short i needed to get a 4 door so I got rid of it and after much thought (and budget constraints) I got what I hoped would be an ultimate off roader (or so it said on the tin)...a Jeep Grand Cherokee and here it is below...


Now this car should have the ultimate off road running gear i.e. an electronic limited slip diff front, middle and rear so that traction is automatically transferred from a 'stuck' wheel to one that is free even if all the power is transferred to a single wheel -amazing i hear you say. Given it had a special gear box with 2 second gears, was excellent for normal driving. The one thing i really liked about this car was that it was the 'overland' spec so came with all the toys and a whopping 4.7l, 275bhp, high output engine. In english (and for any of you folks who have driven out here in the Gulf) this meant i could chase down all the nutters in the Patrols and Land Cruisers out here ;-)

so why didnt i live happily ever after...? the problem with this car is that...

• its ride height is too low so it just wasnt gonna perform reasonably without having to mess around with it and do some mods
  
• given the nutty driving out here I would just feel safer in something bigger
• the engineering of this car causes too many doubts and out here when off roading, a break down in the wrong place could cost you dearly

But my biggest gripe of all was the choice in design of its components e.g. solid front and rear axles. Now i know any of you off road officianados out there will disagree and say that its a perfect setup, i would have to say have you heard of the death wobble on Jeeps (google it to see what i mean)?! give me independent suspension (like on the Pajero) any day of the week. Any compromise in ability off road is more than compensated for in generally being able to live with it on an everyday basis.

so with that I eventually decided to move on and get something else...read following blogs to find out what happened next!

disclaimer: my applogies but if none of what i have written makes sense to you then exercise your minds a little and find out. For those of you for whom this does make sense, i have written it off the top of my head so I am not expecting geeky comments on how the Jeep's L.S.D system actually works!

making perfume...medieval styleee!

Now as much as I enjoy my job I wouldn't want to bore you with the details of what I do however this is really cool. whilst teaching summer school here, we done a special thing with the local kids whereby we explored the Islamic contribution to science and technology over the ages.

No its not a space age bong but apparatus to make perfume using household stuff. For those of you that are interested, this is a steam distillation of orange peel to make orange scented perfume...and it actually works!

Now to give credit where its due the original distillation technique was devised by the Muslim scholar Jabir ibn Hayyan (722-815). The ideas were taken from an excellent website (www.1001inventions.com) detailing Muslim contributions to science as well as containing a teachers resource pack on doing lots of science experiments...enjoy!

Who ate all the pies?.....me!

Hellllooooo!

where have you all been? no you are right its actually me thats been M.I.A so where have i been? very busy thats what! ive been tied up with work and lots of other things and with the summer hols i just havent had time to update the blog but now that i am back at work, got lots of free time ;-)

I just want to start with something I done before I got tied up. Now this was almost 3 months ago but is something I want to share with you. With the working hours I have (7am-1pm) I generally have more time to myself to do more things so one evening what do I do......bake!

To be precise I decided to make.....a chicken and mushroom pie - something i had never made before!

For a first timer dont you think this looks the bomb!

And the finished product...yum yum!
(yes it did taste decent and no i didnt get food poisoning!)

'Labbaik, Allahuma Labbaik'

as some of you know (or may not know), last weekend i was fortunate enough to make the pilgrimage to Makkah for what is known as Umrah (it is like a mini version of the Hajj that can be done anytime). accordisng to islamic tradition, we believe the ka'bah (the black cube shaped building in the pics) was the first house built solely for the worship of Allah (arabic for god) by the prophet Abraham in line with the monotheistic beliefs of judaism, chritianity and islam. this place is very important for all muslims because it serves as a symbolic focal point for all muslims as we turn in the direction of the ka'bah whenever we pray and whilst there, supplicate...

'Labbaik, Allahuma labbaik'

(Here i am at your service, oh lord here i am)

the external facade of the masjid is imposing and gives the impression of a marble fortress

depsite the masjid being very very big (not sure of the capacity) the numbers of the faithful who flock here from across the globe ensure that the masjid is overflowing with worshippers day and night

and finaly the ka'bah itself.when you set eyes on it for the first time, a surreal feeling washes over you as memories of the dunya (worldly matters) become distant and your attention turns towards glorifying the creator of the heavans and the earth...

this has to be one of the few places on this earth where there is a constant throng of activity no matter what hour of the day it is (i do literally mean 24 hours a day!) as worshippers from numerous races unite for one purpose, to seek counsel from the lord and to gain an inner sense of peace and calmness as one contemplates their eventual destiny.

if you havent already had the fortune of visiting, then i would thoroughly recommend it. avail yourself of the opportunity before your time and energy becomes consumed with the more trivial issues in life. remember, good deeds will weigh heavy on the mizan (scales) so take account of yourself before account is taken for you.

camel milk latte!

on one of our regular weekend outings in the desert, as usual we got stuck so as we were trying to dig ourselves out this fella appeared out of nowhere and in accordance with traditional arab hospitality, invited us over to his camel farm for some milk...

fresh from the camel!!!

being a city lad i was rather apprehensive drinking milk that wasn't pasteurised nor homogenised straight from the camel however i was pleasantly surprised! for those of you that are wondering...the milk tastes similar to cows milk except that it is more creamy and a lot heavier on the palette. as the camel was milked it created a lot of froth so if you ever get the urge for a latte out in the desert, the only question that will remain is whether you want one lump or two, yum yum!

the weekly itch

its now something of a weekly fixture, every saturday morning after fajr (dawn) some of us lads get together and in convoy, go duning. just to give you a taste of what we get upto...

admittedly we do get stuck quite often but thats part of the challenge...getting yourself unstuck...out here there's no AA or RAC just a few tow ropes, a spade, a little elbow grease and using your noggin!

we all came flying over this dune, however as you have probably figured, they only time we took pictures is when we got stuck and had to get out and start digging as this fella did.

and finally, you guessed it, munchies!