A Day Out.

And so to yesterday. Another beautiful day. Sheryl and I and two of her friends/colleagues, Ali and Chris, went to Nizwa in Oman for the day. We probably left a bit late, but it's the holidays and we weren't up to rushing. So at about 11.00am we left Al Ain, and headed towards the Omani border, which is quite close to here. Well. The locals love paperwork and that's OK - that's what they do. And I'm used to it! :-) It's hard to explain or even remember accurately just how many checkpoints there were. First of all we had to get some forms for the car, and then we had to park the car and go into a big building with our passports and get a pink form. On which I had to record my father's name amongst other things. (The French have shown an interest in my father as well!) We dealt with one chap, who gave us back the forms, and then we had to wait for another chap in the booth right next door, so he could stamp the pink forms. We also had to pay 25 dirhams per person so we could cross the border. We drove on about 100 metres and had to stop at another grand edifice and hand in the car's piece of paper which had been stamped. That was the Emirates part of things. Then we reached the Oman side. We had to hand in evidence of car insurance, hand in our passports again which were carefully scrutinised. We had to park the car, get out and go into another building. Our passports were checked again and stamped. I noticed that mine was taken into another room, presumably for a supervisor to look at! There were other forms, bits of paper etc etc. All in all it took close on an hour. Crazy, but part of the experience.
Anyway, it was a bit further to Nizwa than we had anticipated, so when we spotted a tree providing some shade, we stopped and had a picnic on the side of the road. It was well past lunchtime and we were a bit peckish. We got quite a few toots from passing motorists!
We stopped at a wonderful castle/fort at Gibran. We had a great time looking around and talked to a lot of Omani people who were very friendly and really interested in us and what we were up to. (OSH would have had a field day there - little windows high up with no grates or any way of preventing small children from falling though!) It really was great though. Built in the 16th century I believe. And cleverly designed so that there were lots of cool spaces. Beautifully haunting and Arabic, if you know what I mean. I loved it. And do you know, some of the ceilings had a pattern remarkably similar to some of the ceilings in the Loire Valley chateaux. I am fascinated by the way languages have developed in different countries over thousands of years, and those sorts of connections - the ceilings - are really interesting too.
After an interesting little unintentional off-road jaunt, we finally reached Nizwa. It was 4.00pm! No worries. We wandered around the souk inside the walls of what was once a fort, built in the 17th century. The souk was great. I have not been spending much at all since arriving in France - apart from on travel - as I really can't afford to - but I did buy a silver pendant on a chain. The others bought a few little bits and pieces too. It was interesting to see large groups of abeya and burkha (not sure of the spelling) clad women all clustered round the silver jewellery, and buying it like mad.
We then sought out an authentic Omani eating experience. Now I don't want to sound like a Kiwi "Where are the chips?" kind of person, but honestly, it was pretty awful! Hard to know if it was indeed an authentic experience or just a very ordinary restaurant. We got shown into a dusty room with 70s decor, and sat on the floor. We all had a bit of trouble with the cross legged thing for a start! But that was OK - part of the deal. Then the bit of plastic was put down and the meals came out. Not great, I have to say. But interesting! Other people in other rooms walked out, but we hung in there. These things are always worth a try. But perhaps another time we would try somewhere else!
And then we set off for home. We played a few guessing games, but the others moaned that my quiz questions were about sport and who would even want to know who won the very first NPC championship? :-) We stopped somewhere and had a coffee and while we were there the young men were all driving up and down the street in convoy, tooting loudly! The boys were in town, obviously.
Ali assured us that we would get to go straight through the border controls on the way back. Well, no. Untrue! It was just hilarious. A bit of a repeat of the procedure earlier in the day, but with a few add-ons. I had to have a photo taken of my eyes for a start. Then the two very nice young men who did that couldn't get the stamp to show the right date. They actually got the giggles sitting there trying to make it work. They were quite gorgeous looking, made even more striking in their pristine white dishdashas. Anyway, we were tired and slightly hysterical by then, and when we were waiting for the date stamp to get sorted, and answering questions about New Zealand, we ended up singing Pokarekare Ana to the young men. Who clapped and were very appreciative. I might add that we picked up on their attitude and friendliness. It wouldn't be a good idea to burst into song as a general rule, I imagine.
Once again, passing through all the checkpoints and doing the same thing over and over took about an hour. We finally arrived home about 11.30pm. It was a great day and such a lot of fun.
I can't get any photos to download, so I'll add some another time, but I'll try to publish this anyway. Sorry about the lack of piccies Hilary. I know you're very visual!