Worlds Apart

As I watch the floods devastate Queensland, I can’t help but feel personally affected yet a world away from it all. Sometimes it feels like I am watching a movie that I have become totally absorbed in. Many of my friends and family have been affected; some are watching the rising waters right now, playing the waiting game to see what will happen to them.


(Photo: Main street of Toowoomba, Queensland)

Looking out the window from my lounge room, the sky is clear blue, the sun is bright in the morning sky. I rarely see clouds in the sky and can count the number of times it has rained since I have been here, on one hand. When it does rain, it lasts for maybe 2 minutes at the most and is more a shower then anything else. Did I mention this is the rainy season at the moment?

Because of the lack of rain, the response by the locals when there is precipitation is quite, well, dramatic and comical.

Firstly, the roads become even more of a death trap. The drivers speed up and become erratic – that is, they increase their already ridiculous speeds and become even more erratic in their driving. I hate it if I know that MP might be on the roads when there is a brief shower. I don’t know what it is about rain that makes people feel the need to drive like a crazy person – and I don’t just mean here in Oman…

The comical part of the reaction is that of a local who is outside (which is usually only when they are moving from their car to the shopping centre). When it rains, there is a mad shuffle (Omani people rarely run) to whatever shelter they can find and remain there until well after it has stopped. Oh, did I mention they all jump on their mobile phones and rapidly discuss this rare phenomenon that has rudely interrupted their day!

I love playing up to it by standing in it, hoping for a drop of rain to land on me, with a ridiculous grin on my face. Hey, what can I say, I’m a Queenslander who loves a bit of rain! The looks of condescension that I receive only add to my enjoyment of the moment.

Maybe I am being too hard on the locals; this is a desert country after all!



(Photo: A view from the car of the drive to Muscat)

I just watched an update on CNN about Brisbane. An expected peak at 4am tomorrow (Thursday) morning, local time.


(Photo: Aerial view of Surat, QLD - taken from my Dad's plane as he does mercy flights around the area)

The amount of water is hard to comprehend from my lounge room with a blue sky view…


(Photo: The view from my lounge room)

Stay safe everyone.

Cultural Differences

I wanted to share this post that was on the Oman Forum, which I occasionally frequent...


Asalam Alaykum........................

I am a 23 year old Muslim woman-and I do not yet wear the Hijab...... however I still think it is important to maintain modest, and like to refrain from having physical contact (huggig) of the oppsite sex.

I have a Muslim Male friend (who is very respectful and like a brother to me), that seems to believe "only women that wear the Hijab are to be untouched." Basically, because I do not yet wear the Hijab, he thinks it is appropriate for me to hug him on certain occasions.

I would like everyones input on this - arn't ALL Muslim women (hijab or not) suppose to refrain from this type of contact with men....???
Thank you!


It got me to thinking about how I react to men hugging women (or me in particular) in Australia, which really is it's nothing out of the ordinary. We hug to greet each other, we hug to say goodbye, we hug in excitement, congrats, etc., etc., etc. And that is just one part of the physical contact between members of the opposite sex (I specify that this is between men and women because it is quite fine and MP & I regularly see, men holding hands or hugging - now, what reaction did you have to that!).

Since being here, I have really had to curb my natural instinct for physical contact in public. And no, I do not go around hugging randoms either here or in Oz! But just putting your hand on your partners shoulder or arm or holding your partner's hand... It is all quite natural. Next time you are out with you MP, just observe how you behave - it may be enlightening!

Anyway, here are some of the responses to the original post...

Life is too short. As long as the hug is brief, open and friendly, done in public, there should be no need to worry.
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Well being 23 year old you have to wear the hijab...It doesn't matter if other people don't you have to do the right thing. By wearing the hijab then you will be obeying the commands of the Creator of everything that exists...also by wearing the hijab it shows you are proud to be a muslim, and you are proud to be on the right path.
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You dont have to wear anything you don't want to! It's not a requirement!
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you post reinforces one of my beliefs. The Muslim woman wears the hijab not because the women are weak but because some of the Muslim men are weak.

(Note: I haven't changed any of the posts... The spelling and grammar errors where there already...)

The Mists of Salalah

Our second day in lovely Salalah began with breakfast in the only restaurant open in the resort. I must report that because it was the beginning of Ramadan, the restaurant was already out of a lot of the regular things you get on the menu – our choices were quite limited. But none the less, the coffee was great!

The tour guide rocked up at 9am ready for our trip. Yet again we were starting with the 80km drive to the other side of Salalah… I would love to tell you about the first part of the trip, but I was motion sick – oh joy. Curled up in the foetal position on the back seat, deep breathing, praying that the motion sick tablet would kick in soon and that we’d arrive at our first destination asap.

I am pleased to say we did, I made it!!

Our first stop was at Job’s Tomb. What I found most interesting about this first stop was that our guide – Salim – was explaining the prophets of Muslim to us. Did you know that many of the Muslim prophets are also saints in Christianity? Yeah, bit of a head spin. Well, it was for me at least!

Oh, and here are the female ‘facilities’ at the Tomb. I chose to hold it…

I won’t tell you about every bit of the tour because there was a whole lot of driving!

The next stop was at these amazing blowholes. It was basically the coast/cliff edge which the waves crash up against and force air and water through holes in the rock. It reminded me a lot of the Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road in Australia. The landscape was just beautiful, I was more than amazed by it all.

This is a grate over one of the blowholes.



We then went onto a wadi that had a cave with it that apparently people lived in once upon a time. Actually there was one spot that still had pens for cows or goats (see picture below)! And we drove passed a goat herder on the way there and saw another one up in the hills next to the wadi. Oman is a contrast of the modern with the antique, it’s intriguing and mystical.



We visited a few other spots such as another wadi, a 70-year old frankincense tree, the Hilton in Salalah for lunch (our guide was fasting so he didn’t join us) and then headed back towards the resort. There was a museum fort that we were supposed to visit but unfortunately it was closed – my partner was very disappointed by that. I should mention that at the Hilton, we had to have lunch behind curtained windows yet again. It was quite interesting actually – there were about 3 other parties other than us, all Westener’s (for obvious reasons). You can see each person covertly checking out the other people, trying to work out what accent they have, see if they are a fellow Aussie or Frenchmen or where ever it is they are from… And if you get busted looking at another person, there is the sheepish smile and understanding nod.

Anyway, we went to an archaeological site – the Queen of Sheba’s Temple. We were actually able to walk around in the site and touch things. This would have been roped off in Australia – look but do not even think about touching, for your own protection of course. Interesting to note there was no graffiti or vandalism of any sort here, only a bit of rubbish (probably due to the lack of garbage bins).

Our final stop was at the fishing village of Mirbat. The most amazing part of this village was the backstreets which we did a quick drive through – passed the original souq, some beautiful old doors, kids playing in the street… It had a bit romance to it all – until you reached the fishing part of town and then the smell permeated your nostrils.

You might be wondering why I called this entry ‘The Mists of Salalah’, well rather then me explain it, I’ll leave you with this picture…

The City of Salalah

I had heard and read a lot about the city of Salalah, which is at the southern tip of Oman. It’s the second largest city in the country (after Muscat) and a holiday destination for many locals. Salalah is marketed as a tropical oasis, that has festivals and entertainment and is the home of frankincense. Sounds interesting, right?

Anyway, we fly down late on Wednesday evening – the day before the official start of Ramadan – and arrived at the airport to be driven to the resort. I should mention here that the boys omitted telling me until that moment, that the resort was an 80km drive from Salalah… Arriving at 10.30pm that night, we were directed to dinner before the restaurant closed at 11.00pm. We were all hoping for one last alcoholic beverage before Ramadan began because alcohol is not allowed during this month – even for Westerners’. Horror of horrors, we discovered that the resort had already stopped serving alcohol!! No problems, we’ll just raid the mini bar when we hit our rooms.

Therein lay the next shock – all the alcohol had been removed from the mini bar! Our dry month had begun earlier then anticipated.


(This is a view of the back of the resort from the beach - it was a great place to stay and because it was off-peak there were only 25 guests staying at the resort!)

Thursday, being the first day of our weekend, we decided to catch the bus back into Salalah and hit the souq and the museum. So off we trundled, 80km back into town, hoping it was worth it.

Hmmm….. Most of the city was shut. I should clarify that although it is labelled a ‘city’, it doesn’t really qualify as one, even with its 180,000 residents.

The souq was an experience, it was mostly run by Indians with Indian-made products, but we did manage to snag a few items – traditional Omani headwear for the most part. We also picked up an entrepreneurial guide who decided to attach himself to use and be our taxi driver.

Disappointingly the Frankincense and Archaeological Museum was shut, even though the sign said it was open. So we headed to the Crowne Plaza for lunch (Western hotels still put on lunch behind curtains, for those not partaking in the fast). Can I just mention here that the Crowne Plaza is the epitome of gawdiness! It was hideous. And lets just briefly mention the cranky waiter we had, he must have been fasting, no one is that rude on purpose!

After lunch our taxi driver picked us up for the trip back to the resort, yep that’s right, an 80km trip in a taxi. We had previously found out that the trip would be about 15 rials ($45 Australian), which to us was pretty reasonable! Well, that was until we arrived at the resort anyway. Turns out that because there was no one returning, we had to pay for that trip also, so our $45 ride suddenly jumped up to a $90 ride… Ouch! Needless to say, we did not tip.



(The end of one of the alleys of the souq looking towards what I think is a residential area)

Oh I forgot to mention the spate of bad luck did not start (nor end) there. My partner had a shower before we left that morning, I was lying on the bed and got up to get ready, only to step into a pool of water! The drain in the bathroom had backed up which flooded the bathroom, then flowed into the room (where I discovered it and damed it with a towel or two) and then it flowed out under the door into the hallway.

This is my improvised dam.

We each scored a pair of Marriot slippers for our troubles!

Later in the afternoon however, there was a blackout when the generator went down, oh and just before dinner the fire alarms started to randomly go off throughout our section of the resort.

Salalah was not exactly living up to its potential.

But that was the first day, I’ll tell you about the following day once I’ve recovered from this one!

Homesickness (Part 1)

I’ve made this part one because I’m sure that I’ll be writing about it again somewhere down the line.

It’s been just over 2 months since we left Australia. Most of it has been good, some has been difficult, some has been boring…

Homesickness is a natural part of leaving your home, it’s hard enough just leaving your hometown to move to a new place for work or something else – which I’ve done several times over – but leaving your home country is a whole other thing. The little things you wouldn’t have thought about twice in Oz, are glaringly obvious here. It’s strange how the human mind works.

I’ve been watching old episodes of the Australian TV show ‘Blue Heelers’ and every time I see the countryside, I dream of home. Trees, greenery, grass, rain… There is one yard we occasionally drive passed here which has a lawn and set of swings – it has to belong to an expat.

Missing friends and family has been hard too, especially because – as a female – I relied a lot on them for advice and just for a chat. Now I have to wait for emails, facebook and MSN, all with a 6 hour time difference. And don’t get me started on the postal system… Isolation is something that I have dealt with before, I had no choice but to deal with it and become independent but again, I was in my home country and was able to do things like walk down the street or drop down to the shops just to get out of the house. I know that I should get out more here but you know, I’m quite happy being on my own – so many people just don’t understand that.

But I’ve gone off track.

The hardest thing I have dealt with so far is not having animals around me. During my period of isolation last year, I had my two cats with me, Mish and Tom, now I have me, the TV and my laptop. I recently had my birthday and my sister-in-law who is taking care of one of my cats sent me this picture of him…






…When I saw it, I just cried! See what I mean about homesickness??

And whenever just the smallest thing goes wrong, all I want to do is go home or tell someone.

I read a website that said it can take up to 2 years for homesickness to dissipate entirely when you move overseas!! 2 years! That’s crazy! And the advice the website gives is to keep in contact with friends and family at home… I think I can manage that.

So family and friends, be prepared to be inundated with emails communique from me!