Loverly Oman

Well we are back from our wonderful trip to Oman and wonderful it was. It has been 20 years since we lived there and I was expecting some deja vue but didnt get any...except the general feeling of being in a place full of dish dashes and smell of the sea.....

We got our plane from Gatwick on the saturday morning after a generic breakfast at Cafe Nemo in the South Terminal. Oman Air is .... er... shall I say a budget airline, with a very old plane, but it served a purpose and got us there....with zero entertainment (broken). We had 4 seats between the 3 of us which was good though and I bought an excellent book that I nearly finished in 7 and a half hours! Davids continuous "are we nearly there yet?" slightly drove us potty though.

We arrived and thankfully I had read the forum on Tripadvisor that said when you arrive you need to get a single entry visa from the Travelex stand. We were number 2 in the queue thankfully and got ours quickly. All those silly people who went straight to the immigration desks without getting one had to be turned back and join the back of the queue which was by now very long....ha ha

anyway we got our bags v quickly and got a taxi to the hotel. Our taxi driver was about 100 years old with a long beard and kept reciting the quoran or something under his breath the whole way.....checked in at the hotel, got upgrade to club floor, went for a walk, had a drink at Costa Coffee and went to bed!

On Sunday we just lazed by the pool soaking up the sun and in the evening went to Sabco and Al Tarboush for a lovely shawarma.

Monday we had more sun soaking and in the evening walked to the new mall and had more shawarma at Automatic. A brand new one that had only just opened. Not as good as Al Tarboush but nice nonetheless.
Tuesday morning we were awoken with a start as my alarm on my phone didnt go off as the battery was flat.....we were supposed to be in reception at 7am for our dolphin trip! We went to Marina al Bandar and boarded our little speedboat with several others for the trip. We went out what seemed like miles and miles until all of a sudden there they were - just swimming along by our boat....so graceful. They kept disappearing so we had to keep trying to find them - it was amazing though. Loved it.Then back at the hotel for breakfast and the rest of the day at the pool. We went to Darcys Kitchen in the evening for normal food (burger and chips etc) which was lovely except Dave fell asleep at the table as he didnt have his afternoon kip! 20 mins later we took him for ice cream and he was ok again!

On Wednesday we hired a Hummer! Drove round Al Khuwair and got lost and then made our way to the Oman Dive Centre. Had a wonderful day there snorkelling off the beach followed by a nice lunch. Then we joined the boat for the snorkelling trip and had the best time. Dave loved it, even though it was deep. The fish were amazing. Then a lovely trip back to the dive centre at sundown. After we had our showers etc we drove to Muttrah for a proper shawarma and a juice, and a wander round the souk. Got lots of pashminas and then had ice cream. oh and we got a parking ticket..... Thursday was a quiet one by the pool and in the evening we got a taxi to Muscat City Centre where our taxi waited for us for 2 hours. Had a nice meal in Chilli's restaurant - a bit like TGI's. and ice cream from Baskin Robbins.

Our last day was spent by the pool soaking up the last few rays before we got a taxi back to Sabco for our last shawarma at Al Tarboush. Did some shopping in Safeer Mart and then back to the hotel to check out. Our lovely taxi driver Abu Yousef took us to the airport and we will look him up next time we go! Julian liked it a lot there and we will go again - the guaranteed sun was a wonderful break from the cold in England.

The flight was quite full on the way back and I had a large man sat next to me......but it was ok, we got there! Might try and find a different airline next time!!!