Oman

After staring across the border into Oman for the past 2 months, I finally got a chance to travel there.  Joy and I left Al Ain early in the morning to head into the border area that I can see from my flat.  After we realized we weren't getting an Oman stamp in our passport, we were told we could get one if we went inside a building to the left.  Well, inside the building we paid 35 dirhams.....for a UAE stamp!!!!!  Then we had to exit and head back across the border into Oman again!  We laughed about that all day!  About 12 km into Oman we passed through the checkpoint to get our Oman stamp.  After leaving and heading through the next checkpoint, we were told we needed Omani insurance, so it was back once again to the previous stop to purchase 1-day insurance.

Finally, we headed into Al Buraimi.  We took highway 7 straight across Oman to Sohar, then took the coast road up to Liwa.  We passed through the small town where they were having a goat/lamb market day.  Everyone was purchasing their sacrifice for Eid.

We toured Liwa castle and then headed to the beach.

 At this beach there were TONS of beautiful rocks and shells.  I collected quite a few that I had never seen before.

Then we headed to Sohar and visited their fish market.

We met some guys who wanted their picture made with westerners.  Apparently they don't get many in their area.

After that, we went to the beach.  Joy and I were the only 2 people on the beach.  We had asked the men we met if women wore bathing suits or covered, and they told us we could get by with bathing suits since we were Westerners and didn't know any better!  That's all we needed to hear!  We put on our bathing suits and frolicked in the blue waters of the Gulf of Oman.  I never imagined a few months ago that I would have gone swimming in the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in my lifetime!

The water was delightful, and we had a picnic lunch on the beach.  As much as we hated it, we had to head home because neither one of us wanted to drive back over the mountains in the dark.  On the road home, we saw some camels that appeared to be let loose near the edge of the highway.  On closer look, we realized they had been hobbled so they could not climb the bank that led to the road.  They were grazing on the small trees that edged the highway.

We also had to go through a police roadblock near the Oman checkpoint.  I tried to take a picture of the men in the tanks with their machine guns, but one of them stared at me and shook his head, "NO."   So I wisely put my camera down and obeyed.  I don't think it's a regular thing that they have the roadblock set up, but we never heard what/who they were looking for.

Finally, we were back in the UAE and went to my favorite local place to eat, Zai Zamman.  It was an EXCELLENT day!