i got up really early, and made my way across town to catch my bus to muscat oman, about a 6 hour drive from dubai. at the border, one omani guy wearing coveralls meticulously scrounged through every last pocket and every piece of clothing in every bag on the bus - needless to say it took a while. then all the bags were lined up in a straight line on the ground, and for some reason it had to be a perfectly straight line, and a cute little dog was brought out to run back and forth about 80 times, sniffing for drugs i guess. once in muscat, i found myself a cheap hotel, the conditions of which i will not disparage you with. its very hot here. i'm also dealing with the inevitable onset of gastrointestinal issues... but its all good. muscat is a very interesting city - full of contrasts. on the way in, we passed some of the most impressive steel and glass luxury car dealerships that i'm sure exist on the face of the earth, but the downtown souks are basically no different than probably existed here a thousand years ago. there are over a million people living along a 50 km long strip known as greater muscat, but you'd never know it because its basically a bunch of little towns seperated by huge rocky mountains, successfully making it seem like you're out in the middle of nowhere arabia. i really like it. the buildings are all white and subtley arabesque, apparently because everyone here belongs to a form of islam that prohibits outward glamour in any form. i went to the fish market, where they bring in the freshly caught fish and barter for them. i also went to the sultan's palace. intruigingly, there's this one part of town that is off-limits to visitors, it is inhabited by a secretive islamic sect that came here from iran. when one walks by there are big barriers so you can't see down the streets and old men that sit there and glare at you until you leave. needless to say, oman is a very interesting place. tommorow i'll hang out some more, then take the afternoon bus back to dubai, spend the night at the airport, and fly out early in the morning to doha qatar, and then nairobi!
