We are there! And Oman is so oohh and haaa I don’t even know where to start.

With the way they dress? Men in a dishdasha with either a small turban or a kumma, women in the city with a black overdress and veil with broderie and those in the country with beautiful prints and colors.

With the animals? OK, this is an easy one: goats, more goats, and today we sighted our first camels! They’re hilarious with their bump on the back, their bubbly eyes sticking out and their big lips which they use to grab the leaves from bushes. And they’re small. I thought a camel was like two storey high or something. These ones looked like they were about my height with bump. We’ll see in the next few days, tomorrow we should spend the night in a desert camp (complete with sand dunes) and get to see one close up. Oh yeah, we also saw stray dogs on top of a hill we climbed in Muscat (to some giant incense burner from where is a nice view). My reaction: ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Run! Help! Maese!  Marcel’s reaction: establish himself as their boss within 3.5 seconds and make them leave. My heroe.

With the toilets? Well, for your knowledge, it’s true about not giving the left hand…. In hotels where they expect foreigners there is also paper, but anywhere else there is only a shower head next to the toilet. I still haven’t exactly figured out how this is supposed to work. Like, do you stay sitting on the toilet and shower your bum somehow from inside the bowl, or do you lift the bum and try to aim the shower head precisely and try not to splash the whole room? And once you’re done, you just walk around with a wet bum and it drips down your legs? No clue.

With food? It’s yummy. There are lots of Indian immigrants here so most of the restaurants have indian currys and masalas and other such good spicy dishes. As far as arabic food goes we can still only pronounce “shawerna dagag”, so we’ve been eating kebab sandwishes for a week. Funny detail: instead of napkins they set a box of kleenex on the table. And since they like to wash hands before and after meals there is often a lavabo in the restaurant itself in a corner.

With small special events? That would be too long. The kids climbed up in the trees picking fruits who shouted to us “how are you! how are you!” on a lost mountain road. Or the way we are sometimes showed to the “family room” in restaurants (a separate section where families and women are to go to). The man we saw climbing up  palm tree to pick dates the other morning. The 6 camels riding in the back of a pick up truck, taking it easy.

No, I know. With the temperature. It is so amazingly hot I still can not believe it, every day, every single time I step outside. The standard temperature is around 42-44C. In Muscat there was 80% humidity (I was greeted out of the airplane with glasses fogging up). Here inland it is dryer, but a bit warmer. We hit 50C twice already. It’s like when you open the door of your oven to slide your chicken in and the hot air blows in your face. Always.

Actually no. With this one event, so unbelievable…. We were invited to a wedding. You read properly, a wedding! We were having food at the coffee shop one evening and out comes Chen (a guy staying in our hotel who speaks approximately 25 words of English) to get us to go with him to a “Omani paty”. We follow him down back alleys and reach a someone’s backyard which has been covered with carpets and there is people playing music and dancing outside. We approach a bit shyly, curious but also wanting to be respectful. And then a man invites us in, explains this is a fest for his son’s wedding. He has people make space for us, gets us drinks. I get to stand with the girls all dressed up and beautiful looking, with henna tatooed on their hands and feet, they get me to dance with them around the groom. I am so overwhelmed I could cry. Then they set up food for us to eat. Then when the party is over they invite us for the next day (wedding ceremonies last 3 days). So we postpone our departure with the rental car and stay the day, then we attend the evening’s party. This time it’s in a hall, again no chairs or tables, persian carpets cover the floor with cushions on the side. (Actually at the moment we pass the door we are informed this is women only, so Marcel turns around and has to wait in the car for about 2 hours) All the ladies arrive slowly and great each other, family members are dressed in traditionnal dresses (the colours, the broderie, the shimmery, the glittery, they all look like they stepped out of the 1001 nights) and the other friends in black. And I sit there with my pink shirt and my grey convertible pants and watch as a band plays music and the young ones graciously dance. They pass water around, and later on pop drinks and sandwiches. And around 22h30 the future husband enters with the men and the women of his family. There is rituals like rubbing his feet with a henna and spices paste, dropping bills of money on his head and receiving a gift of perfume, every one of the family going to get their pictures taken with him, etc. Around 00h00 we decide it’s time to go and have about an hour to say our goodbyes, receiving drinks and food from our hosts, invitations for the next day and telephone numbers. What more can I say? Overwhelming.