The Shifting Sands

Nizwa fort in the early light I t had been a very busy second half of the year as my project in Riyadh went into over drive with a lot of weekend work.  Although I was travelling a lot, it was only for work and this takes much of the fun out of the experience. The Souq in the evening Once the proposal was submitted, I suddenly had time on my hands over Christmas and some great plans with the family. My Mum joined us from Australia for Christmas and we were travelling to Sri Lanka for the Christmas/New Year period.  Before we left I had a little time so I decided to take Mum on a quick trip to Nizwa, the historic mountain capital of Oman, to see the sights.  Most agriculture consisted of terraces fields and date palms in the Wadis I had wanted to check out Nizwa and the surrounding mountains for some time but the opportunity had not presented.  There seems to be a lot of potential for walking, bik...

For me, every new country has an Expat bucket list. These are the things that you "must" do before leaving the country.  The easiest and number one on my list for Dubai was a sea kayak trip around the northern tip of the Musandam Penisula. The Peninsula is an Omani exclave seperated from the rest of Oman by the UAE and which forms the southern shore of the Straits of Hormuz. A larger type of Omani fishing boat. Still a very traditional design. Prior to 1971, the UK administered the Trucial States or Trucial Oman.  The was a loose connection of sheikdoms with little formal government and included Bahrain and Qatar.  The British wanted to withdraw from the region but there was much debate between the sheikhs about control of regions. In the end, Bahrain and Qatar withdrew from the process and established their own states and in each of the remaining regions the locals were asked to identify with a sheikh as a mechanism for determining contro...