Oman and the Emirates..? 18 2 4 (16) 25 1 30

Whenever I go away on vacation I only rarely research beforehand about the people and places I am about to visit because generally speaking it is my wife who takes the initiative with all destinations except those to do with UK and particularly Scotland where I take over as the principle organiser.

So when we decided to visit our godson T and his wife C and their young son E it was my wife A-E who arranged our flights and hotel accommodation first to Dubai then in the evening of the following day onwards to Muscat in Oman, together a 2 night stay in Dubai, before the 4 or 5 nights stay with T,C and E at their spacious apartment some 240 square metres say 2600 square feet in round figures, on the outskirts of Muscat in Al Seeb. 

We had last visited them in November 2011 when they lived for a time in Haiphong, Vietnam and that too turned out to be a similarly mind-blowing experience since the Vietnamese culture was also very foreign to us...

So with so much anti-Muslim or Islam feeling in the world today and with earlier visits to Morocco, Turkey and Egypt to go by I have to say right off it would have been difficult for me to more impressed in a positive way with the cultures and the ways of the peoples of these two desert lands than I was from my first arrival.

Of course coming from UK I was familiar with a host of differently coloured people from being a child born in the city of Manchester and during my childhood a frequent visitor who became familiar with the Jamaican community then the Jewish community and later the Indian and Pakistani communities which arrived much later in the mid-1955s to 1960s because there was a shortage of people to do all the jobs that needed doing at that time. The Jamaicans' and Jews' arrivals pre-dated WW ll and so in effect had always been there according to my young eyes at the time.

In the United Arab Emirates it was impossible not to be impressed with the sight of all the skyscraper buildings, unlike our later visits in the related Omani cities where there are none to speak of: The Sultan of Oman preferring not to have buildings so constructed whilst his lesser royal relatives, the Emirates, have gone all out so it would appear to attract a burgeoning influx of tourists as a result of all their newly constructed buildings, and the vast array of amenities which accompany them. There we got around by Metro, Tram and the odd Taxi and were impressed by the manner in which all the young people courteously vacated their seats for we Scandinavian visitors, something neither my wife nor I had seen since or respective childhoods in each of UK and Scandinavia when children there were brought up with far greater respect for adults and the aged than they are today…

Also, because we were clearly foreigners and newly arrived people at every turn were only too happy to help us along our way and to our surprise were readily able to converse in English to a very significant degree and so unlike Vietnam for example no problems making enquiries of people.

Our first impression then which was reinforced wherever we went for the week of our stay was of a gentle people surrounded by a vast array of other peoples also of a gentle disposition: Filipinos waiting on table in the restaurants, Indians manning the Pharmacy stores and Indian restaurants, Pakistani Civil Engineers, young men in their 20s who had arrived to find work in the construction industry, etc., etc., etc., plus other Europeans like our relatives who had arrived for teaching jobs such as the English taught by our young people… 

Now I must leave it there. Have a good day everyone!