The tour continued along coastal Oman, with a quick stop at Nakhal Fort. Although I’m feeling a bit “forted out,” I decided to pay the admission fee and have a look inside. It was much the same as other forts… of course… but still worth a quick look around… and I managed to get some great shots.
Legend has it that the Fort was built to save the dates.
”Nakhal Fort in Oman was not specifically built to “save the dates” in a literal sense, but it does have historical and agricultural significance tied to date cultivation, Nakhal Fort is located in a region known for its date palm plantations, and its strategic placement on rocky terrain overlooking the fertile lands likely helped safeguard agricultural resources, including dates, which were (and remain) a vital part of the local economy and culture.”
Gives a whole new meaning to ‘save the date.’
As I was exiting, the girl offered to scent me with smouldering frankincense. It was pretty cool, though I couldn’t tell if it was an honour… or a subtle hint that I smelled.
Oh no… not me too!
I think I’ll be putting forts up there with churches and caves in though. Enough is enough, for a little while.
The moment we left the hotel in Muscat, Denise slipped back into her cold, distant demeanor. Even before we finished packing in the room, she seemed desperate to get away. I was picking up my backpack when she abruptly announced she’d be leaving now. Unsure how to respond, I just stood there, wondering if I should wait to give her the head start she clearly wanted… or go at the same time. It was very awkward. After a moment, I felt ridiculous lingering there, so I headed out to the hallway and to the elevator. She was still waiting there… and her annoyed expression made it clear my presence wasn’t really welcome.
Maybe I was reading it all wrong.
It sucked…
It’s so strange how she just flips. The whole day… actually, the next day and the day after that… not one single word. She acted like I didn’t even exist, walking past me as if I were invisible.
Oh well.
I decided to keep my distance. On the first day, I thought I’d try reaching out, but she just put her head down and walked right by.
Hint taken.
This tour.
It seems to get better and better…
And better.
I have to say, randomly allocating people to certain cook crews has been both a challenge and a great source of entertainment. A lot of people on this particular tour don’t see eye to eye… which means they don’t necessarily agree on meal choices or how to cook to certain items or how long something should be cooked for… or how much spice should added… etc etc. The list goes on and on. The disagreements can be endless. It’s (sometimes) amusing to watch the evening drama all go down.
Sue is, without a doubt, the most negative person on our tour. Ironically, she spends most of her time complaining about how awful and negative everyone else is, completely unaware that she’s the worst. Her complaints are endless. Her condescending, drama-stirring manner grates. She doesn’t get along with the Germans, but instead of trying to bridge the gap, she resorts to passive-aggressive gestures: exaggerated sighs, disapproving head shakes, pointed facial expressions, and monotonous tales of how they’ve supposedly wronged her.
Ok… yes… I’ll admit… Yellow has done nothing to add to the group dynamics except cough and smoke… but he’s never been rude. If you smile at him, he will smile back.
Their meal this one particular evening was a bit of a mystery and a few of us were sitting around, trying to figure out what was being made, judging only by the occasional words we’d hear them throw out.
Prawn
Curry
Rice
Ok… it’s rice prawn curry.
Perfect. Easy.
Banana
Oh… ok… mashed banana prawn curry with rice?
Then the ingredient list just proceeded to get weirder…
Lemongrass
Mushrooms
Corriander
Yoghurt
Raisins
Chicken
Papaya
Jam
Hmmmm…
Odd meal.
It actually turned out… meh… but it tasted like one of those dishes you throw together in a last-minute effort to use up all the random ingredients left in your fridge and cupboard. I only tried a tiny bit… out of pure politeness… as there was an abundance of mushrooms and coriander used.
I guess I could have loudly announced I didn’t like it and simply thrown it all in the bin (like Karen) or stormed off because it had tomatoes in it (like Martin)… but I chose maturity… (for the first time in my life)… smiled and thanked them all for a wonderful meal.
Unfortunately Karen had to assert her shittiness once again and cook up her own concoction cuz she “doesn’t like peppers!”’
Ah, group dynamics.
People just get fussy.
People are fussy.
We were back to camping in the dunes… stunning, rolling dunes that looked like something dreams are made of.
But sleeping on them?
No, thank you.
That turned out to be a nightmare.
Look at me complaining after I’ve endured nights on end of tenting over rocks and boulders…
I’m worse than Sue.
Dunes are really nothing more than smashed up little rocks though. Right?
When I saw how soft and dreamy the dunes looked, I figured it would be like sleeping on a cloud… and I naturally figured I could skip the roll mat altogether. I’m not sure why I was suddenly so tent-brave. Perhaps I was trying to prove I wasn’t as old as I clearly am.
Bad call.
Very bad call.
I’m old.
The entire night was spent tossing and turning on the compacted sand, which, instead of being squishy, cushiony and welcoming, felt like a cement floor. My back felt like it had been through it had been badly beaten… and to make matters worse, my phone and my charger were both dead.
I laid there, all night, unsuccessfully desperate to find a comfortable position… and my brain decided it was the perfect time to spiral.
What if I didn’t wake up without my alarm?
What if we needed our printed Saudi visas in the morning and I couldn’t find mine?
Was it in with my passport?
What if I couldn’t find my passport?
Was it in with my luggage that was locked away in the truck? What if the guides refused to let me get my luggage out in the morning?
Lying there in the dark, I worried about everything: the visa, the passport, the phone, the charger, the wind, the sand, waking up on time, selling my apartment, buying a new one, my business, my bank account, my debt… and of course… this trip, every single person on this trip and my faltering mental health being with these people, on this trip.
It was a long, agonizing, sleepless night.
The morning dew took a likely turn for the worse and we woke up to cold and wet. It was like it had rained all night. Of course we had to go… so everyone’s stuff was thrown into bags and stuffed on the truck.
Left… to fester and stink.
But as we had three days in a hotel coming up.,. We ignored it.
Well… I did anyway.
I had purchased 20GB of data for Oman and I’d been so diligent, ensuring I didn’t use it all at once… like I’d managed to do before. I was very good about monitoring my data usage and turning it off when I didn’t need it. As it turned out… I was too diligent. I was set to leave Oman the following day and I was sitting at 17GB. My plan had been to use it all up that evening - making TikToks and other entertaining videos… I was going to upload photos to my blog add to social media…and mindlessly scroll through reels…
I had it all planned out.
Well… it didn’t pan out as intended. Reception was poor, at best. I tried to move around the camp a bit, desperate to locate that one single spot that would allow me to use up my data.
It swayed in and out of one bar… and never more than that. So… my diligence to monitoring had done me not favours. I did attempt to make some videos and upload some photos, but it was slow… and more things simply disappeared rather than uploading.
The drive to the border was better for reception and the race was on. As fast as I could, I checked my banking, did some transfers, uploaded photos, posted a blog, make a couple TikToks, downloaded an audio book and some movies… but it still didn’t do the trick.
By the time we’d crossed over in Saudi Arabia, I was sitting at 18.7…
I tried.
I still have no idea how I went through 3GB in 4 hours when I couldn’t successfully get through 2 with all phone apps open and running full tilt.
The Saudi Arabia border was a trip. They gave us free karat tea and bottles of water. They even had a complimentary cappuccino machine. I told two of the customs officers that the welcoming was exceptional.
Canada needs a complimentary cappuccino machine on arrival.
Or at least a shot of maple syrup.
In total it took approximately two hours to get into Saudi. They stamped us out of Oman and then into Saudi. The truck was xrayed as usual, although no one boarded the truck to filter through our stuff this time.
We’d all been warned it was a day of mile munching and it most definitely was. We set off at 8am Oman time (7am Saudi time) and drove straight through until 5:45 Saudi time. Almost 11 hours in the truck. It was gruelling. By the time we found a place to pull off the road, it was dark and cold. You never think a place like Saudi could get cold, but it does. We awoke to brisk temperatures and a moist mist blanketing our camp.
My early morning was slightly more exasperating than a moist mist. I actually awoke to Yellow and Thin Lizzy having a full on German conversation at 4:10am.
It was brutal.
I did unzip and yell out shhhhh a couple times, but they were completely oblivious to their early morning disrespect.
Everything went down hill from there. After being woken up so abruptly and rudely and sooo early, it was bound to be a bad day.
And it was.
Everything to hell.
The border at Saudi/Qatar was a nightmare. We had only spent less than 24 hours in Saudi, but it was only for transit purposes.
Trying to get into Qatar a mess. I’ve never seen such blatant unorganization. We went to one place to have our passports stamped… and then another. Then we’d have to backtrack up another place. Then the truck had to go forward so that we could all have our passports checked, and then backwards to be searched. Then another officer would board to check our passports again.
We might have been able to deal with the chaos and back & forth, had there been free dates and cappuccinos.
There were not.
We finally got through though… and drove straight into Doha.
After days of being treated like crap, I finally decided I’d had enough. It was time to separate myself from Denise. The day before, I had texted Rosanna to put me back into the rooming mix. I did it in the most drama free way… stating that I knew Judy was leaving and other people (Sue and Marilyn) didn’t like people teaming up. I knew I was playing with fire… as all the choices available to me were bunk, but I felt I had no other choice.
She’d gone three days without even looking at me, let alone speaking to me. I didn’t want to be confined to a room with someone who hated me and wanted to be as far from me as possible. Equally I didn’t want to share a room with someone whose attitude towards me flip flopped so much that I spent the entire time on egg shells, not knowing where I stood.
I was between a rock and a hard place.
Still am.
So… it all went down… in the worse imaginable way. When we arrived at the hotel, Rosanna read out the names for each hotel… and fucking paired us together again.
What the actual fuck???
I thought I’d taken care of this.
When I heard our names together, I froze…completely unsure of what to do. In the moment, I quickly asked Sue or Marilyn if one of them would switch rooms with me. They were the two always pissy that people were teaming up together, so I figured switching it up would be a welcome change.
I was wrong.
I ended up staying with Sue while Marilyn went with Denise.
That should have resolved things, but Marilyn made a huge deal out of it, playing the victim and claiming she was hurt by my decision. In fact, she went a step further by telling anyone that would listen that “she had feelings too.”
Shut up.
Had I been permitted that day to punch anyone in the face, I would’ve chosen Marilyn.
What an idiot.
In fact, I was so upset by her demeanour and choice of words that I flatly told Sue to tell her to stay away from me. I was irritated. She had no idea what was going on with us, what I’d been through the last few days, what lengths I’d gone to to ensure we’d be split up… and on top of it, I’d received bad family news.
All anyone knew was that there was drama… because Marilyn was the poor victim and “had feelings too.”
Punch.
Right in the kisser.
Denise sent me a barrage of messages saying she didn’t understand where all this was coming from, which I found amusing.
Really?
At this point, I’m done. I just can’t deal with the drama. I’m on holiday, and this situation is already stressful enough without these silent treatment games from a stranger. Now, I’m back to being “thrown into the mix,” rotating through rooms with all these unpredictable and random people.
I have to admit, I have been seriously contemplating leaving the tour altogether. But since it cost so much and I’m not exactly flush with cash, running off to explore the Middle East solo isn’t really a realistic option. I feel stuck, torn between the financially responsible choice of staying and the toll this is taking… and will take… on my mental health. Staying on the tour is probably the wiser decision financially, but it feels like a bad one emotionally.
Who knows… perhaps I’ll come away with a few wild stories to tell. Of course I will. I already have enough stories from this trip to fill a library. But right now, I’m just trying to figure out what’s next.
Doha was nice, but I just wasn’t in the mood to explore. On the first evening, we visited the souk, but it was right after the rooming situation at the hotel, and I was feeling pretty down. I felt like the bad guy. I’d written to Rosanna to apologize and told her I never wanted things to end this way, but even that didn’t lift my spirits.
… and then a bird shit on me.
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