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> JUNE 2007
JULY 2007
AUGUST 2007
cyclone gonu
just a couple of the many, many unfortunate cars
the beach near our apartment
hannah on the beach
torrential flooding
muttrah port in muscat
a dhow at muttrah port
sunset at sea
melodica travels
Well, ok. This Oman diary begins in Dubai, since we are currently marooned here due to Cyclone Gonu, which ripped through Oman this morning. The airport at Muscat (where we're going to be living for the next two months) has been closed for the next day or so, so we're relaxing at the moment at a hotel near the airport paid for by Emirates Airlines. It certainly is an ill wind that blows no good. So we've been able to shower and sleep and eat and generally take it easy, whilst waiting to hear about when we're leaving for Muscat. The temperature outside is OUTRAGEOUS!!!!! I've never felt heat like it. The only privation we're having to suffer is that our luggage is somewhere in the Dubai airport waiting to be put onto the Muscat flight, so we went to the airport about an hour ago to try to locate it (to no avail). We walked around for no more than 20 minutes outside the air-conditioned airport, and were drenched in sweat as a result. Thank God (or Allah?) for air-conditioning is all I can say!
Also, we've brought a 24-hour internet card from the hotel, for use with our computer in our room, so I've been able to upload the new website to the server, which I'm very happy about, having worked on it for such a long time in Mongolia and China.
Sat 9th June 2007
We're safely in Muscat, Oman. The flight arrived around 2.30pm local time yesterday (GMT+3 hours at the moment), and we made it to where we're staying in the city without too much trouble. The scenes of devastation are incredible - cars piled upon cars (one car dealer we saw had something like 500 new cars mangled together in heaps), and water raging through old river banks (known as Wadhis) where unsuspecting residents discovered the day before that their house was built in the middle of one of these old dry rivers. The traffic is jammed everywhere as you'd expect of course, although the Sultan has declared a National Holiday until things are cleaned up a little more. Migrant Indian workers are doing the cleaning up and I certainly don't envy them their task in this heat (around 50 Celsius, we've been told).
Mon 11th June 2007
There are two great things about the location of the apartment we're in. One is that it was almost entirely missed by the cyclone (whereas other parts of the city were hit hard - some still don't have water or electicity). The other is the proximity to the beach. After a year in Mongolia (landlocked = no beaches), we're experiencing a childlike fascination with the local beach, and have visited it every evening (it gets cooler from 5pm or so) just to walk and paddle a bit. It's quite messy in places (on account of the cyclone), but is a little piece of heaven after the oven-like temperatures of the day.
We managed to get out and about around midday today. We stood across the road from the apartment and waited for some kind of taxi to pass by. After only about a minute a Hummer, of all things, pulled up and a woman offered us a lift to where we were going. We weren't exactly specific in our request ("take us to some shops and a supermarket"), but she was happy to oblige. She is originally from Iran, it turns out, and is living and working over here with her husband. A mile or so down our road (called November 18th Road - need to find out why), there is a torrential new river (another wadhi no longer dry) that is impassable for most vehicles. Not so this lady's Hummer. She just cooly changed gear and - without a second's thought - ploughed straight into the raging waters. I don't mind admitting I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing (Hannah was calm throughout, I should point out), but needn't have worried. It seems there is a use for those ugly brutes of a vehicle - at least post-cyclone. It doesn't explain why the driver I once saw in West Bromwich (that's in the West Midlands for the uninitiated) had purchased a Hummer though...
She dropped us off at a huge Hypermarket, where (after thanking her a million for her kindess) we spent a couple of hours perusing what was on offer. The Lulu Hypermarket (nice name!) is HUGE and it seems you can get pretty much everything there - even despite the cyclone. After our shopping venture, it was time to try to get across the river again (no helpful Hummer this time). We bartered with a taxi driver in the unbearable heat, but held to our price (2 Rials against his insistence of 5 Rials - 1 Rial is about £1.25). We still paid more than we should have, but the heat was becoming more and more unbearable, and the shopping bags heavier and heavier, so we decided what the hell and went for it. On arrival at the river the taxi driver, of course, wasn't going across, but kindly asked some blokes in a 4x4 if they would ferry us across. They said yes, so we paid the taxi driver and joined our new travelling companions for a repeat dip in the (still) torrential waters. They were even kind enough to take us to our apartment and drop us off there, too. A real difference to the general suspiciousness and often downright hostility we used to encounter on the streets of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on a daily basis. Maybe it's just a survival spirit after the cyclone, but I like to think it's in their nature to be hospitable to strangers. We certainly experienced 100% friendliness and helpfulness from all concerned today.
Thurs 14th June 2007
Last night we visited a few hotels to check out the bar scene. I've never been one for hanging around hotel bars, but Oman being a dry country, it's the only place to get your hands on alcohol (residents can apply for a liquor licence to enable them to drink at home - the same is true for Dubai, but for tourists, it's the bars or nothing). Thanks to the friend of one of our new American friends, we were driven around some of the posher hotels in the city. Our first impression was one of horror - the bars in these expensive hotels had about as much sophistication as those on the Broad Street crawl back in Birmingham! The first (at the Inter-Continental Hotel) even had the obligatory thumping disco-plus-DJ. The Safari Club at the Grand Hyatt (decked out in African Safari-style) was nicer and we were able to sit and talk and drink pints (a welcome sight), whilst listening to the Australian covers band admirably plow through a variety of styles. It's the local Arabic music scene I'm most interested in though, and I hope we can track something down soon.
Fri 15th June 2007
We ventured out in the heat yesterday afternoon and investigated the port at Muttrah (an area of Muscat) and the local souk (market). The heat was astounding, but it didn't put us off. We took it easy in a little cafe for half-an-hour or so (no one does anything between 1-4pm, which functions as a kind of afternoon siesta), and then explored around the port and the souk. The port is beautiful, with clear waters and an interesting variety of boats in the harbour, including some wooden dhows (I think that's how it's spelt). There is a little bit of visible damage from the cyclone, and the entrance to the souk is still flowing with a little water from the storm last week, but not too much. The market is a vibrant hub of bargaining and bargains, and Hannah picked up a few bargains with a little bargaining. A nice, relaxed afternoon all-round.
Mon 18th June 2007
Friday late-afternoon, we went on a fantastic boat trip with some fishermen. It was their fishing boat, which was pretty small, but they managed to cram around a dozen people onto it for the journey. It was great to be whisked off onto the water at high speed, and the journey followed the coastline heading south from Muscat. Aside from it being a relaxing way to spend the afternoon, we also got some great photos. The colour of the mountains around sunset changes to an infinite degree of reds and browns against the cool, clear blue of the waters. There are supposed to be sharks in these waters, but we didn't see any evidence during our time around the coast. Luckily! The whole trip lasted about two hours or so, and it was nice to stretch our legs again on arrival back at our starting point. The whole journey only cost us 2 Rials each (about £5 in total), which was great value.
Fri 22nd June 2007
I've been recording some more melodica tracks for a forthcoming album (working title: "Melodica Travels"). I started recording some improvisations and compositions whilst still in Mongolia, and continued the practice through our brief time in China and now on to Oman. I hope by the time of our arrival in Dubai to have an album-worth of material for release through the site.
I'm frequently reminded of how glad I am to have brought the instrument along with us went we left the UK back in April last year. Without it I would have felt pretty isolated from musical expression, for definite. I'm deliberately leaving the tuning of the instrument to its own will and the effect of its surroundings. Equal temperament is the Technicolor of the music world: practical and general-purpose, but soulless and palid by comparison with the infinite number of potential vibrational relationships generated when you allow your ears to listen outside the safety of ET. So each time I unpack the melodica I am delighted by the latest developments in its reeds, rather than horrified as one would be by an "out-of-tune" concert grand, for instance.