DAY 131 - MUSCAT DAY 2

Dave working the phones outside the Saudi Embassy in Muscat!

Because of the Chinese debacle and a few other delays along the way during CrazyJourney, we’ve been a bit pushed for time, especially since we’ve set deadlines in Europe to meet the Paul Sokhi, Marty Spargo and a mob of Irish Hooligans. So needing to stick to a schedule, we thought it would be ideal to obtain a Transit Visa for Saudi Arabia and drive directly from UAE to Jordan, rather than taking a boat back to Iran and chinning a much bigger loop around Iraq to reach reach the same destination. We had heard stories that Saudi Transit Visas were notoriously difficult to obtain and as a westerner, dealing with the Saudis is almost impossible.

With the worst possible outcome being rejection, we decided to suss out the Saudi Embassy in Muscat. When we arrived, we found out that all applications needed to be done through an agent and luckily enough he was still around outside the Embassy. We organized to bring him all the necessary documents the following day which included letters of recommendation from our respective embassies as well as Visas to Jordan as proof of passage.

The Hummer outside The Sultan's Palace, Muscat

Once this was done, we took a drive to Muttrah, a lovely harbour port and also to Muscat’s old town. Muscat is a spotlessly clean low rise city. The highly respected Sultan Bin Qaboos, has opened up the country to tourism over the past 20 years and ensured that this sector’s development has not come at the detriment of the country’s natural beauty, peaceful atmosphere or national identity. While in the Old Town, we stopped to visit the Sultan’s magnificent Palace. Returning home, we stopped at one of the old coastal forts, overlooking the picturesque Muttrah.

Dave and Rhys look over a Foggy Muttrah

That evening, Rhys, Dave and Fintan went for dinner with Detta, Yayha a friend of Detta who worked in the Omani Government and his son  Talal at a lovely restaurant by the sea. Interestingly enough, Talal had worked in Dublin for 5 years and we had a great laugh at his accent which had a  slight Dublin twang when he spoke English. 

As the tongues loosened up, plenty of stories started flowing. Yayha told us a cracker about his wealthy Arab friend who is 100 years old and had had 100 children, and constantly renews his supply of wives. Its reputed that the legend at his age, still has no need for Viagra to do the business! We finished up the night with a few drinks with the legend Talal, who is now a manager at the 6-star Shangri-La hotel in Muscat, so we promised to pay him a visit tomorrow.