Making the most of Omans coast Ernest Meili took a journey down the 1700kms or so of Oman’s coastline. He talked about his experience, in one of the best talks held by the ESO.
1700 kilometers by Kayak
I really look forward to doing the same journey with Nobel Caledonia on their Oman Cruise and hope my talks will be as interesting.
Posted in Musandam, OMAN, Oman's Nature, People, Salalah, Sea, Yemen
Tagged Arabian Sea, Coast, Gulf of Oman, Holiday, Journey, OMAN, Oman Holidays, Oman Tours, Sea, Shuwaymiyah, The Gulf, Tour, Trip, Yemen
After a very nice drive through the Dhofar mountains we arrived in Yemen – where if anything the scenery is more dramatic than in Dhofar.
Enjoying the Yemeni sun
on small beach we had a simple Picnic before turning around, for the drive back to Oman and Salalah.
Fortunately we managed to arrive in time for a nice dinner in town.
As the Monsoon Season draws to a close in Salalah it will soon be time to start the Frankincense Harvest.
Camels and Tent
A crew for the BBC filmed in Oman a piece about the Frankincense Trail in June last year. From Oman they went to The Hadramout and beyond, mixing fable, modernity and a bit of history as seen through Kate Humble’s eyes.
in the desert
Apart from the fact that Frankincense is a living legend – the thing I really like about the tree is the culture that surrounds it.
Droplets of Frankincense resin
The smoke from the small pebble size pieces is used in Oman as a welcome to guests and the fragrance will scent clothes for a long time .
Posted in Culture, Desert, OMAN, Oman's Nature, People, Salalah, Yemen
Tagged BBC, Frankincense, Frankincense Trail, Hadramout, Kate Humble, OMAN, Salalah, Yemen
A week ago, there was a strong likelihood that a ‘tropical depression’ would create heavy rain in Salalah. Fortunately for Salalah, but tragically for Yemen , it veered away and the last few days was over southern Yemen. The video clip http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7689795.stm from Yemen shows a river pouring through “Al Ghar Al Amar” in the centre of Mukalla . The water catchment area in Mukalla is far smaller than that of Wadi Hadhramaut http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7690463.stm or even I suspect Wadi Du’an; there the flooding might be horrific. Wadi Hadhramaut and its tributaries have extraordinarily sheer cliffs, carved by previous floods, which funnel the water in its restricted course . The article I wrote about Yemen finished …. ‘I was now left with one problem before I left, how to tackle the ascent out of the valley’ hopefully the inhabitants wont find they need an escape route.
The Arabian Leopard was the subject of an article in the new daily paper from the UAE http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081009/NATIONAL/76935597. The piece highlights how few of the animals there are – the writer covered the possibility that there might be, or might not be one Arabian Leopard in the UAE mountains. That prompted me to scan in the piece I did about the Leopard for ‘Oman Today’ along with 3 other ones .
The visit I made into Wadi Hadhramaut which Oman Today (again) published in 2007 was a wonderful journey . Seeing ‘hand made’ houses rather than ones made from mass produced material was very stimulating. Each one individual and yet harmonious . To get some nice photos I wandered around just after dawn – in Seyoun waking up a pack of several dozen ‘wadi dogs’ on a mountain slope which made me back away very carefully and in Mukalla enjoying watching the men of the old town take up their places in the tea houses . Along the coast, the scenes of fishermen chasing gulls away from drying sardines spoke volumes of their need to preserve ‘wealth’ .
Bank Muscat asks me to produce brief articles which cover towns where they have branches . I am waiting in hope that they will ask me to do one for their Egyptian branch – and of course pay my travel expenses.
The files are probably not so large with broadband – but they take a while to download from Oman .
Posted in OMAN, Oman's Nature, Yemen
Tagged Bank Muscat, Hadhramaut, Hamra, Ibri, Leopard, Magazine, OMAN, Oman Today, Seyoun, Shibam, Tarim, Travel, Yemen
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