THE CURE: MUSCAT, OMAN.

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10839239.post-53535551875895514432008-05-07T08:13:00.005-04:002008-05-07T12:19:17.461-04:00THE CURE: MUSCAT, OMAN.rough draft – first-and-a-half f i c t i o n a l i z e d The bus ride between Dubai and Muscat, Oman, takes less than six hours, including the stops at the border. It costs $24 one way. There’s more than one company with buses between the two cities. My choice is haphazard. I use “al-Khanjari.” Our bus breaks down before we leave Dubai. Lucky. We change buses. The Indian movie is eminently annoying noise. The distance between Dubai and Muscat shows you enough of the desert. Comes a time when you stop seeing the occasional shrub or dried up tree, and you see actual sand dunes. But overall, there are towns sprinkled all about. I can’t get over the fact that Dubai and Muscat are watered by desalination. Part of why I find it incredulous is that in neither city do I have to limit my use of water. I would love to see the desalination operation. Daniel explains it thus: you sell a barrel of oil for $115; you power the desalination plant at $15 per barrel; you sell the water for ther equivalent of $25 a barrel; you’re ahead. SUN CITY HOTEL The bus’s final stop is Ruwi, a suburb/section of Muscat. Before I do anything, I need a tea. I enter one of many coffee shops and ask for tea, instructing the owner not to put in the standard condensed milk, and only half a teaspoon of sugar. Lipton does brisk business in the UAE and Oman. Tea is offered as would a large espresso, with not much water, and a lot of sugar and condensed milk. It costs about 30 cents. Now that I’ve had my tea I turn to lodging. I stop a young man in his national Omani jellaba and head gear -- all wear that -- and ask him to recommend a hotel. Here’s one he says, right near us, which I hadn’t seen. It turns out that the coffee shop where I sat is part of the Sun City Hotel. The young man says that I should check it out and if I don’t like it, that he’d be glad to drive me to another hotel. I like it. Recently renovated. The room is huge and the bathroom is too. My room sits right atop the coffee shop. It smells of tobacco, mildly. On that observation the attendant fires up the AC. I open the window and shout “shukran” (thank you) to the young man. He smiles and drives off in his Toyota -- the most popular brand of cars in Muscat. The room costs 20 riyals per night -- about $76.00. Later I discover that the floor’s common kitchen is so badly kept up that cockroaches fill it. I spot them in so many places in that kitchen. Never in the room. What a waste: after the fancy renovation, to fail at cleaning well the common kitchen! Daniel’s maid is the best cleaning person I know. That kitchen of hers is spotless. Daniel’s wife chastises me to stop feeling guilty and have the maid make my tea or clean after me after I do. “She’s rich in Sri Lanka, you know,” she says; “she’s built a house and now rents it; and she’s asking for a steep raise. We have no choice but to give it to her. She’s been with us from Lebanon.” I sort of accept the instructions. Before I leave I give the maid a gift of $100 to spend I say on her upcoming return home after six years away. Daniel’s wife goes with her to help her shop for gifts for her trip back. She's worried about her not returning. I have to admit: It’s so nice to have a live-in maid. Everything is always clean and you see no clutter whatsoever. THE MAN FROM KERALA A man from Kerala, India, runs the coffee shop. People from Kerala run so many things in Muscat -- and a lot in the UAE, too. The Kerala man isn’t a natural at owning a business. His temper is short. I never see him smile. I think likely he should’ve been a professor, but is stuck at the coffee shop. I’m not being facetious. His brother or cousin helps him out in the evening. He’s handsome and more patient and pleasant. The hotel and the coffee shop tower over bus stops that take you to many towns and places in Oman, and to Dubai. In the morning, the sun hits the Kerala man’s coffee shop and most people use the coffee shop across from it, where there’s plenty of shade. In the afternoon, the roles reverse: the sun shines on the opposite shop, and most customers use the Kerala man’s coffee shop. The Kerala man can add a few parasols, which would bring in some business in the morning. But he isn’t interested. He’d rather teach at university. I spot quite a lot of dissatisfaction among taxi drivers, bus drivers, and coffee shop managers in Muscat. Remember: Oman isn’t as rich as other Gulf countries. I query about the bus drivers. An Omani tells me that they make 200 Riyals per month (@ $750) driving 6 or 7 days per week (he isn’t sure) between Dubai and Muscat – that’s at least 11 hours per day. Now I know why the bus driver coming from Dubai, though courteous, was nonetheless uninterested in helping out. I tried to ask him some questions and he puffed. On the way back to Dubai, the driver is hell bent on not even having a drink of water. He seems mad, but the Omani way: gently. And he’s a good and careful driver. In Mexico, I’ve taken buses where the drivers were outrightly reckless. And they’re even worse in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, In one ride between Playa del Carmen and Merida, in the Yucatan, not for a moment was the driver not engaged in programming his cell phone or conversing sideways. I’m still alive to write about it. I suspect that the coffee shop “owner,” the man from Kerala, ends up coughing up a lot of his profit to the mandatory Omani co-signer on his shop. His silent partner who does not work. Hence likely the dissatisfied disposition. His cousin’s good looks make up for the relative economic disadvantage of an Indian expatriate running away from relative poverty at home, and maybe that’s why he has a better disposition. Looks go a long way in making for better disposition, I think. I recall an incident where a Syrian soldier manning a checkpoint in Bhamdoun, Lebanon, punishes my cousin for taking the “military route” by stopping us and having us wait, forever. Another soldier comes out from a building nearby. I swear he is James Dean incarnate, he’s so handsome. I seek his attention and talk to him. I tell him about his colleague, about the punishment. Throughout the conversation, he holds on to my arm. After he hears me out, he tells us to leave. I remind him that his colleague has an AK 47. Not to worry. Paul, my cousin, takes off. Then Paul tells me to look back. I do: the James Dean look-alike is having a shoving match with the ugly soldier. Another time, I’m heading to my father’s hometown in the Bekaa valley. The Israelis had just bombed a Syrian radar at Dahr al-Baidar in Lebanon. The Syrian intelligence service man who checks me out asks me what I do for a living. I say I’m a lawyer, without specifying that I’m an American lawyer. I show him what they call Ikhraj Ayd -- a document from the hometown mayor with a photo in it attesting to origin. It’s as good as any identification. He looks at it and claims he knows my father’s hometown from where the Ikhraj Ayd was issued. He doesn’t and I say to him with venom in my voice that his outfit should teach him some geography before sending him over to occupy a country. He smiles. He’s a handsome guy which, according to my theory, makes for a good disposition, generally. Okay, go, he says. I leave not thanking him. On the way back, there’s a lengthy queue of cars waiting at the Syrian intelligence checkpoint. But the handsome intelligence guy sees me from afar. He waves me over and I pass the lengthy queue. “Go Istaz (counsel).” I smile at him. THE MOROCCANS Dissatisfaction in Muscat makes for some entertainment. On my first day I meet a bunch of Moroccan expatriates who gather regularly in the Kerala man’s coffee shop, every late afternoon. These men become my guides about Muscat; I follow their instructions on what to see and do. They don’t like the man from Kerala , and he hates their guts. That’s how it looks at the surface. The same encounter between Morocco and Kerala repeats itself daily: They arrive; they take over a table outside after they say hello to me; they shout for tea, soda, and bottled water. The Kerala man refuses to budge. They scream and make a scene; he screams back from inside his shop. Simple: he resents their bossy attitude and their disrespect of his policy of not waiting on tables. They’re to come in and pay for their orders and take them outside to their table. It’s not worth his while to wait on tables. The sad and funny part is that they seem to enjoy irritating him, and accuse him (to me) of being an awful coffee shop owner. He doesn’t care. He looks at me and looks at them, and then back at me and makes an attempt at snickering (He's incapable of that), with a dismissive wave of his hand. “These assholes,” he seems to be saying, “who do they think they are?” The Moroccans always return to the Kerala man’s coffee shop to repeat the same act. MATTRAH (“A PLACE”) I go to many parts of Muscat, and on one long distance trip to Nizwa. I will not waste your time. I only liked Mattrah and its port and Corniche. (The Corniche could actually be located in the city of Muscat itself, not in Mattrah; I never bother to find out. I reach it via Mattrah.) At high tide, the mini-port of Mattrah becomes a virtual aquarium. I can’t begin to describe the schools of fish that parade by as you watch. I wouldn't know how since I'm not familiar with marine biology. But the place should be protected, I know that much. All colors, all sizes. And I see my fair share of sea turtles. It’s a true feast to the eyes. At low tide, the place is disappointing. As water retreats, you can see the ground at the edge, and on that ground you see garbage strewn all about. One day, children swimming at low tide take Styrofoam with them and shred it to no end in the water. The place fills up with white Styrofoam , which a mild current moves in unison to one end of the port. Local fish swim below it, including a weird-looking obese fish which feeds off under water rocks. Many times I spot people disposing of garbage to the ground or into the bay. THE PROUD GERMAN MAN A man passes me by in a hurry. We say hello to each other. Then he returns. He apologizes for rushing away. I say it’s okay, that I understand that he wanted to take the photo of a yacht as it was leaving the mini-port. It’s not a yacht, he corrects me; It’s a super yacht. He mentions the German company which manufactured it. With sincerity I ask whether he works for that company. No, no, he says, impatiently. It seems he’s proud of the German product, period. Suddenly I feel so bad about not being proud of the seating on the Bowing 777. I don’t share this with the German man. He might accuse me of treason. The German man returns to his wife to explain away about the yacht – I mean: super yacht. The one thing about traveling: you’re thankful you didn’t get married young and had stayed with the same woman. I know it sounds awful. But the man looks young and his wife looks like she can be his mother. I prefer my mother’s hometown’s paradigm of marriage: marry young, children, children move to Beirut or immigrate to Oklahoma, mother follows them, father stays in the hometown and remains drunk on arak with his buddies, until death. That scene -- the one where I don’t regret being unmarried -- repeats itself often on this trip. It could be my age. Not that I don’t miss women when traveling solo. I do. Once it had been the most important reason why I traveled each summer to Cyprus -- for the Swedish women. Once, in Mexico, after traveling inside the Maya country for days, and not seeing but Maya women, on returning to Cancun, I run in downtown Cancun on spotting from a distance a non-Mayan woman, just to see her. She has a waist, a defined waist. And I’m awed and speechless. At last: a defined waist. I’ve always had a weakness for women with a defined waist. BACK IN TIME Food in Muscat is to kill for, as it is in Dubai. South Indian cuisine, which many tell me is better than that found in India itself. I discover a place in Mattrah which makes amazing paratta. But these are decent all over, including at the coffee shop under my room, the Kerala man’s shop. The South Indian food is so cheap, to boot. In Mattrah, too, I want to avoid returning to the taxi stand using the souk; I’m getting tired of the solicitations. By taking all sorts of cuts, I get lost. And, what a place to get lost. I come out in a neighborhood which, but of the presence of a couple of cars, could’ve been Muscat circa 1867. For a short while, I feel hesitation. As if I’m transported back in time. James Harper, my friend from D.C. who lives and works in Abu Dhabi, later tells me that the same thing had happened to him. And that he had been so awestruck that he felt fear – that he really had gotten lost in time. To get back to 2008, I look about for the minaret of the mosque abutting the souk, and make my way accordingly back to the beaten track. For how long will these neighborhoods last? Especially that the Oman government’s budget is over $1 bn in the black. One incident in the souk: I enter a public bathroom. I’m wearing beach combers and shorts. I start using one urinal, but my lower legs and feet are being drenched with urine. I stop and look down: Yes, the urine goes straight into a canal beneath. The urinal is missing a pipe, I think to myself. I move over to the next urinal, thinking the first is in need of repair. The same thing happens to me. I accept my fate. The missing pipe is a planned event. In Ruwi, I purposely walk about away from the market area, and I discover where the toiling masses live. Actual shacks and huts. And little deli-like stores. A far contrast from the villas at Qorm where I had gone to sun bathe. THE OMANIS: VISIBLE AND POLITE Omanis, unlike Emiratis, are out and about a lot. They man the taxis, for instance. They’re very polite. I become angry once with a shared taxi driver who’s supposed to drive me from Nizwa to Muscat; but he drops me off 40 kilometers outside of Muscat. It doesn’t make sense to me. We had agreed that he would drive me to Muscat itself, to Ruwi. He says that’s their standard stop, 40 kilometers out, and that’s what everyone in Nizwa understands by “Muscat.” He’s dazzled and apologetic though he truly believes it’s not his mistake. He doesn’t write the rules. I find out later from the Moroccans that he was right. The stop where he left me is understood by all in the trade to be the “Muscat” stop for anyone returning from Nizwa. Still, it’s strange that he had not tried to explain that earlier, when in Nizwa, since I clearly appeared to be a tourist. And it's not like he was aching for riders. One night I wake up late. The window is open. I look out and I see that two men are sleeping at the entrance of the bus dispatcher’s office. For some reason, it doesn’t feel that bad. They both have mats under their bodies. Later I find out who the two are. They’re Omani and wear the standard national garb. I think the national garb is such an equalizer, and perhaps that’s why I didn’t feel bad for them when I spotted them asleep in the outdoors. Daytime: they're indistinguishable from the rest. Too, it’s warm and not hot at night. On my last day I enter a small store in Mattrah, “owned” by a Pakistani man. It’s a watch repair shop. But he had these great-looking watches. I buy five of them. He gives me a special price: about $20 each. (Even less.) A steal. I consider buying the national garb, then think it’ll only add to clutter in my life The watches: I can give away as gifts. The garb will be abused and worn for Halloween. I look for gifts for women. No luck. The women’s watches aren’t that great. I buy perfume. But I’m not sure it’s worth giving to anyone. It’s so difficult to open the bottles. I wake up early on my departure day. I sit in the café across from the Kerala man’s shop. I’m able to write a poem I’ve long wanted to write. It flows so fast. I continue to edit it on the bus. Is this why I travel? I’ve written most of my poetry (in Arabic) while traveling. PASSPORT, GOOGLE, GOOGLE, AND THE MUKHABARAT (INTELLIGENCE) MAN The trip back is uneventful but for the presence on the bus of a Mukhabarat (intelligence service) guy. He doesn’t buy a ticket; I know that because when the comptroller boards the bus to check ours, he shows none. And all those in the know — driver and aide and all those who work for the Bus company, who hop on and ho off – come by and pay their respect by lowering their head and shaking his soft hand. He’s a tad heavy. I don’t know that he’s there for me. If he is, it’s because the hotel copies my passport and likely dispatches it to the Mukhabarat. Google; google; boogle; spoogle. Then a bus ride from Muscat to the border with Dubai to assure that this guy (moi) has really left. They’re afraid I’d jump off the bus and have some secret plan to survive in the desert. The Mukhabarat guy leaves the bus at the border. I think to myself: that’s why Dubai is successful; it doesn’t have much oil. But its ruler doesn’t dispatch Mukhabarat people to track Tony Khater, or to make sure he leaves the country. Doesn’t bother. WOULD I RETURN TO OMAN? Yes, but only if I can fly business class. Oman is a great place to visit, and to get lost in it, before the government’s money spreads to the neighborhoods which time has forgotten. If I can put up with another 14-hour flight, the next time I’ll rent a four-wheel drive and head to Salalah in the south and to Jabal al-Akhdar. James Harper wants me to come to Abu Dhabi so that we can do the region together. He’s a great traveler, has traveled the globe over, and he just bought a four-wheeler with the idea of reaching places he hasn’t reached before. I know I should take advantage: no one can show me the region as James. Besides, time is of the essence: James is now searching for a job in D.C., his hometown; it’s better for the children, he says. He has two master degrees and has taught English as a foreign language (and other courses) for the better part of his adult life. I can easily lose the opportunity to have him show me the place. I saw him last summer in D.C. when he interviewed in Texas; then he recently interviewed in D.C. itself, ini Georgetown. It hit me: Oman’s sun has cured me so thoroughly. I feel healthy and am giddy. It’s such a gorgeous place. On the way back I can’t get over the fact that I’m feeling so much better. What makes the experience even more special is that the Omani people are so polite. And the expatriates are –- oh well, hilarious. I miss the Moroccan expatriates already, and I miss the Kerala man. It’d be worth going back if only to see the two dismiss each other. I return to Dubai, uncertain; I don’t want to; but I feel an obligation to spend some time with Daniel, and the only time he has is over the weekend. I’m praying I will not have to go shopping for a Porsche.Tony Khaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05535614232478556428noreply@blogger.com