Oh man! Oman was O Negative

There was plenty to keep us occupied and lots to observe on board the Queen Elizabeth while we plied our way from Egypt through the Gulf of Aden to Salalah in Dhofar, Oman.

In addition to all the lectures, music and entertainment mentioned in previous blogs, we had cooking demonstrations, a performance of the guest choir, exercise classes and many delicious meals to enjoy.

We also found all the crew drills that were performed on a regular basis – man overboard, fire and medical emergency drills – entertaining to watch.Virtually all the crew was involved and everything stopped for the time it took to work through each exercise.

We had a couple of real life emergencies too – one poor person needed a blood transfusion and a call was put out for donors who belonged to the O negative blood group. On another day the alarm was raised due to a small kitchen fire which thankfully was snuffed out quickly.

It seemed all these drills were paying off!

One of the small things that I appreciated each day was the stunning flower arrangement that appeared in the main lobby and other places around the ship and which changed regularly.

So far we had stopped at Heraklion in Crete and Şafağa in Egypt after transiting the Suez Canal. Our next port of call was Salalah, the capital city of southern Oman’s Dhofar province and the biggest seaport on the Arab Peninsula.

The best season to visit this distant and remote province is in the European summer during The Khareef, an annual monsoon, which transforms the desert terrain into a lush, green landscape and creates seasonal waterfalls.

Unfortunately our visit was in winter and although the landscape wasn’t particularly arid and dusty, there were no waterfalls to visit.

We also happened to visit on a Friday – the Arab Sabbath day – which meant museums and other places of interest were closed. Ditto many of the shops. Nevertheless Sue and John and Jonathan and I decided to disembark and have a look around as we had been aboard for five nights without a break.

Our encounter with the taxi drivers waiting at the port gates was exasperating. For a start, none of them wanted to take passengers on a one-way ride into the town. Instead they were only interested in being hired for a number of hours to take you around the various points of interest.

After a fruitless attempt to persuade one of the drivers to take us, we hung around until there were no more customers and eventually one agreed. Then the haggling started.

There was a notice displayed at the rank that specified how much passengers should pay to be driven to any given destination but the taxi driver persisted in quoting a price way more than the designated amount. Eventually we managed to persuade him that we would only pay a little bit above the price advertised and he could take it or leave it. This all took a considerable time in the heat and was such a frustrating waste of time.

We asked to be taken to the centre of town but we ended up at a tourist market place (rows of shops on a small piece of land) which sold an array of tourist bric-a-brac, shoes, and various items of clothing.

A quick look round was enough – we decided there was nothing that we were interested in and so we would walk to the town centre for a look around.

We wandered around the deathly quiet streets for a while (not surprising as it was Oman’s equivalent of Sunday) we saw a taxi for hire and jumped in it.

This taxi driver put the meter on and was very amenable and helpful. He took us to a big shopping centre and agreed to come and fetch us later after afternoon prayers.

Most of the shops in the supermarket were closed but a massive supermarket was open. We were delighted to find tonic water on the shelves as the price of tonic on the Queen Elizabeth was absolutely horrendous!

Before we left the shopping centre we stopped for a drink at one of the cafes (we needed to catch up with our emails and messages – another expensive item aboard was an Internet package.)

The tea was beautifully presented with three coloured sand egg timers to be used for weak/medium or strong tea and a massive jug of cold milk. We lingered long over our tea and free the internet before meeting our taxi to go back to the ship.

On the bus from the cruise terminal back to the Queen Elizabeth there was a kerfuffle when one of the taxi drivers climbed in with a policeman accusing two lady passengers of not paying him.

One of the ladies was absolutely incensed – she said she had chucked the money on the seat because she was so furious and said that if anything, the driver should be arrested.

Apparently she and her companion had paid top price for the taxi driver’s tour but on the way back he had stopped on a dual carriageway, locked the doors and demanded the equivalent of another hundred dollars to continue the trip. The whole episode left a very bad taste in all of our mouths. We felt very sorry for the two women as they were obviously more vulnerable and seemed like easy prey for one of the opportunistic taxi drivers.

We were glad to be back on board and ready for the four day trip to the port city of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

Sue had (very efficiently!) previously organised a driver on-line for our Sri Lankan trip so we were up early to meet him. In contrast to our Oman visit everything went smoothly and was most enjoyable.

When we disembarked from the cruise ship we were greeted by beautiful Sri Lankans wearing traditional dress.

While we waited for our bus to take us to the port entrance we were entertained by a large troop of dancers and musicians who performed a number of different dances for us.

The highlight of the day was a visit to an elephant rescue centre high up in the hills – several hours drive from Colombo.

My main memory of the drive is the intense green of the luxuriant jungle. We also drive through villages and small towns where we could see the local people going about their daily business. Occasionally we would see an elephant and their mahout moving logs or performing some other task.

We finally arrived at the sanctuary and were delighted to see a good number of elephants roaming freely.

There was one small elephant who was posing for photos with the tourists. She seemed perfectly happy to do this – probably because she was fed a plate of delicious fruit and vegetables every time another set of tourists had their photos taken with her!

We hadn’t been at the sanctuary very long before the heavens opened and the rain absolutely hammered down. Fortunately we were close to a shelter and were able to keep mostly dry!

It was wonderful to watch the elephants playing in the rain – they absolutely loved it! Some rolled in the newly formed puddles while others scooped up the muddy dust with their trunks and deftly tossed it over their backs.

Soon the deluge weakened and then stopped altogether and we returned to our car to seek out some lunch.

We stopped at a small hotel that had a large open sided room at the back that looked onto lush rainforest.

We had a delicious lunch of various Sri Lankan curries before taking off again.

On our way back we stopped at an aryuvedic centre where all manner of herbs and spices were growing for use in this very ancient form of medical practice.

There were many potions and medicinal teas on sale for almost every illness or ailment you could imagine.

Time was marching on and we had to be back at the Queen Elizabeth soon. We were hoping to stop off for a massage but it was too late so we had to be satisfied with a whistle stop car tour of the centre of Colombo!