Tag Archives: Adventure

A Wonderful Trip to the Sultanate of Oman

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The idea of going to Oman came about largely as a result of a need to be uncomfortable. Each year we hold an overseas meeting and, more often than not, we put our overseas meeting in comfortable areas of Europe. But a friend of mine had told me that Oman was this extraordinary place. So, I did some research, worked with the government’s tourist authority, got an incredible deal, and decided that we would have our overseas meeting in a place we had never been to before. What a great decision.

Getting There

Oman is more complicated to get to than most places. But because of the exceptional service from Boston on Qatar to Doha or on Emirates to Dubai, you can do a lot on non-stop flights. From London, Muscat (the capital of Oman) is well-served by both Oman Airways and British Airways.

For the journey out, I chose to travel on British Airways on my favorite day flight from Boston. I spent one night in London and the following day flew on the overnight, non-stop flight from London to Muscat. Along the way, I picked up a few of our London staff and off we went on a journey unknown. Seven hours later we arrived in Muscat. Three time zones beyond London and eight time zones beyond Boston. While this was not my first time in the Middle East – I’ve been to Israel and Jordan – this was my first time so far east.

Oman requires you to get a visa for tourism travel which is relatively easy to get online. The process of entry was just about as smooth as any entry to any country I have ever been to. If you have ever tried to fly into Israel, you’ll know the interrogation you sometimes get at Israeli Immigration. Oman was polite, friendly, civilized, and more importantly, the toilets were fabulous in the arrival zone! First impressions are usually the toilets in any country that you arrive in. Oman was in the Real Madrid category of toilets!

Oman’s Landscape

Oman is an incredibly diverse country with a coastline of nearly 2,000 miles and an interior desert that is the sort of desert you only dream – imagine sweeping vistas of sand dunes constantly changing. Oman has mountains (and lots of them) with some of them as high as 10,000 feet. The canyons there are just as impressive as the Grand Canyon.

Oman has plenty of wadis – shallow, usually sharply defined, depressions in a desert region that are often dry except for the rainy season. These then form into a stunning oasis.

Oman has sinkholes and there are limestone crevices where you can swim close to, but yet remotely, from the ocean. In fact, the ocean there is amazing with some of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world and beautiful, white sand beaches with turtles and dolphins.

Oman has fjords in the stunning northeast around the Straits of Hormuz. It is frequently called the Norway of Arabia. Not to mention that Oman also has castles, hot springs, forts, and is the largest producer of dates in the world. Oman has everything.

Its indigenous population represents about 50% of the five million people that call Oman home. The other 50% are immigrants, most of whom are from India and the Philippines, who work and build businesses in Oman but can never become citizens of Oman. The country has a high level of education, and both education and healthcare are free for everyone. The infrastructure in Oman (roads, sewage, bridges, electricity) is higher than that of most European countries. In addition, it has one of the highest salination projects in the world.

Muscat’s Shimmering Appeal

Oman is truly a jewel stuck between Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Yemen is really on nobody’s bucket list and Saudi Arabia is impenetrable for most of the world…thankfully! The Emirates is a well-traveled route with an overdeveloped strip of seven emirates most famous for Abu Dhabi, the Grand Mosque, and Dubai with its ultra-modern Burj Khalifa Tower, shopping malls, and extravagant entertainment options. Oman is simply different. It is practically impossible to cover all of it in one journey.

The capital, Muscat, is relatively modern and sits with the backdrop of the Al Hajar Mountains dominating the landscape. However, the city is not very memorable because everything is so modern – even the mosques and the Al Alam Palace. But the hotels that are scattered along the beaches are phenomenal and the hospitality is incredible. Alcohol in Oman is often not available in restaurants but is always available in hotels and hotel bars. The souks, the traditional marketplaces, are more interesting in the ancient city of Nizwa, Oman’s cultural capital. Here you can buy pretty much anything you want.

For me, the highlights of Oman were the diversity, the warmth of the people, and those sheer travel moments when you simply cannot believe what you are seeing.

The Desert Camp and the Fjords

The drive from Muscat to the Wahiba Sands and the Desert Camp took us along highways with sand on either side and free roaming camels.

The dunes, the undulating sands, and the wandering camels, were some of the most extraordinary sights I have ever encountered in travel. Watching the sunset from the top of the dunes and then the next morning climbing to watch the sun rise was one of the greatest travel moments I have ever had. The sands had an almost pink tint to them and constantly changed contour and shape with the wind and the weather.

The Wadi Shab took us on an incredible journey through a breathtaking mountain ravine where we swam in fresh water surrounded by sandstone walls of rock amidst date and banana plantations and waterfalls. In Jabal Akhdar, the breathtaking panorama and rugged mountains were extraordinary. Taking the hydrofoil from the Port of Sohar to Khasab in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran flickering in the distant horizon, was amazing. Arriving in the tiny town of Kumzar, it felt like we had awoken a sleepy village. The trip on the dhow boat through the fjords and snorkeling with dolphins was like no other island cruise I have taken. The hotels in this area were magnificent and were not expensive.

The End of the Journey 

We then traveled from Oman to the UAE. The journey from Khasab to Dubai took only two hours in a car. It felt strange to arrive in Dubai, a glitzy, overbuilt, sky scraper-jammed panorama, with a souk that was pushy and irritating.

Honestly, I couldn’t wait to leave and head to the shopping mall and go skiing. Indeed, that is what I did! Two hours of skiing at Ski Dubai, located in a shopping mall, for $45 was one of the great moments of my life.

The next day, I took the 8:00 am non-stop flight on Emirates back to Boston in time to go to game two of the World Series and watch our victorious Red Sox begin their march to the championship. What a trip that was and what a country Oman is. I could not recommend it enough.

The Top of the Matterhorn

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In Zermatt there are three choices to climb the Matterhorn mountain: The beautiful Gornergrat Railway, the funicular, and the Matterhorn Express Gondola.

The Gornergrat Railway is walkable from our delightful hotel, Hotel Alex Zermatt. It’s a sightseeing journey all to itself; 20 minutes climbing through spectacular scenery en route to the top. Skiers, hikers, and sightseers all share the train.  It is literally, a trip, and worth taking.

Today however, we grabbed an electric taxi to the Matterhorn Express station as the temperatures were super crazy cold.  The top of the mountain is minus 15 Fahrenheit. They’re telling parents not to take the kids up. Cloud cover looked grim but we went for it.  And then the sun broke through at 9,000 feet. Skiing had near to perfect conditions but so cold at high altitudes.

Zermatt is a paradise of choice where everything is connected. It’s huge and connects to Cervinia in Italy. The Matterhorn follows us everywhere we go.  The sun stayed out all day. We skied all day. Old friends. Fun times!

Faroe Islands Part 2: The Adventure

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The Faroes have been compared to a grain of sand on a dance floor; impossible to find but a complete world onto itself once it is seen through a looking glass.

I was fortunate enough to travel for a few days in the Faroe Islands and stayed at the Hotel Føroyar in the capital, Tórshavn. It is like no other place I have been to.

This is a land of 50,000 people and 70,000 sheep. There are two sub-sea tunnels, one Michelin Star restaurant in Tórshavn (Koks Restaurant), 62 churches, and one bridge crossing the Atlantic sea. It’s a land of temperate gulf current Atlantic waters, tons of puffin birds, and fabulous cuisine. It has only 840 sunny hours per year and rains most of the time. Stark but beautifully colored houses with grass growing on the rooftops are scattered across the landscape. The grass is used to keep the houses warm in both the winter and the summer!

The Faroe Islands are known for its sheep and its fish. It’s very famous for its knitwear and wool was once the gold of the Faroe Islands. This archipelago also has one of the largest salmon fish farming industries in the world. In fact, much of the farm raised salmon we get in super markets and restaurants come from the Faroes.

The Faroes has its own language although everybody speaks Danish and English. Nothing is open on a Sunday – absolutely nothing including gas stations! The greatest discovery in the whole world on a Sunday in the Faroe Islands is the small but great café, Fríða Kaffihús. Service is a bit challenging but very friendly. But hey, it’s open.

To get around the Faroe Islands, you need to rent a car, which is easy to do. Then each day you can set out to discover one of the 18 islands, most of which are connected to one another by tunnel or bridge. As I drove across the various islands, I started to notice trampolines everywhere. Unofficially, this must be the country with the most trampolines per capita in the world. Not saying that there is not a lot to do there…either that or some sales guy really had away with trampolines. In addition, the Faroese love to play soccer. They have a national team and they have had some big results in the past. Every tiny town dotted around the 18 islands has a decent size stadium. They like to drink beer and the craft beer industry is growing like crazy. As they are part of the EU, the young Faroese have access to the entire world of 26 EU countries to work.

If you plan to visit the Faroe Islands, one suggestion I would make is to break up the different islands. It would be best to travel from Iceland to there and then finish with a few days in Copenhagen. It should also be noted that you can take a ferry from Scotland. But frankly, with the stormy Atlantic seas out there, I would rather fly if only to avoid sea sickness alone!

Faroe Islands Part 1: Getting There is Half the Fun

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When I was a kid in the UK, I used to listen to the shipping forecast on the radio late at night. It felt cozy and reassuring when I was tucked in my bed and thinking of all these ships bobbing around in the harsh waters around the northern parts of the UK and beyond. It has become quite a famous institution in fact. At the London Olympics it was played along with Elgar’s Nimrod to denote Britain’s maritime heritage. There were updates of mysterious places like Tyne, Dogger, German Bight, Fair Isle and the Faroe Islands. I had no idea where most of these places were but like most youngsters in the UK, it became part of every Brits upbringing and it still beams out across the air waves today. This summer I decided to go visit one of these places; The Faroes. I had never been and had not much of a clue exactly where it was.

Getting there is not easy. Perched between the Outer Hebrides and the southeast tip of Iceland in the inhospitable waters of the Atlantic ocean, there is no direct service from London or many other European gateways. You can fly quite conveniently from Copenhagen or Reykjavik on SAS or Air Atlantic (the Faroe national carrier). We chose SAS and that was probably our first mistake in trying to get there.

It’s a two hour and 30-minute journey from Copenhagen. The runway at Vágar Airport in the Faroe Islands is small. It was a cloudy day and when we finally arrived, after some delay, the pilot felt encouraged to make his descent. But the cloud cover ultimately was too much for him. As we descended, I felt the surge of the engines as he pulled out of the landing. After circling above for 10 minutes, he informed us he would have to go back to Copenhagen.

Yes, that really did happen.

According to the locals, only travel on Air Atlantic as the Faroe pilots know how to land in cloud cover on a short runway. That was advice I wish I had earlier!

The next day we tried again. The weather was much better and the views were spectacular. As we descended, the archipelago of 18 islands suddenly appeared as we dropped onto what seemed to be a 50 yard runway that is cut into the edge of a steep cliff. We had made it and so the adventure began.