Papamoa, Bay of Plenty ,New Zealand

We are home after 27 months.

There is a frost every day that it is not raining. The coldest weather we have ever had since living in the Bay! However, the frost brings glorious sunny weather and we can eat outside.

We are busy unpacking our furniture and household things as they have been stored in a shed on our orchard. The tenants in our house left several months ago so the lawns and fruit trees are overgrown. We have a big job ahead to sort the trees and gardens out. There are oranges, limes, and lemons to juice and lots of cakes, sauces and jams to make using them.

We have been to visit John's 95 year old mum who is now in care. She remembered us but has problems identifying whether it is day or night. It is wonderful to see her again.

This is our last posting on our travel blog but not our last travel adventure.
We are already planning another trip for 2010 to South Africa. John, his brother and nephews want to see the World Cup soccer matches in Cape Town so we can begin another adventure from there.

Thanks to those of you who have followed our travels, written to us, added information to our stories, helped us, had us at your place, and added us to your circle of friends! Of course we look forward to seeing some of you in our neck of the woods.
Ka kite ano.

Melbourne, Australia

Phew, we are on the home leg of our travels. Had a great flight with Etihad as the plane was so empty there were no business class passengers, a couple of first class ones and those of us in economy had a whole row to themselves to sleep on.

We were picked up at the airport by our friends Pat and Barbara. We originally met them in London in 1976 and used to visit them when we worked in Melbourne in 1979 and 1980. They are both about to retire so we were able to spend quite a bit of time together. Pat is slowly winding down his electrical contractor's business and Barbara has reduced hours at a nearby rest home.

We went to an Australian Rules Football game with Pat and Barbara and were reminded of when we were at the Melbourne Cricket Ground when the Australians bowled the last ball underarm cementing their win over the New Zealand team!

We also managed to catch up with another friend from our teachers' college days. Neil and his wife and three girls live not far from Pat and Barbara so we were able to enjoy a meal with them and their daughters, Marissa, Jemma, and Aleisha (I hope I've spelt the names correctly). We were able to share some travel tips with the girls as they are off to South East Asia and Europe. We had them signed up to www.couchsurfing.org before we left the place!

When Kerri was four, her and I flew back from Melbourne to NZ and met Stjepan, his daughter Jasminka and her cousin Shane, on the flight. They parked their hired campervan at our place when they arrived in NZ and we have been in touch ever since. Stjepan lives near the Dandenong Mountains outside Melbourne and picked us up and took us for a drive around the area.

We visited Jasmine on her rural property in Kinglake. She lost her house, sheds and a couple of animals in the recent bush fires. They told us all sorts of stories of the horrific things people went through during that time. Jasminka was watching television with the curtains closed and the air conditioning going as it was a very hot night. The electricity went out and when she looked outside her deck was on fire. The fire took hold quickly and she was able to escape to her neighbour's house which did not get burnt. She has been living with her neighbour until a few days ago.

We drove around the area and Stjepan told us about the houses and shops that used to be there and we could see shops still intact and operating now while the neighbours' premises were cleared of debris. There were many properties with coroner's signs on them. These places are closed to everyone as they need to check for bodies and determine the cause of death and/or assess the properties.

We saw lots of crumpled corrugated iron rooves left from burnt houses and sheds but the majority of the places we saw were cleared of the remains. Many people are living in caravans, relocated houses, campervans and any buildings on their land that were untouched by the flames.

The rains have brought a lot of new grass sprouting up through the ashes. The eucalyptus trees have tufts of small leaves hooting out from every little knot along the trunk of the trees. These little sprouts look out of place on such tall trees.

We had a great meal at an Italian pizza and pasta restaurant organized by our friend Lyn. She used to work in the office of a school I worked at in North Melbourne and managed to get a group of ex-teachers from the school together. We had a great catch up after 20 years!

Our last night was spent with Kris who used to be my boss when I taught at a refugee and migrant centre in Melbourne. We enjoyed seeing the renovations to her house that had a historic listing.

Melbourne is just a fantastic city- our favourite one.

Dubai. United Arab Emirates

We were able to catch a bus to Dubai from Muscat. It was quite comfortable and had two drivers as they do a circuit from Muscat to Dubai and then down to Salalah and back to Muscat again.


At last there were a few more women travelling with us but the majority of the passengers were Indians, with a few Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and a couple from Iraq and a mother and her daughter from the Sudan.





The bus station was a short sweaty walk, in the 44 degree Celcius temperature, to our hotel. We had got Kerri to book our hotel so it was a much better price than we could get researching online even though we hear that hotel occupancy rates are down 16% here.





Well, what a contrast to the rest of the Middle East we have visited! There are few veiled women and lots of Philippinos. Shops advertise Philippino food and posters advertise accommodation and work for Philippinos. Many of the stores advertise in Russian for the package touriss that arrive here. This would not be a good place to learn Arabic as so many people speak English. It is so common to see people with two cellphones out yabbering in English or a mix of English and their mother tongue. There are 4.3 million people in in UAE and only 20% are nationals.



In this city you can snow ski indoors, visit (you have to book) Dubai's iconic 'seven star' hotel built like a sail from a traditional boat (dhow), do a mosque tour and learn all about the prayer rituals, kite surf, watch camel racing, and visit a Bedouin desert camp.





We headed for the tourist information office but arrived to find that it had been demolished to make way for a new metro station that is under construction at present. Lots of footpaths have been ripped up and this may also be related to the metro system. The urban bus stations have nice air conditioned waiting rooms but no information on what buses of all the buses they show on their maps actually stop at the stop.





This is all reminds us of Bangkok, without the horn tooting and tuk tuks, in many ways. It is a shoppers' paradise but even the Pierre Cardin stores are advertising 75% off.

We did a red bus tour which took us 7 hours in total. The commentary on the goings on here and the development projects reminded us of the developments on the Gold Coast when we lived there. There are dozens of shopping malls and entertainment centres like Disneyland and here they boast they will have some even larger than any thing in the US. At the same time there is still lots of construction. We could see the piles of sand 4 kilometres out in the Arabian Sea for The World development but it can only be accessed by boat or helicopter and then the islands are privately owned.

We have been able to get around on the free shopping buses. We are going to do a dhow cruise on the Dubai Creek before we pack up our gear and catch a flight to Melbourne. We will be there for 2 weeks and then head back to NZ.
Will put photos on here in Melbourne.

Muscat, Oman

Oman is difficult to get around as so many people use private transport and Muscat is even more so as it doesn't have public buses. We caught a shared taxi to a roundabout on the outskirts of the city and then had to engage it as private hire to take us to our hotel, of course it cost more for the short ride than the whole journey.







Muscat is a long narrow city spreading for 50 kms along the coast and fitting in where it can around steep rocky peaks. It is divided into three parts, the old port where the royal palace is, the commercial and business centre at Ruwi, and the corniche and souq area in Mutrah.







Roundabouts are important landmarks in Oman as they are where shared taxis, intercity buses and minivans can be found and where you will be dropped. Consequently, they are well kept and often ornately decorated with some kind of theme, fish, dolphins, clock towers, coffee pots and even book sculptures. They have green well watered lawns which use treated effluent water but it seems a huge waste for a desert country.







We have been hanging out for some hot weather but Muscat has had several days of temperatures around 47 and only dropping a few degrees in the evening. The locals tell us it can get to 60 Celcius in mid summer. All government businesses close at 1 pm and lots of privately owned ones too, so everyone can get out of the heat and have a sleep. There is not much to do during this time so we usually head for the hotel and the air conditioning and catch up on the news, read, do our laundry, do some research or play spider patience on our notebook.







There are only about a handful of women working in the shops and only a few more on the streets. There is a large population of Asian workers from the Indian sub-continent and some have their wives and children with them but most don't. A lot of the restaurants serve Indian and Chinese food and we are enjoying a curry in the evenings.







One of the museums we visited was free and showed old photos of the history of the city. It was another well thought out display with models and dioramas but it was not well attended.







In the evenings the corniche is packed with men sitting drinking juice and chatting with their mates. The Asians toss bread for the fish and throw out their handlines hoping for a bite. Trucks loaded with huge rocks thunder past on their way to the Sultan's palace as it undergoes renovations. Some of the old men sit barefoot on mats playing dominoes and other board games. The grassy areas at the roundabouts are often crowded with men chatting until the early hours of the morning. Unlike Yemen, there don't seem to be many smokers here amongst the men.





The souq has been upgraded and sells jewelery, daggers, perfumes, carpets and incense and burners. There are rows and rows of fabric sellers selling matching sets for saris as well as rows and rows of Asian tailors sewing galabehas for the local men.







The local muslim men wear long-sleeved white dishdash with a little tassle at the neck. They wear an embroidered hat usually of two colours. It seems only the Asian men wear western clothes. A few women cover their faces with veils but most of the young ones don't seem to.





The main road from the airport to the city centre is called Sultan Qaboos Road after the present Sultan. It is lined with beautifully designed modern buildings and several are named after the Sultan such as the huge mosque, the university and a large sports complex.





Typically the private residences are walled and only a couple of storeys high with a tower to hold the water tanks. They include lots of arches, and often crenallations. The air conditioning units are hidden behind ornate grills or incorporated into the overall design so they blend in, even the water tanks have crenallations looking like little look out towers on top of the buildings. The Sultan has put a lot of thought into the architecture of the country.





Many old mud built houses are being knocked down so lots of places lack real character and with everything being so new it is not as interesting wandering around the towns as other places in the Middle East have been.



The shops have interesting signs like: foodstuffs sale, repairing and maintenance of electronic items, or sale of electronic and sanitaryware. There is very little advertising just a description of what business it carries out.

All our Oman photos have been accidentally deleted!

Nizwa, Oman

Took a comfortable bus from across the street from our hotel and mentally prepared for the 10 hour bus trip across the gravel desert. It was the day of our 31st wedding anniverasary!

Once again I was the only female on the bus and no sooner had the male passengers boarded then they were all asleep. They draw the curtains, take their shoes off and sleep the journey away. Mind you, there is nothing to see along the way. There were a few signs warning of sand dunes and that was probably important if it was windy as the sand is so fine. There were also the odd signs warning of camels. Our guide book says that if you hit one it will be a pregnant female and a top racing camel; therefore it would be very very expensive.

We were finally dropped off by the side of the road and one of the passengers walked us to where we needed to catch a shared taxi to our hotel. Without his help we would have taken a while to find our way about.

The hotel was actually a 'residency' and it had several workers boarding there. It was licensed as a one-star place but it was pretty expensive and quite grotty. It's a long time since we have been in a place with bugs and cockroaches but it was the cheapest place in town.

Not far down the road was a fast food place called 'Hungry Bunny' and there were crowds of people as it was the first day of business for them. It looked a lot like a Mc Donald's restaurant and sold pretty much the same stuff. We ate there one night and met the Egyptian manager who was in a flap as hordes of locals turned up to try out the latest place in town.

We visited the old city which lies in a fertile oasis with plantings of date palms and vegetables. The Ministry of Tourism has spent money renovating the old fort from the 17th century. There were chutes where they would pour boiling date syrup over invaders and they had wooden planks over the steps just inside the doors which they removed as the enemy came up. The enemy would then fall through to a pit below and at the same time a guard would fire on them through a slot above. The stairs were deliberately circular so battering rams could not be used to knock down doors as they wouldn't fit. The wooden doors also had steel spikes to make battering difficult.

There were displays of the use of indigo dyes as well as an exhibit of the traditional facemasks that the local tribeswomen wear. We only ever saw one lady with a mask but each tribe has its own pattern.

The old souk has been incorporated into the fort complex but now it is a clean, cobbled, and tiled modern space which still continues to serve the locals as it did centuries ago. They were heaping up their vegetables into attractive piles and walking their goats and sheep around the stock yard for prospective buyers. All of this happens between 7am and 11am and then it is deserted as they go home for prayers, a meal and a sleep.

There are several old irrigation channels in the valley. In the olden days there was a solar clock or sand clock to measure each farmer's usage and at night they used the moon and candles so everyone had a share of the water. The Sultan took taxes from the farmers who brought their produce to the souk.

One day we flagged a shared taxi down and headed for Bahla, another old city with a fort. Unfortunatelty there are no tourist offices anywhere so we didn't know that the fort was not open for visitors as they were renovating it. Nevertheless we wandered about and chatted to the locals near the fish market. We looked in on an old man in his blacksmith's workshop. He had a small electric leafblower that he had turned upsidedown and cemented into the floor. This was his modern version of bellows. He had hoes and plough blades that he was repairing.

On Friday we were in town when all the locals came from all parts, parked in tthe streets blocking traffic and headed for the mosque and their Friday prayers. When the mosque is full they pray on the footpath outside the mosque that has a cover to protect from the sun and rain.

Salalah, Oman

The bus ride from Sayun in Yemen was pretty comfortable. Luckily we decided to take a sweatshirt as the air-conditioning was really cold. There were not many passengers on the bus so we could spread out. Lil was the only female travelling.

There was a reasonably full moon but there was not a lot to be seen in the gravel desert nor the sandy desert. We stopped a few times at the start of the journey, at every petrol station in fact, but they had no petrol. We pulled into a petrol station and about 20 metres from the bowser we ran out of fuel. All the men in the bus, about 15 , had to get out and push us up to the pump!

At the petrol pumps there were places to eat and a place to pray so the men got out to say their prayers. The trip eventually took us 14 hours and we had expected to take 18 so it was good to arrive early. Maybe this was because the roads were in really good condition all the way. We did read that wealthy Saudis and Omanis had contributed to paying fior the roads between Oman and Yemen.

We arrived at the border to Oman at 2am and had to buy an Omani visa. It didn't take long and cost about $24 NZ.

The hotel in Salalah was a new place and a short walk from the bus station through the souq. Immediately we could see a huge difference between Yemen and Oman. All the street and shop signs were in Arabic and English. The hotel was a two star (the cheapest in town) and felt like a four star. It was so comfortable it was hard to leave.

There was not a lot to do in Salalah but we walked around the new mosque that was having the final touches done to it. The streets are well laid out and very wide. Our hotel felt like it was in the middle of a building site there were so many new buildings in various stages of construction.

Salalah is famous for frankincense. It traded the tree resin since 5000 BC to Europe, India in exchange for spices, and to China. The tree bark is cut and the resin that oozes out is scrapped off and dried. The dried resin is then burnt on a charcoal burner as a perfume. Many shops still burn the frankincense.

There are many workers here from Bangladesh, India and the Philippines. We enjoyed a few Indian curries as a nice change from rice and beans.

We visited the Al-Baleed ruins and museum. It was a well organised and beautifully presented display of the history of the region and the story of shipping trade over the centuries. It lies beside ancient ruins taht are still being excavated. There was also a section on the former king, Said Bin Taimur, and under his rule the country was closed to foreigners. There were no secondary schools, two primary schools, two hospitals run by American Missions, and only 10 kilometres of sealed roads. His only son Qaboos Al Said took over in 1970 and had his father sent to London where he stayed for the rest of his days.

Qaboos appears in photos, carpet weavings and portraits. He has turned the country around and now it is very modern, organised and CLEAN. You can be fined for littering, the taxi driver told us. You can also be fined for having a dirty car. It is also pretty expensive. It doesn't have as much oil as the other countries surrounding it either. Qaboos had tried to encourage small businesses and education is free. We have seen businesses where women are at the front desk, but not many.

Businesses open at 7am and then close at 11am. Everyone goes for prayers and rests in the heat of the day to return to work at 4pm, trading until 8pm or even later. It is difficult to cross the streets at night as everyone is on the move. They love their modern air-conditioned cars. there is no public transport other than shared taxis. They have depots where they leave from and you stand on the side of the road and flag one down going your way. It picks up more people along the way. Of course there are taxis that you can hire to take you where ever you want as well.

Salalah is famous for its summer rains and drizzle called khareef . The people of Muscat come here to enjoy the cold wet days and picnic in the valleys that burst into green over this time.

We visited teh

Sayun and the Hadramawt Valley, Yemen

We were sad to leave San'a and Victor and his family. We were overwhelmed by their kindness and hospitality. It is a rare privilege to be invited to stay with a Yemeni family. The children were a delight and so eager to try to understand us and speak English with us.

We had to fly to the next leg of our travels over the desert area of Ma'rib where there is a lot of tribal tensions. Recently we saw riots on TV in the area. We could have taken the coastal road but would have had to have faced an 18 hour bus ride. The flight with Felix Air was pretty smooth and only took an hour but the captain had to have two goes at landing which was a bit nerve wracking.

Sayun is in the Hadramawt Valley and we could see the fertile oasis as we flew along the valley. There were rows and rows of date palms and fields of crops with many small towns rising up the sides of the valley.

The Sultan's Palace of mud-brick and painted white looms over the main square.It was built in the 19th century as a defensive fort and became the residence of Sultan Al Katheri in the 1920s.

It is now the base for the tourist police and a museum with stone and bronze age relics that were discovered in the valley. There were also photos of travellers who came to the area in the 1930s. Other than that there are not many sights in Sayun.

New Zealand apples arriving at the souq.

We managed to buy a small digital camera in a small dusty shop and found a couple of internet places to do some research and and catch up on emails. The locals are pretty friendly and generally leave you alone. There are hardly any tourists in town and some days we are the only ones.

We took a taxi to the nearby 2,500 year old town of Shibam.

It is thought to date from the 4th century but was built on an even older city.

The gate to the old city.

The walls of Shibam contain about 500 dwellings- seven and eight story tower blocks built of mud.

It has been a UNESCO site since 1982. Each tourist is charged $3 US towards the upkeep of the old houses. Several houses were being renovated and their old carved wooden doors were being replaced. The goats wandered in and out of open doorways looking for food and the sheep lay on the dusty narrow lanes panting in the shade while the chooks scavenged amongst the rubbish.

The houses have shafts on the outside walls running the the length of the buildings that are used as toilets.

Some children returning from school at lunchtime wanted their photos taken and displayed their Barbie exercise books.

One day we met a Russian guy and went together to another town nearby called Tarim. It was part of the weekend so there was nothing at all going on there. When we arrived the qat sellers were packing up their hessian sacks full of qat and heading off to chew and eat.

The local taxi drivers wanted us to charter their whole taxi for an outrageous price so we ate ice cream and hung around until a shared taxi was full. We had to have 4 sitting in the middle seat with us while the passenger in front bought the space beside him so he would have somewhere to rest his sack of qat and his bottles of water.


Eating with Ivan from Moscow at our local restaurant in Sayun. We ate beans and eggs, vegetable stew and omelette. He tried the local dried and seared fish with rice.

We are having problems loading photos and our blog entries so will have to wait until Oman to load some photos and fix + hours!!!!!