Middle Eastern Oasis

My travel feature on Oman is published in the January issue of the Australian Women's Weekly (NZ edition), the first story I've had in that mag for years and years (click here to read).

Three out of three

Three stories published in three days - today was my review of the glorious Alila Jabal Akhdar Resort in Oman in the NZ Herald. I was lucky enough to be able to stay here for a couple of nights back in April and haven't been able to look at a hotel room the same since (click here to read).

  

The Sultan and me

The third story from my recent Oman media trip is published in today's Christchurch Press, and repeated in Wednesday's Dominion Post in Wellington (click here to read).

Arabian Tales

Apologies for the radio silence, I am now doing three contracts and can literally feel chunks of my sanity dropping off.

But in happier news, my story on Oman is published in this week's New Zealand Woman's Weekly (click here to read), one of two stories I have in the current issue.

I'm thrilled they used this photo - probably my favourite from the whole trip - as the main image.

  

My new favourite animal

A couple of weeks ago, you might recall, I had the pleasure of riding a camel around the desert in Wahiba Sands, Oman. I was smitten.

But having just seen this amazing video from French Animator Nicolas Deveaux, I have to say giraffes could be my new BFFs (click here to see it).

Although the camel will always run a close second...

A night on a luxury yacht?

Don't mind if I do (warning for lack of consistency - for this post you'll have to wind back your watches to last Thursday when I was in Muscat, the capital of Oman).

The 30ft Ibra takes its cue from a traditional dhow, the sailing ships common in these parts for centuries. But pimp a dhow to the power of 10 and you have some idea how luxurious the Ibra is.

Joining us for the sunset cruise were three Australian women - a travel agent and her mates - who were all kinds of fun. While I slept on the yacht, they went back to their Muscat hotel but we hooked up again the next day for a cooking class run by the amazing Clara whose Ocean Blue International company is responsible not only for the Ibra but also for the Bait Al Bilad, the rooftop restaurant where we dined Thursday night and where we returned for the cooking class.

Regular readers will know that I'm a wuss when it comes to sailing; hence my concern that a night spent on a boat wouldn't be fun. As it turned out, the sea was as flat as a proverbial baby's posterior, and I had the best snooze in ages.

I could get used to this life...

In this next pic I'm about to fail miserably at making rakhal, the traditional Omani bread

  Before the cooking class

              

Dubai

I did the short hop from Oman early this afternoon and, once again, the Hotel Gods (or rather the tourism peeps) have been kind to me with a suite in the fabulous Jumeirah Creekside Hotel which is all kinds of wonderful (esp the artwork and the bottle of wine that was waiting for me).

There was just time to get changed and I was straight into work mode - firstly with an interview with an expat Kiwi fashion designer for Urbis Magazine, and then my driver dropped me to my second interview for the same article.


And then it was onto a three hour walking tour with the fantastic Arva at Frying Pan Adventures for a food walking tour around old Dubai. For three hours 12 of us walked, ate and chatted. I now officially need to lie down in a darkened room; fortunately I have my incredible suite in which to do so.

And yes, there are  still images from Oman to share - I promise I'll get around to those later this week.
   

Dromedaries

Apologies for the tardiness in posting - blame the technical challenge of trying to find WiFi in the desert, along with zero time to catch my breath.

It's been a whirlwind week in Oman - am going to have to play catch-up with pics (including the night spent on a luxury yacht (Thursday) and the group of Aussie travel agents I hooked up with on the yacht and at yesterday's cooking class.

In the meantime, here are some visuals of one of the best things I did this week (admittedly, there have been so many it's hard to pick) - spending a night in the posh 'tents' at Desert Night Camp in the Wahiba Sands desert - and making friends with these guys. Last time I rode a camel was around Cairo's pyramids, more years ago than I care to remember; it's been far too long between drinks so it was all manner of fun to reacquaint myself with these odd but amazing animals. Even better was the fact that they can be seen wandering along the road, doing their own thing. And I squealed so loudly when I saw the camel in the back of the pick-up truck, I almost caused my driver to veer off the road! Just another interesting sight in this amazing country.

The camp from the hill as we watched the sunset (getting there and back in 4x4s - dune bashing, which was buckets of fun, but left me with a bruise when my arm hit the door).

And here's this dude, cruising down the road, as you do...