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Seconds after taking off from Kolkata airport, the airplane motors suddenly powered down. A few seconds later they came back just to power down again. It was as if the pilot could not keep them going at full throttle! We heard strange noises and felt vibrations, as if something was loose or open. Then the plane started to loose altitude, which is not something it should be doing during take-off! I feared that the engines were not working properly and mentally pictured us crashing into the ground!

Nepal, India and Arabia

Odv
2006-04-15 18:46:13

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was a very nice thing of them to do. It was also the first time in months that we sat in a decent car and drove over a real highway and if it weren't for the heat, the lack of vegetation along the road and the occasional Arab in a white dress, we could have imagined ourselves back home.

While 200 kilometers in India or Nepal will take you at least 6 hours of arduously slow travel by bus, in the U.A.E. and Oman it means just a short 2 hour drive. And so it was a short two hour drive later that we found ourselves in Sohar, in yet another country.

With temperatures in the 40s (Celsius) even tap water was too warm. So people switch off the boiler and use it to cool water to room temperature (rooms are always air-conditioned). This has the curious effect that "cold" water comes out of the warm water tap while warm water comes out of the cold water tap... at least in summer.

It surprised me somewhat that it was actually possible to walk outside when it was 44 degrees Celsius, not for long, but it was.

In a way we were quite tired of the last few months of traveling which combined with the high temperature made us a bit lazy. It was barely feasible to visit anything because of the heat. Fortunately we did manage to visit Jebel Akhbar, which at 2000 meters was somewhat cooler, and on our way we visited a few castles and drove through some wadis. A wadi is a dry river bed. Since there is hardly any water these dry river beds are often used as parking places. However every once in while it does rain and whoever hasn't gotten his car out of the wadi will lose it... let's call it Omani roulette!

We definitely chose the wrong season to visit Oman. On the other hand experiencing 44 degrees Celsius is something to write home about as well.
Returning Home

We flew from Muscat to Brussels via London on the 8th of July, one day after the bombings in the London underground. It's just bizarre but when we returned from South America to Europe in 2004 it was via Madrid on the 10th of March, one day before the Madrid bombings! Coincidence? Or should I start warning people of our flight plans?

Strangely enough, everything in Heathrow functioned well, there were no delays and we were not unduly harassed by security staff. Except for the TV screens in Heathrow showing endless footage of the bombings everything else seemed to be business as usual. Got to hand it to the Brits, they do not overreact.

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