A Prayer for the House then back to Oman
Trip Start
Jun 13, 2010
1
13
35
Trip End
Jul 17, 2010
Sumail, Oman
Friday, June 25, 2010
The prayer finally started around 10:45. I had to tie a bandanna to my head as a sign of respect. The prayer actually came from the Punjabi tradition as the 3 priest had turbans and long beards. We all had to sit on the floor in front of a shrine as the priest said and sang their prayers from a small book. They read the whole book which took about an hour. I’m now pretty tired of sitting but now the instruments come out – 2 accordion type things and a tabla. So they played these and sang also. This lasted another hour. I really need to hurry up and get out if I’m to reach before dark but no luck. Even after all this prayer and hymn’s, the priests had to be fed first as a sign of respect. After another 30 min. it was time for Pooja and I to eat. Now the food that Geetu cooked was very good so I could not just eat "school lunchroom" style and shovel it down. Then I was taking to Manoj’s older brother who was full of stories of travel around the world – I could not pass that up. Finally we had to go. Manoj saw us off and we got the GPS to give us the way.
It actually really helped all the way there and made the drive pretty easy – at least for a 5 hour drive with a ton of roundabouts. The drive through UAE was all sand desert. As we got close to Oman the mountains came. The longest part of the trip was the border patrol. At the UAE post they had to check all the cars that came down the highway – which was a lot. At least they just smiled as us and let us go without checking. Then I had to take the slip to the passport control where they checked them for a few and then gave them back. Stop and go. Stop and go. Now it was time for Oman. We had to go in the big castle like building that was passport control to give us Visa’s for Oman. This just took 15 min. and cost about $20 for both. Then Pooja wanted to get something to drink from the store and I wanted to use the restroom (might be the last OK one until Hilal’s). However, the toilet had no TP or anything to clean it so I had to go back outside to get the Charmin-to-go to clean the place up.
Now it was the open highway of Oman for a few more hours. We did take a coffee break for Pooja on the side of a roundabout for 20 min. and that was the only stop for the final 3 hours. Our goal of making it to Hilal’s house before dark did not work. We were about 45 min. late (thanks to the 3 hour prayer). The last hour of the drive had a ton of roundabouts (we were outside Muscat) but I found Hilal’s house on the first try (his neighborhood is not in the GPS). The kids were excited to see us and so was Kamla. It was good to be back at Hilal’s house. We rested for a bit then unpacked. Hilal had us stay in his room for the night which had great AC. Kamla cooked us a great dinner as Hilal’s older brother came. At night I made full use of Hilal’s internet to catch up on many downloads and stayed up until 1 doing it.
Comments
you guys are having quite the adventures huh? lol. im glad that you two are having a fun time. you guys deserve it. btw i havent seen mum on skype recently whats up with that?