Well I’ve been a bit busy remembering how to relax to do any blogging.
We’ve not been in Oman since Monday after a half empty flight. As usual it’s getting hot, hot hot over here at this time of year. Yesterday the car thermometer registered 58c and my watch 39c. Given we were sitting in the traffic I’d sway towards my watch but it’s been hotter than that too.
Anyway we’re not doing much in Oman apart from relaxing and spending time with family and niece.
We squeezed in a visit to the Grand Mosque yesterday which we never fitted in the last time, and we’re off to see some turtles hatching along the coast tonight. We did borrow the car yesterday and went down to the beach, walking along it was like walking along a hot bath the water was so warm.
Apart from this we won’t be leaving Muscat whilst here which is a shame as we’re missing out on the 4×4’ing, ‘wadi bashing’ and the mountains we did the last time. We’re taking advantage of the decent food and the luxury of staying with family before the diet of mutton and trying to find gluten free food in Russian hits us!
I have however done more exercise than I’ve done for quite some time. If you have kids you really owe them a Plasmacar
I already feel we’re taking the easy options sometimes but I’m really not bothered. Our friend is meeting us at Tashkent airport, but he refused to pass on his ‘tips for surviving the airport’ he promised as I stupidly told him the same, so he reckoned he’d let us work out the airport beaurocracy and queue fighting ourselves.
We can’t believe that we’ll be back for a day then off again. We’re looking forward to the adventures but we’re both not looking forward to lugging our massive packs around with us. I’ve managed to install a VPN so we can get onto Skype etc and it will be good prep for China where some other sites will be blocked. It also means we can access BBC iPlayer and other stuff if we get a bit homesick (ha!).
Things in Uzbekistan are coming together as well with us having some accommodation sorted for the first and last two nights in the capital, and a train trip to Burkara to see some mosques etc. We’ve also decided that we’re going to take an easy option of prebooking (therefore overpaying) a shared taxi from one guesthouse in Uzbekistan to another in Kyrgyzstan….but putting in an overnight stop so we can see the silk factories in the Fergana Valley….. this is after all some of the Silk Road we’re following.
