Well we've been having a really nice time in Oman, after our first 2 nights in Muscat we spent the morning exploring Muscat old town before taking a bus south to a town called Sur.The bus took about 5 hours, once there we found our hotel and had an Indian meal at a roadside restaurant on the main street through town.The Omani football team had just won an important game against Iraq and a constant stream of cars drove around the main streets of town tooting their horns and waving Omani flags out the windows and they had their cars decorated with the colours of the national flag.From when we arrived at the restaurant, throughout dinner and up until we left the restaurant, there were constant cars full of happy football fans!!

The following day we took a bus out to a small town called Al Kamil along the highway to Muscat where we were picked up by a guide who would be taking us into the desert for the night, his name was Salaam.He was waiting for us as we got off the bus, before we set off for the desert we drove around with Salaam as he ran some errands.He also took us to his home and invited us in for some coffee and tea, when we arrived his six children all ran to the gate to greet us, they each shook our hand, it was so cute!When we went inside we all sat around on the floor and he introduced us to his wife, she was sitting on the floor as well, doing some sewing with a very old fashioned looking machine.The oldest son, who was about 11, brought out a tray with tea, coffee and a huge bowl of mixed up dates and Omani spices, first we had coffee (yes I actually drank some - although not much - as I didn't want to be rude, it is considered very offensive to reject an offer of a cup of coffee from your host here).Salaam went into the other room to pray, and the rest of the family didn't speak any English, the kids all sat there and watched us, we ate some of the dates by picking out a little clump of date, putting it in our mouths and taking the stone out from our mouths and leaving it on the tray.When Salaam came back from the other room he showed us how you're supposed to eat it, he grabbed a huge handful of the mashed up dates and squished it about in his hand like it was playdough and in the process squeezed the stones out onto the tray, it was quite a technique, we must have looked very strange to Salaam's children with the way we were eating the dates before he showed us the Omani way to do it!

The dates were beautiful, I struggled with the coffee and managed to get away with only having a couple of sips.After coffee we had tea, I don't mind the tea here, it is full of sugar and very sweet so drank that quite easily.The drinks are served in really tiny cups here, when you've finished your cup if you want more you hold it out to the host and he will fill up your cup, if you don't want anymore you hold your cup out and wobble it and he will take your cup from you.Salaams children were gorgeous, they all just sat and stared curiously at us with big smiles on their faces.We found out that he had in total 11 children and 2 wives, his oldest daughter was at university in Muscat and the youngest one, who was absolutely adorable, was 2.

After we left his house he took us to a party that was going on in the village, it was some kind of festival, it was a bit difficult to understand what it was for but most of the people of the village were there, it involved dancing, singing, swordfighting, storytelling and drinking lots of tea and coffee.A lot of the men were wearing traditional Omani daggers in their belts, some men had big swords and engaged in dramatic sword fights and some men had rifles which they were dancing with.It was so interesting to watch, while we were sitting there some men came around offering food and drink, the first man had a bowl of cut up fruit which we could select something from, the next man had coffee, shortly after everyone had had some coffee, a man came around with a big bowl of a sweet they eat here called Halwa.It is served in a huge bowl and looks kind of like soft jelly but not as sticky.To eat it you scoop some up with your thumb and finger to your mouth, everyone puts their fingers in to eat it, it felt so strange to just dip our fingers into this communal bowl and eat it with our fingers like that, it was really sweet!The man who came after the guy with the Halwa had a bowl of water to wash your hands with, then came a guy with tissues to dry your hands with.It was all quite interesting and entertaining, we were lucky to be in town on a day where something like that was going on!

After sitting around at the party for about half an hour we left so we could get to the desert before sunset, we drove for about half an hour and Salaams 11 year old son came with us.We drove through beautiful rolling sand dunes and eventually came to the camp, we were the only people staying there, things are pretty quiet and Salaam only gets about 2 or 3 tourists a month.He had some traditional Bedouin huts which were basically like bivouacs, made out of branches and just protected from the wind, very basic.While him and his son collected some firewood and started a fire, Greg and I walked to the top of some sand dunes to watch the sunset, the dunes were incredible with wavy sand and sharp edges along the ridge of the dunes.The sun setting over the dunes was so beautiful and it was so peaceful and quiet, there was no noise except for the wind!After the sun set we went back to camp and sat around the fire, Salaam was showing his son how to do everything so one day his son could bring tourists to the camp, while he was showing him how to do things he was also telling him the words in English so he could learn a bit, it was really cute.They cooked some beef kebabs over the fire and we ate them with pita bread and some salad for dinner, the beef was beautiful.The moon was almost full and it was really bright so it didn't get very dark and we couldn't see all the stars clearly, it was quite amazing how the moon lit up the sky so much.

We went to bed pretty early on a mattress on the floor of our hut with some blankets, because we fell asleep so early we were wide awake at 3am, after the moon set over the horizon that was when it got really dark, we were expecting it to get really cold in the night but surprisingly it wasn't that bad.In the morning we were up at 6:30am to watch the sunrise over the dunes which was very beautiful, we then had some pita bread with pineapple jam for breakfast while Salaam and his son packed up camp.The drive back to the village was stunning, the dunes we drove through were so amazing, unfortunately our camera had run out of batteries by that stage so we didn't get any photos but we got some the previous day so that was fine.Once back in the village Salaam found us a taxi that was going back to Muscat and negotiated a price for us.Before saying goodbye Salaam gave us each a huge pile of brochures for his camp and told us to tell our friends about it so they might come and stay, now we've got tonnes of his brochures in our bag so if anyone is thinking of coming to Oman (which we would highly recommend) then we can give you a brochure for a very good desert camp in a beautiful setting!!

We were pretty tired on the drive back to Muscat, it took just under 3 hours and we both dozed off which was surprising as the driver was pretty terrible.He picked up another man who sat in the front with him and for the whole journey he was either playing around with his mobile phone, lighting up a cigarette, picking his nose, eating something or busy chatting with the other guy, all the while averaging a speed of about 120kph.All cars in Oman are fit with a beeping device that goes off if the car reaches 120kph, when our driver went over 120 he just turned up the radio so he couldn't hear the beeping!We've become used to the crazy driving here and usually try to ignore it since it's just how people drive here, but we couldn't help but feel quite uncomfortable on that journey.The driver didn't speak English either so we couldn't ask him to slow down.

We arrived in Muscat around noon and were glad to have that journey over with!We went back to the hotel we stayed at when we were previously in Muscat and luckily they had a room available.We had some lunch then a much needed afternoon nap.For dinner we went to a small streetside Indian place where it was really cheap and they had beautiful food.There are a lot of Indian people here and plenty of Indian restaurants, we are really enjoying having a break from Middle Eastern food and eating Indian food instead!When we were in Sur we went to a sweets shop where they had Indian sweets so of course we got some as I'd never tried Indian sweets before and they were beautiful!!

For our last day in Muscat we went to a little town called Seeb which is about an hours drive outside the city, it had a beach which we took a nice long walk along and then found a place to eat by the water.By the time we'd finished lunch the whole town had closed up shop, all through Oman everything closes between around noon and 4:30pm and then stays open really late at night.So when we started wandering around again Seeb had become like a ghost town, there was nothing to do so we got a minibus back to Muscat.Back in Muscat we had a lovely fish meal for our last night then wandered along the corniche, Oman had just won another football match and it was the same scene as the night we had in Sur, there were people everywhere celebrating and a constant stream of cars decorated in the Oman teams colours, everyone was beeping their car horns and it went on until after midnight.The following day we were up really early for our bus to Dubai, it took just over 6 hours with pretty straight forward border formalities.When we arrived in Dubai for the first time on the whole trip there weren't heaps of taxi drivers hassling us!We couldn't believe it, and we actually needed a taxi too and couldn't find one!In the end we had to walk to a really busy main street that turned into a freeway and hail a cab there, but it took us awhile to find a driver who spoke English and knew where the Dubai youth hostel is!

After checking in to the hostel and booking a cab to take us to Abu Dhabi the following day for our flight, we decided to go to an area of Dubai called Jumeirah which is where most tourists stay (or at least the ones with a lot of money!!), there was a bar recommended in the Lonely Planet and we thought we'd treat ourselves to a drink (there was no alcohol anywhere in Oman), the bar was part of a hotel and it was very fancy, we felt so underdressed!After an expensive drink with an amazing view of the Burj al-Arab (the 7 star hotel in all the Dubai postcards) we took a taxi back to Dubai Creek where things are slightly cheaper.The traffic across the city was terrible and it took us an hour to get there, it was about 9pm at that point and we were starving, the place we wanted to eat at was shut so we decided to find an Indian place, I let Greg do the choosing since he knows more about Indian food than I do having lived there.He chose a little place down a side street, I couldn't understand anything off the menu so Greg did the ordering, unfortunately he ordered all food that I couldn't eat (as I can't have milky or creamy things), so he ate both of our meals and I had a samosa and a piece of chappati bread.It was really embarrassing as our waiter was really enthusiastic and when he brought something to the table would wait while we ate a spoonful to see if we liked it, when we said it was good he was really happy, some other people sitting at a table near us in the restaurant could see I wasn't eating anything and said something to the waiter so he kept on bringing things out, that's how I ended up with the Chappati bread.They seemed very concerned that I wasn't eating though, I probably looked grumpy because I was really hungry and I couldn't eat anything that was in front of me.So that's the last time Greg gets to choose the restaurant for awhile!!

The following morning we were up at 5am to get our taxi to Dubai, we had to take a taxi because we found it impossible to find any accommodation in Abu Dhabi that was less than US$200 per night, and we never heard back from Etihad Airways (who we were flying with) about their bus that connects Dubai with Abu Dhabi, so the only option was a taxi.It took a couple of hours to get there and before we knew it we were on the flight back home!

After probably the worst long-haul flight we've ever taken - 15 hours with a noisy kid and mother a couple of seats in front of us, no sleep, both our TV screens being broken for half the flight (no one else's, just ours), bad food, and extremely unhelpful service from the cabin crew - we were really happy to arrive in Sydney!We've spent the last few days moving into a house and getting ourselves unpacked and settled in and eating lovely fresh food - no more falafel!!

The next big thing for us is our wedding in New Zealand next month, there is still a lot of planning to do to keep us busy until then.For those of you who can make it along we look forward to seeing you then.We hope you've enjoyed reading our blog and thanks for all the messages!!

All the best, Alyssa & Greg xx