Musings: Bus trip to Oman

I made an interesting trip to Oman in December 2000.

I went by bus (the journey to Muscat, the capital of Oman, takes a little over five hours).

Strangely, tickets for the bus ride are sold by Philippine Airlines in Dubai.

The bus left at 4.30 pm.

The driver was a handsome Omani wearing Rayban glasses and dressed in traditional Omani garb - a long white robe on the body and a colored cap on his head.

The drive to the border takes an hour and a half and passes through desert that is famous for dune driving, sand skiing and the like. There are two huge dunes - one on either side of the road. The larger one has (I am told) been affectionately nicknamed "George" by western expats. The other one is called "Martha".

As one approaches the border, the landscape changes. Desert gives way to small brown hills. These are about 20 million years old. The ancient sea, which once covered the whole region, rose and fell, influenced by major world climatic changes. These hills, forming a natural boundary between Oman and UAE, are of great interest since they offer a relatively rare opportunity to examine oceanic rocks, such as basalts, lavas and oozes, formed at the site of a mid-oceanic ridge more than seventy million years ago.

Suddenly all mobile phones fall silent. There is no signal. We are at the border.

The border post is just a collection of small buildings. There is a check post where passports are scanned and visas are issued. I am asked to pay Dh. 71 as visa fees.

The bus resumes it journey only to stop a hundred metres ahead where all luggage is offloaded and must be opened for inspection. I am glad that I didn't put a bottle of whisky in the suitcase - there is no telling what may have happened as this is the holy month of Ramadan.

A little further lies Oman.

The bus approaches the barrier and stops yet again. A border guard has a hurried conversation with the driver and the bus door opens for a third time at the check post. A teenage boy boards the bus. He will probably get a free ride to Muscat courtesy Oman Transport Corporation.

As the bus enters Oman, one can see the difference between the rich country that we just left behind and its poorer neighbor. The road, which till now had been a 4-lane expressway, degenerates into a two lane highway with traffic coming at you in the other lane - something one almost never sees in the UAE.

The driver's cell phone springs to life and he is almost constantly on the phone, driving the large bus at 120 Kmph with one hand and talking into the cell phone with the other.

After a few hours the bus pulls into the town of Sohar, which is also a beach resort. I buy a bottle of water and try to drink it as surreptitiously as I can because it is the holy month of Ramadan, when all Muslims are fasting and do not eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset.

An Oman Transport official boards the bus and checks all the tickets. He ignores the youth traveling without a ticket. I am reminded of the book "Catch 22".

Night has fallen. I am a little nervous as someone once told me that this road is unsafe in parts. I get more nervous when the driver slows the bus and appears to be looking out for someone or something. The bus stops after a while and a swarthy Omani, gets on. He gets into the driver's seat and the driver sits in the jump seat next to him. I gather that he is the second driver and will handle the balance portion of the journey.

Those of you who have been to the Middle East would have noticed that Arabs love to talk. You can see this happening constantly in Dubai - a citizen of the UAE (called a "local") will almost always be on his cell phone talking to someone or the other all the time. In the evenings the men sit around and chat. This is called a "majlis".

The new driver of the bus sports a marked tendency to chat. His posture changes. He sits such that his body is leaning far to the right. He controls the bus with his left hand. The other driver also leans far to the left and the two drivers' faces are very close - maybe a foot away from one another. They look deep into each other's eyes like lovers when they talk.

Occasionally the driver checks the road to see that he is still on course. The bus seems to have a mind of its own. It negotiates curves and obstacles on its own whilst the two drivers are lost in conversation.

My heart is in my mouth. I change my seat to just behind the driver. I watch the road ahead anxiously, ready to give alarm in case of an emergency.

However nothing amiss happens and some time later the bus pulls into Ruwi, Muscat.

My journey is at an end.

This article is copyright Prakash Subbarao (prksh1@yahoo.com) All rights reserved. The article may be reproduced in full provided it copied in entirety without any changes to the original and credit duly given.

This article was written in 2001 and was factually accurate then. Phillipine Airlines no longer sells tickets for the Oman Transport Corporation. Strangely enough, as at early 2004, these were being sold by a book store next to DNATA, in Dubai.