When your expectations and reality don't match: Oman

Youshouldn’t believe everything you see (and read) on Instagram.

I fell for it when it came to Oman.

One ofmy old dreams was getting to this country; I must confess that the posts (andnowadays technology that seems to be reading your mind) fuelled it.

 

When Igot there, however…

 

People,with few exceptions, were cold, disconnected from themselves, and quite selfishand greedy.

Some locals(shop owners or employees) tried to scam us (money-wise).

Theydidn’t seem respectful towards the many expats working in the Sultanate (quite theopposite of our impression in Saudi Arabia).

Unlike inmany other Muslim countries (let’s take Tunisia as an example), in Oman, cats(let alone dogs!) are not taken care of – and there are many weak and hungryroaming the streets.

Whatdid we do?

Wespent time with many Romanian guys (and Albanian, Belgian, and Brazilian) – theSocca World Cup (luckily!) took place in Muscat during our stay!

Theexpats were extraordinary to us! Kind, helpful, and bright! We made friends.Each of these interactions helped us continue our trip. It was our mostdifficult trip from a psychological perspective.

Webought food and fed as many animals as we could! And we blessed them! ♥

 

Pricesare high (especially for what you get in return)! They are even higher in thetourism field.

There’sno reason why!

Even ordinaryaccommodation or outdated (and a bit dirty) hotels were expensive, with a highrating!

We didsee Bezness practices even though we thought we wouldn’t.

Whatdid we do?

Weresearched well and took advantage of promotions.

Thistime around, I knew how to negotiate with a narcissistic Beznessman!

 

Natureis not all it’s cracked up to be.

I keptwaiting for a wow. I had only one in Oman, close to the end of our trip.

Beacheswere not as presented on social media. Many were a bit dirty; snorkellingconditions were not good (see the end of this piece).  

Thespectacular wadis seemed unreachable by regular car (and we didn’t have time tohike – as the sun was setting early; this is an aspect to consider) or had theirregular pedestrian routes closed only for businesses to make another Rial byintroducing a very commercial, dirty, and unnecessary boat ride.

Whatdid we do?

Wefollowed our hearts and found those dreamy beaches, too.

Principlesare principles. We didn’t bend and left without seeing any wadis. I don’tregret anything.

 

Whatabout food?

Well,it was good, but not our favourite. Omani food was more expensive than othercuisines (and not that tasty).

Plus,it was hard to find restaurants (even in cities!) with seating spaces. Or withclean seating spaces! This leads to a serious lack of comfort during your trip!

Whatdid we do?

We didour homework. If we didn’t find the restaurants neat or clean enough, we leftand tried again.

Ourfavourite restaurants were Filipino, Italian, Turkish, and Syrian.

 

To topthe bad things up, we’ve had a storm in the open sea from the second day to ourlast but one. So, all our water activities were stalled. We needed to changeour entire travel plan.

Yes, Iknow, it wasn’t the best of trips.

However, as situations in life are neither good norbad in their entirety, I’ve saved the brighter experiences for another article.