Sultanate of MUSCAT, OMAN DAY II (3/31/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Mar 31, 2007 11:30 PM
Subject: Saturday, March 31, 2007

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Sultanate of MUSCAT, OMAN DAY II

I had it backwards yesterday. This place is a kingdom, like most of the Arab countries.

Having seen about all there is to see this year and last, we had nothing much to do expect go to the souk. This souk is the oldest and largest in something or the other. Who cares? Right about here you are probably asking yourself, what is a souk? Who cares? Okay, I’ll tell you anyhow. They translate it to meaning bazaar. I translate it to a dumb name for a big bunch of stores, stalls, and stands selling any kind of junk you can think of and a bunch more you could never think of. Bobbi’s definition is bit different. To her it is another chance to buy more wonderful treasures that she does not know how we ever existed without. Okay, you got it. Arab shopping center. Where else could I possibly want to go?

This was the end of a segment and many were leaving and coming. We infidels were not allowed to walk on the docks. We could only be transported by bus. Never can trust you American terrorists. Especially since most on board are wielding those nasty canes. Never can tell when one of those nasty octogenarians will go berserk and fart or something. The captain keeps telling us what a wonderful place this is. He has been coming here for years and it is such a nice place. Clean and very little crime. As was Nazi Germany. Here you loose somebody part for committing a crime. I can see that being a deterrent. What I cannot see is these little fiefdoms being called a good place because they are not blowing themselves and everybody else up right now, as are their neighbors. Moderate bull doo. Just don’t wear the wrong clothes or point with the wrong finger and much more of that baloney.

Another cutey is the pecking order of drivers. Like all other laws, you better obey traffic laws or they cut off something you may need and will cause you much pain to loose. There is an exception. The exception is if you are a relative to the hind end, I mean his highness, the Sultan. All of a sudden there will be a car darting through traffic, cutting off trucks, buses and anything else in their way. You are supposed to assume they are royalty if you see someone driving like that. And there must be many relatives. Should you be involved in an accident with royalty, you are always in the wrong, no matter the details or witnesses.

So we got on the shuttle bus at 3:30, the appointed time. After about a five minute ride we were at the souk. Why, I again have no Idea since everything was closed until after 4:00. This thing wanders on and on. There are alley ways of stands and stores running off in every direction. After 4:00 we were no longer subjected to the wailing of loud speakers with the sounds of what sounds like someone being boiled alive. They say it is a call to prayers, which they have five times a day. If it worked, why don’t they just pray to have a life and get out of these slime pits.

Now that everything was opening, we could get down to serious business. We were just going to look. There was nothing we needed except a table cloth if we could find a nice one at a bargain. To my delight, no one has had any nearly large enough. This place is no exception. So we have nothing we could possibly want to buy. WRONG! WE means more then ONE of US. As I am sure you have guessed by now, the other ONE of US has never lost the challenge of finding something WE really need to buy.

Five bags full and about two hours later we were back on the shuttle bus. We are quickly back to the ship. Once inside I am now stopping everyone that walks by to see if I can rent space in their bath tub. Mine is really overloaded and is starting to scare me. I am afraid that one day I will be sitting in that room, minding my own business, and the ship will hit a big wave. All that junk will come falling down on me and I will be buried alive.

OMAN, MUSCAT (3/30/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Mar 31, 2007 2:49 AM
Subject: Friday, March 30, 2007

Friday, March 30, 2007

OMAN, MUSCAT

Sorry kiddies, but it looks like no inheritance quite yet. I think I made it, but just barely. I have never been that sick from a cold or flu in my life. I couldn’t get enough air to blow out a candle. This morning I felt well enough to cancel the trip to the hospital and call off the chest x-ray.

We had been here before and there isn’t very much to see. However, you can tell you are not in Kansas any more, Toto. Muscat was Masquat, originally. Masquat means cliffs. There are mountains everywhere you look. Wherever there are newer buildings they have Arabian facades. It is more a tourist thing rather then having any other purpose. Everything is spotlessly clean. This place is a desert and there is always dust and sand blowing. The cleaning is done by foreign labor. The roads are up to US standards and they at least drive on the right side of the street.

We booked a tour for an evening cruise on a real handmade Dhow. That is a traditional style boat built here for many centuries. This one was supposed to be as original as possible even though it was fairly new.

We were picked up by a bus at about 4:30 PM. After about twenty minutes we came to a very new looking marina for smaller boats. We walked down a long ramp and then about a block down piers until we came to the end of the pier. Naturally, being Arab, everything was arranged properly, not. The boat that was supposed to ferry us to the Dhow, was no where to be seen.

Finally an open fishing style boat showed up. We call the type center consol. After several trips the Dhow was filled with people. It started heading out to sea as four guys dressed in nice waiters uniforms started handing out drinks and appetizers. The drinks could not be alcoholic.

From the description it sounded like we were going down some river or waterway. In reality all we did is go out in the ocean and saw the same things we saw from the ship. We went way too far out to see anything well and the sun was going down on the shore side. It was hard to even get any pictures with the sun shinning in your face.

They kept on serving different kinds of food and it was all good. Then the fun part came. The wind came up a just a bit and we started to get waves. Not more then one to two feet though. Now I could understand why this style boat never came to the West. On my last 50 foot boat you would not even feel one to two foot waves and I would go at about 30 knots. This thing wasn’t doing 10 knots and was bouncing around like a balloon and it had to be 90 feet long. People were getting sick and asking for barf bags. They had chaffing dishes with fire heating the water in them, set up on a platform in the middle of the boat. I wanted to see what would happen when they started to spill and fall over. The waiters knew better then to go near them while the boat was rocking badly. But somehow they never fell.

We were also told there was going to be a sunset. The sun set behind the mountains and not out in the ocean. There was nothing to see.

On our return the Dhow docked much closer to the marina side of the pier and with just a short walk we were back on the buses, and then back to the ship.

AT SEA EN ROUTE TO OMAN, MUSCAT (3/29/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Mar 29, 2007 11:39 AM
Subject: Thursday, March 29, 2007

Thursday, March 29, 2007

AT SEA EN ROUTE TO OMAN, MUSCAT

This was a fun day. I ran out of air. So we went to the doctor. Doctor says I don’t have enough oxygen in me. He has this thing he puts on my finger and it tells him how much oxygen is in my blood. It just clips on like a clothes pin. No hole or prick. He says the meds I brought are the best for what I have, bronchitis. He wants to give me different ones also but is afraid because of my allergies. I also have another antibiotic, we brought with, that is good for that and I will take both. He also had the nurse give me nebishizer. No, Bobbi says it is a nebulizer. That worked for an hour or so but by the time we were supposed to do another nebulizer, I couldn’t breathe again. So he took a blood test. That confused him even more because I have a condition that gives me a very high white count. I am going to have to call my Hematologist and see if she can email me the last blood test she did. Now they want me to go to a hospital for a chest x-ray tomorrow. They have arranged to have a car pick me up and take me there and back and will make arrangements to have the x-ray taken. Then they gave me another nebulizer treatment, but this time more and stronger and with oxygen. They also sent an oxygen machine to my room.

Right now it doesn’t look too good. I am feeling much better and I’m afraid I will live and have to pay for all this.

This morning I was feeling a little better after the nebulizer so we went to the main restaurant for breakfast. By lunch time I was bad again and we had nothing. Tonight we are having room service again. Their room service is fantastic. At dinner time they will bring anything on the restaurant menu or you can order from a room service menu. They are quick and the food comes hot.

MUMBAI, INDIA (BOMBAY) DAY II (3/28/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Mar 28, 2007 2:24 PM
Subject: Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

MUMBAI, INDIA (BOMBAY) DAY II

We did lots of nothing today. I was too sick to even go out of the room for meals.

We were supposed to leave the dock at 4:30 this afternoon. Some tours that were not back by then were supposed to be tendered to the ship. That would have been a mess because there was a lot of luggage. We were able to stay until about 5:30.

As we left we went by the QE II. She is the very last of her kind. It has different class floors and rooms. Elevators do only two floors because you are not allowed on different class floors then you paid for. Most ships do 20 to 25 knots maximum. The QE II does 30 knots and has a V bottom to the hull. It is the last of the deep draft cruise ships. All others now have flat bottoms for shallow draft but they do not ride nearly as well in very rough seas.

As we went by the captain asked for everyone to be out on decks to wave goodbye. The two ships played their horns at each other and we had to do a 180 degree turn to leave the harbor. The QE II has a very unique horn. None other sounds the same.

MUMBAI, INDIA (BOMBAY) (3/27/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Mar 27, 2007 11:34 AM
Subject: Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

MUMBAI, INDIA (BOMBAY)

We had booked a tour to see the Jewish Synagogues but I had a bad cold or something this morning. So Bobbi went by herself while I stayed and coughed non stop.

Before leaving we thought about all the wonderful treasures we had acquired and decided there was no way they would fit in the luggage we had brought. We called the butler and asked where we might find a UPS store or similar where we could purchase boxes and bubble wrap. Our butler said it would no problem. He would get us the bubble wrap and he would have the ships carpenters build a box large enough for all our stuff. They were remarkably quick and efficient. Now I just need a crane to get it aboard. It is pictured [above].

Bobbi got in a large bus with only eight other people including the Rabbi. His wife had gone to see the Taj Mahal. We had gone on the Synagogue tour last year but wanted to see it again and there was one Synagogue we had not seen.

The sights were about the same except she was able to get much closer to the public laundry where you paid to have your laundry washed, by hand, in the river.

If was far more crowded this year and she saw far more poverty with people living in the streets. The bus was far too large to fit down many of the streets and was quite a job to maneuver.

The tour was about four hours and then Bobbi returned to the ship. There was a warehouse right by the ship, where there were stalls with people selling things. There was also a store set up in the meeting room on the ship. The only thing we wanted was one of the gorgeous silk table cloths they were selling. We had not been able to find one near large enough for either of our dinning room tables and this place was no exception. They did have some beautiful ones though and maybe we will go to a table cloth store by taxi tomorrow.

AT SEA EN ROUTE TO MUMBAI, INDIA (3/26/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Mar 26, 2007 11:58 AM
Subject: Monday, March 26, 2007

Monday, March 26, 2007

AT SEA EN ROUTE TO MUMBAI, INDIA

I don’t know why they insist on calling it Mumbai. Even the maps still call it Bombay.

The episode with the dolphins still had me confused so today I went up on the bridge to speak to the captain.

He wasn’t there nor was he in his office but I did speak with the officer on watch. We spoke for some time.

There is a machine that creates it’s own chart and shows you your exact position. He said that the QE II is the only cruise ship that can go just by that computer created chart, because it has several backups. The others must have a real paper chart besides.

He was also on duty when we had the encounter with the dolphin or tuna, whatever they were. He said he had no ides what kind they were or anything about them but he did have pictures and they were definitely dolphins.

I went back to our suite and looked it up on the internet. I looked at search engines like google and I looked in encyclopedias. The only thing I could come up with was an article about some small dolphin. It said they were only found in warm waters and they stayed out to sea. They will sometimes take a ride on a bow wake and they have been seen in groups of 500 or more. They do not especially want to see men and are elusive. That is why not much is known about them and they have not been studied. I was amazed to see, in some other articles, how many are killed annually. The Japs kill them by the thousand and sell them as whale. Others do eat them but not as openly.

I guess I have to stand corrected. If that many people had seen them, they must have been dolphin even though they did look like tuna out foggy window.