TBK travels- week 14- Salalah, Oman

 In week 14 of my vacation I turned from Online instructor at The Oil and Gas Academy ( my old life) to PADI open water diving student ( new life) at the ABT divers centre at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Salalah. I started on Saturday completing the online programme at the Grand Flora hotel, and then completed the confined water sessions in the Pool at the Crowne Plaza, and finally we headed out to sea for the four open water dives just past Mirabat, an hour along the coast from Salalah.

One of Mirbat's several dilapidated Yemeni-style mud-brick structures

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1599351

Mirabat is where "from 1971-76 the SAS fought and won a guerrilla war in the barren hills and deserts of southern Oman. They were doubly successful, defeating the communist rebels and keeping the entire operation so secret that the Labour party had no idea what was happening until they won the 1974 election.

After heavy editing by the MoD and Foreign Office, the story of this secret war was revealed by SAS Operation Oman, written by the SAS commander, Colonel Tony Jeapes.

Still used as a text book at the Army Staff College, Camberley, it reveals how small teams of elite soldiers took on a dedicated guerrilla army and destroyed it. While the US Army was losing its very public war in Vietnam, the SAS fought in complete secrecy, saving the Omani regime and preventing Soviet-backed guerrillas seizing control of the Persian Gulf."

Source: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SAS-Secret-War-Operation-Storm/dp/000472514X ( accessed 4.10.21) You can read the fascinating story in this excellent book:

           SAS Secret War: Operation Storm: SAS in Oman by Tony Jeapes

The old dog also learnt three new tricks from Chester- using the snipping tool ( not as painful as it sounds) and " How to remove highlighted text in background "- for which Chester gave me a set of instructions as usual. Finally he taught me how to convert JFIF to JPEG files. 

I read once that if you copy and paste from one source without acknowledging the source that's Plagiarism ( which we spent many hours investigating and preventing in my old life with ILM) . However if you take quotes from different sources and reference them correctly ( as I do in my blogs) then your work is well researched. The problem occurs when you copy and paste from say Facebook to BlogSpot you get left with coloured shading behind the copied text. Now I know how to remove that!

                                Chester's hack number 54!

For our open water dives Ali and Yousif tool us along the coast from Mirabat to Eagle Bay. The coastline  is beautiful and there are lots of fishing spots. I visited here back in 2014 with my then guide , Radhi. If you want to learn more about Mirabat read this excellent website:

https://www.beautifulsalalah.com/beaches-in-mirbat-oman/

On the Saturday night I had a what's app message from my friend Mark in Muscat to say a cyclone was approaching Muscat and schools would be closed on Sunday and Monday. The pictures on line were spectacular of the sea pounding against the sea walls in Mutrah.

      The Cyclone hits Muscat- with heavy waves pounding the sea wall at Mutrah

Thanks to Chester for converting the format of  this wonderful picture which I downloaded from Facebook so I could share it with you.  I am happy to say that the Cyclone missed Salalah so I was able to get to the gym and check in with the PADI diving Centre at the Crowne Plaza. In the evening I had dinner at their first floor restaurant with wonderful views of the beach. Like most places in the Middle East it comes alive as the sun goes down with guys playing football, people riding horses and so on. 

After dinner I waited and waited for a taxi back to my hotel and eventually an Omani soldier, who had been using the Crowne Plaza gym gave me a lift back to the Grand Flora hotel. He offered to take me to buy some food at a market stall on the way and refused to accept any money when we got there. The people of Oman are so friendly. The next night a guy who worked at the nearby Antara hotel gave me a lift.

     My stuffed mushrooms - overlooking the beach at the Crowne Plaza , Salalah

I kept to my healthy diet with Omlette for breakfast ,Salmon and mashed potato and fruit platter for lunch and stuffed mushrooms and spinach ravioli for dinner. Sadly I woke up early on Monday so after checking my emails and updating my blogs at 5 am I resumed my PADI on line course from 6 to 8 am before heading downstairs for breakfast. 

                       My daily Lemon Mint from the rand Flora Café

My only complaint about the Grand Flora hotel ( apart from the lack of coffee in the bedroom) was the 3 guys who ran the coffee shop there. One was Nepali and one Indian and one Bangladeshi. They used to hide behind the till all day ( the early shift guy was always late) and all you could see was their head as they chatted to friends on their phones. They had headphones in so you had to bang the counter to get their attention. However they did make good coffee and Lemon mint!

  Ocean Blue restaurant, next to the Indian Ocean where I had lunch most days 

By contrast the best service I ever had was at the Crown Plaza hotel in Salalah where I had lunch in Ocean Blue by the sea most days. Rahul and Mohamed looked after me there and remembered which table I liked, got my Perrier, did not bring the bread, and always asked if I wanted fruit platter and Earl Grey tea- now that is good service- remembering what your customer likes.

My Lemon mint at the Dolphin Terraza- above Ocean Blue , with amazing sunset views

After a day in the gym, pool , walking on the beach, or completing my Pool dives for PADI I would retire at 5 pm to Dolphin Terraza, the Crowne Plaza's Italian restaurant with amazing sunset views. Here I would chill out and take photos and watch the horses being ridden on the beach, the occasional idiotic 4 x 4 driver breaking the law driving on the beach , and the people jogging, walking , and on the last day when they opened the beach after the heavy waves died down, paddling in the sea. The Filipino waitress here was wonderful, chatting away in Tagalog and English and recommending different dishes daily, even ones not on the menu. The Italian food was beautifully cooked and presented and I was amazed to find the Chef's were from the Philippines , not Italian. When I chatted to the female chef she explained they both worked for an Italian Chef in Dubai called Cristy at Pizzaro- so I will be definitely be going there in December when I return to Dubai. 

     Sunset over the Crowne Plaza's beach where they hosted a wedding on my last night

I was so impressed with the Crowne Plaza , Salalah, that I raved about it in Trip Advisor, like many others:

Relaxing and exercising by the sea

"I spent three weeks visiting the Crowne Plaza daily as a health club member. All the staff were polite and friendly in the gym, pool, ocean blue and the Dolphin Terraza. I also completed a PADI diving course here with ABT divers.

Special thanks to Christina who made the most amazing Italian food and Dina who helped me with my Tagalog ! In Ocean Blue Rahul soon learnt my order, Perrier, no bread, fresh fruit and Earl Grey tea. The female Indian chef presented the food beautifully and always gave me a smile and a wave. The grounds were immaculate and the receptionists helped arrange taxis in the hotel and health cub. Thank you all for your excellent service"

Source : https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g298419-d455323-Reviews-Crowne_Plaza_Hotels_Resorts_Salalah_an_IHG_hotel-Salalah_Dhofar_Governorate.html ( accessed 17.10.21)

      Alex, Ali, Yousef and Hossam at Eagle Bay after my first open water        

                                                     sea dive. 

I have to admit I struggled to concentrate on the online elements of the PADI course , especially when the hard drive went on my laptop and I had to complete the exam on my mobile phone . Ali. Cristina and Yousef at ABT divers were excellent providing Italian coffee, photos and videos. Ali gave me lots of helpful words of advice and dragged me in and out of the rough sea and put my fins on ( my artificial hip still makes it hard to bend down) . Thanks also to Alex who dived with me on the first day in the sea and was very encouraging, and to Yousef for being my buddy diver on the second day.

I highly recommend the team at ABT Divers , based at the Crowne Plaza in Salalah

The good news is I successfully completed the programme and now I am a PADI Open water diver! Ali recommended that when I get to the Philippines I hire a guide diver to help refresh my skills, get me in and out of the water and build my experience which I will be happy to do. 

                The beautiful Eagle bay where we did our diving

I also sent a day touring the other coast going to Al Fawazah beach which is 70 km down the coast in the opposite direction to Mirabat. We went to the Blow holes ( where the sea water comes into a cave below you and is forced up through a grating) and my driver went and got some Frankincense for me ( I did all these things back in 2014 !) .

I was too scared to go to the cliff edge to take the pictures so my tour guide went for me!

                        The rocky coast and Indian Ocean

So all in all it was a busy final full week in Oman completing my diving course , eating out, getting my laundry done and sightseeing. 

Apologies for the delay in uploading this as I had a little problem with my laptop- the blue screen of death as someone called it . 

 Sadly the automatic repair, restart and other advanced options did not work!

My various IT literate friends diagnosed it as a corrupt boot up file and confirmed my files are all still intact so I need to go to the dealer to get windows reinstalled. However no one knows who the dealer is in Bahrain. I went to JKR who put a new keyboard in this Hewlett Packard laptop, then Zaid suggested Intercol so I went their but they stopped being the agent 4 years ago for ASUS. They recommended Advance computers so I emailed them , but they said its not them and as its a software fault it's not covered by warranty. Finally last night another friend suggested taking it back to Sharaf DG where I purchased it! My thanks to Shawn, Zaid, Adon, Rahul and Vath for all your advice and help.

I will be back soon with the final blog from Salalah and my 3 month vacation , when I can remember what I did in week 15!

Until then 

Ingat Palagi- take care

Kita Kits- see you soon

and Mahal Kita- I love you!