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Oman, Did You See That Welsh Shark?
February 12th
Arrived in Oman at 3:30 in the morning. We got to the airport, bought some wine and rum quite quickly, and then took a taxi to our $30 a night Airbnb to sleep for 3 or 4 hours.
Chris went down to get the rental car and said it was a very efficient process. Backed out of the Airbnb and headed to the mosque. We made sure that we were dressed appropriately. I had to have my hair covered and we both had to have our wrists, ankles, and shoulders covered.
Once in the mosque, we wandered around and enjoyed the nice setting. Marble walkways, nice gardens, and the main mosque had the second largest chandelier in the world, made up of Swarovski crystals.
After the mosque, we headed to Kaya for lunch. We sat overlooking the beach and ocean. I had a very large falafel salad, Chris had a chicken burger and a mojito, but there's no vodka in the mojitos here.
We then headed to Old Muscat. We saw the Sultan's Palace and walked around an area that had a fort and overlooked the ocean. From there, we headed to Muttrah Souq.
We walked into the souq and lasted about 5 minutes. We were accosted by the various sellers at every turn, trying to sell us shawls and hats and random things. It was not Chris's favorite shopping experience.
We went to the Hyperlulu and stocked up on some groceries, and then went back to our hotel for a swim in the pool. Still quite full from our lunch, we ate our dinner in our room. We had hummus, labneh, crackers, grapes, olives.
February 13th
Woke up early and headed to Al Mouj Marina to meet our tour to go to the Daymaniyat Islands. Our tour was the Daymaniyat Shells. We got there quite early, so we sat on a bench overlooking the marina and met the marina cat and gave it some treats. At 8 o'clock, we followed our captain down to our boat.
It was quite a nice boat, held quite a few people, and had an awning for shade. It was a 45-minute boat ride out to the islands. Once at the islands, we cruised into the shallow water and could see turtles poking their heads up already. We dropped anchor, got our snorkel gear on, and jumped into the water.
Once in the water, we immediately saw a group of 3 or 4 turtles feeding on the bottom. We continued our swim across the bay. We saw some trumpetfish, including one trumpetfish riding on the back of a turtle. We also saw a family of turtles. There were about 5 or 6, including one giant turtle. We watched them for a while until they swam away.
By this point, the bay was getting quite crowded as other boats and snorkelers had arrived, and the water was quite chilly. We made our way back to the boat where I climbed back aboard to warm up, and Chris stayed in the water a little longer to watch some more turtles. After that, we cruised over to our second stop of the day, a beach on another island.
On the way to the island, we were served some sandwiches, fruit, and cookies for lunch. Once at the island, we dropped anchor near shore. Most of the group elected to explore the beach. Chris and I once again put on our snorkel gear and snorkeled along the shore. We were told if we were lucky, we would see some blacktip sharks.
When we got close to the shark area, there were some people who could spot the sharks from shore and they told us not to swim close otherwise we would scare them away. The water was also quite cloudy, so even if we had gotten near them, I'm not sure we would have seen them. We saw some coral and a few fish before we got back on board the boat and made our way back to the marina.
We headed back to the hotel and took a picnic lunch up to the pool area where we relaxed and enjoyed the good music. From the rooftop, we had views of the Grand Mosque and the ocean in the distance. We bought tickets to go see an organ show at the Royal Opera House that evening.
We got dressed quickly and then went out for a quick bite to eat at a Turkish restaurant in the mall near our hotel. The food was quite tasty, and Chris had a very large portion of chicken. After dinner, we drove to the opera and found our seats on the third level quite high up from the stage.
Once inside the opera house, we enjoyed the nice building. Wooden ceilings, ornate architecture, and red carpet leading up the stairs to the other levels. We watched people posing for photos right in the middle of the main staircase. As soon as one group finished, another group saw what was happening and wanted their photo there too.
The first half of the performance consisted of a children's choir accompanying the organist.
There was a 20-minute intermission. We got up to stretch our legs. Now the popular picture spot was on the second half of the stairway with lots of people posing for photos. The chimes notified us that the second half was about to start, and we took our seats once again.
This time there was a different organist accompanied by the Royal Muscat Orchestra. At this point, we were finding it quite difficult to keep our eyes open in the dark theater with nice, soothing music. Once the performance ended, the conductor took a lot of bows, and the clapping continued for a long, long time. He would leave the stage, everyone would clap, then he'd come back, bow again, leave the stage, then he'd come back, then leave the stage. He probably did this four or five times.
Once the clapping was finally over, we went outside to enjoy the outdoor part of the opera house. It was lit up very nicely in the dark evening. We strolled around and took in the views and the gardens and waited for the traffic to dissipate.
February 14th
Took our breakfast up to the rooftop and ate by the pool. I went for a sauna and a swim, but Chris didn't want to get wet.
Checked out of the hotel, got in our car, and drove to Nizwa. We arrived in Nizwa, but our Google Maps didn't seem to be taking us on the best route as we arrived at a very narrow alleyway to enter the hotel. We parked the car and got out and walked to find the hotel, the Etra Inn. We were shown to our room and Chris and the receptionist went back to get the car.
After that, we took our lunch down to the courtyard, ate our lunch and played some cards and relaxed in the shade under the palm trees and listened to the birds. We headed into town to check out the Nizwa Fort. It was very busy on a Friday evening with lots of locals and children running around. There was some music and some men performing some sort of dance in the courtyard of the fort.
The streets of old Nizwa were very narrow and everyone was in their traditional clothing. As Chris said, it felt like he was on the set of a movie. We walked around the fort and climbed the stairs to the top level, with views overlooking Nizwa and the surrounding area. After the fort, we walked around Nizwa.
We weren't sure if we wanted dinner or just a cafe drink. We walked by the souk, gave some cats our treats, and then ended up at the Niz Cafe, where we sat on the rooftop and had a milkshake and a lemonade. We had nice views of the fort. It was nice and relaxing.
February 15th
We left our hotel just after 6 am as soon as it got light to head to Jebel Shams to do the balcony hike. Driving there, there were lots of speed bumps along the roads for no real apparent reason. Once we got close, we climbed up a steep mountain in our vehicle through some gravel roads and then arrived at the trailhead. We parked and there were quite a few goats hanging out in the parking lot.
From there, we found the start of the hike and walked along the edge of the canyon, Oman's equivalent of the Grand Canyon. The whole hike had nice views the entire way, overlooking the canyon. We continued along the ridge, overlooking the 1,000m deep canyon. We arrived at an abandoned old village at the end. You could apparently continue on from there to some small lakes, but we were unable to locate the lakes, so we gave up and retraced our steps back to the trailhead.
At the trailhead, there was a small shack selling cold drinks, and Chris couldn't resist having a cold Coca-Cola classic. We sat with a screaming child beside us and enjoyed the views and watched the Egyptian vultures circle overhead. Several curious goats also were around the snack shack. We took some photos of them.
We drove back down, and on the way, we stopped to take some photos of some more goats that were climbing the trees to get the good leaves. We took a different route back, stopping by the Bala Fort to take some photos, and then on to the Jabreen Castle. We entered the castle and explored the castle. It was quite confusing. They said there were lots of different routes and secret passages to help fool any intruders and hopefully get lost.
We did get lost a few times, trying to find some different rooms, such as the Moon and Sun room, which let in both moonlight and sunlight. We took a bunch of photos on the rooftop, overlooking the surrounding area, and explored the rest of the castle.
One strategy to defend the castle was to pour boiling date syrup on the enemies. There are also large storage rooms in the castle for the storage of dates.
After the castle, we drove back to our hotel. Chris was very frustrated on the narrow streets trying to navigate with cars wanting to pass on the single lane roads. There was a bit of swearing involved but eventually we made it back to our Etra Inn.
After a hard drive, Chris did a little bit of work and had a nap before we headed out for dinner. It looked like it should be a 4-minute walk from our hotel to the restaurant, 4Tezza Pizza. However, we had a hard time finding it. First of all, we walked along a residential street but couldn't get in through the city walls. So we entered into the old town and wandered around looking for a way to get to the restaurant.
We tried to go up the wall but were told we had to pay to enter and the guy at the gate told us to go back down. We went back down, wandered around a little more, and came upon another entrance on the wall where we were then informed we had to pay to walk on the wall to get to the restaurant. We paid our 1 real each, the equivalent of about 4 Canadian dollars.
We walked along until we found our destination. We sat and ate our pizza and watched a few stray cats scrounge for food from people dining nearby. It was quite good pizza. After dinner, we walked back along the wall and made our way back, stopping to feed some temptations to the cats living at the local dumpster by our hotel.
February 16th
We departed our hotel and navigated the narrow streets once again to get to Nizwa. From there, our next destination was Wadi Bani Khalid. Once we arrived at the wadi, we parked the car and it was about a 5-minute walk to reach the first pools. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot and a lot of people, but very few people actually swimming. We found a spot to leave our bags and then went for a dip in the wadi. The water was quite cool and refreshing as we swam around. It was actually quite tiring swimming without the buoyancy of the salt water of the ocean. It was quite good exercise.
We swam around the main pool and then Chris hung out there watching our stuff while I swam further upstream. As the channel narrowed through a gorge that was quite scenic and ended at a small waterfall. We then hiked up to the second set of pools, which was very popular. There were a lot of tourists on the way up and also when we arrived. I then waited with the stuff while Chris swam up the narrow gorge. There were a lot of people in the narrow opening, but it was very scenic. I ate my pizza bun and apple and then Chris came back and we swapped. He had lunch and I took a turn swimming up between the narrow openings. The water was definitely warmer in this area, but it was quite crowded and you had to watch for people jumping from above down into the water.
We walked back down, and the first area was still quite empty. I'm not sure why everyone crammed into the small second pool area, whereas the first one was quite enjoyable and relaxing.
Once back at the car, we then drove on to the meeting point for our Starry Domes Desert Camp. We waited for the other guests to all assemble and then we drove about one minute, and we pulled into a station where our tires were deflated to further drive up the sandy dunes. Next, we stopped at the grocery store so one person could buy some cold drinks and snacks. From there, we were finally on our way, and we drove about half an hour into the dunes, seeing, unfortunately, quite a bit of plastic and garbage on the way up. We saw some camels and some nice scenery.
We then arrived at Starry Domes and went through a check-in process where we were assigned to our dome. We were told our desert name was Vinos, which we thought maybe meant winos, which was a little ironic considering they don't drink any alcohol. Once we arrived at the dome, we realized it was called Venus, like the plant, which made a lot more sense. We settled into our dome, and it was getting close to magic hour, so we went out to explore the dunes. We went on a walk and took some photos as the dunes were nicely lit up.
We had registered for a camel ride, but the camels were already occupied, so we gave up on the camel ride and went back to the main dome to sit and watch the sunset. It was a nice sunset, and as the sun set, we drank some Omani coffee flavored with cardamom and ate some dates dipped in tahini and chatted with a couple of other tourists and the guides.
We went back to our dome and had a drink while we relaxed outside and looked at the stars. We watched other people head up to the main area for dinner. Interestingly enough, they all chose to drive their vehicles the 200 or 300 meters to get from their dome up to the main cabin.
Dinner was a buffet. Chris ate a lot of chicken, and they had good lentil soup. After dinner, we went inside outside and looked at the stars, and the guide chatted a little bit. We watched the moon rise.
February 17th
We woke up just before sunrise, and we were able to watch the sunrise over the horizon, lying in bed looking out the window of our dome. We then got up, took some photos, and then headed to the camels. We were the first guests to arrive the day, to get the camels nice and fresh. We mounted our camels in order to get on them. The handler gets the camel to lie down on the ground, and then you climb aboard, and then the camel stands up. You have to make sure you're holding on quite tightly at this point, as it involves a lot of rocking backwards and forwards.
Once we were both on our camels, he led us across the dunes, enjoying the sunrise and nice lighting, and listening to our camels' hooves walk across the sand. We took some photos, and then turned around and headed back to camp, and went up for our breakfast buffet. We were made omelets and pancakes, and they had very good honey and cheese. After breakfast, we relaxed on the terrace and enjoyed the view of the dunes.
We packed up and made the drive out of the dunes, stopping along the way when we spotted some camels to take some photos. Once again, we went back to the tire place and got our tires re-inflated with air, and then continued on. Our first stop was the Bimmah Sinkhole. We parked the car, and then made the short walk to the sinkhole, and did a quick loop around watching the people swim in the pool below. As with the previous day's Wadi, there were a lot more people just walking and relaxing than there were swimming.
From there, we pressed on to our destination, Wadi Al Arbeieen. It was a short drive off the highway, up a gravel road that was quite narrow and steep in places. Once at the Wadi, we found a small spot to park, and got our water shoes and swimming gear on. We started in the first pool and waded upstream, swimming through some narrow openings in the rocks and making our way through a couple pools until we arrived at a nice pool with a waterfall coming down into it. We swam in the pool and took some photos. It was quite scenic, with the mountains above us and the palm trees surrounding us along with the cliffs.
From there, we retraced our swim strokes back to the first pool where we swam around a little bit there before heading back to the car in order to make it back to Muscat before dark. Once in Muscat, we stopped back at our usual Lulu hypermarket to pick up some dinner and some snacks. Once we got our Kathi rolls, we headed to the Intercity Hotel Muscat, where we checked in and got upgraded to a suite. Our room was pretty nice, looking over a nicely lit area with some fountains and some decorative lighting in the shape of a large flower.
We went for a quick swim as the pools in Muscat closed early. We had to be finished swimming by 7pm. There was a large French family also in the pool. Once we had finished our swim, we headed back to our room. I spent a lot of time packing and organizing everything for our flight the next day to the Maldives, and we ate our dinner. Chris sadly didn't finish the bottle of rum that he had bought at Duty Free, so had to pour some of it down the sink, shedding a tear as he did so.
February 18th
We departed our hotel in Muscat bright and early to drop off our rental car at 6:15 in the morning at the Oman airport. We got through security and passport control quite quickly and then spent a while analyzing what to buy with our remaining Omani money and settled on four kilograms of dates as they were the best deal. We boarded our flight to Malé to start our vacation in the Maldives.
Once arriving in Malé we met up with Jana who had arrived on her flight from New Zealand a couple hours before us and she was hanging out in the hot Malé airport. It turns out if she had taken a hundred paces outside she could have sat by the nice turquoise water watching boats come and go or sit in an air-conditioned waiting room. However, she chose to stick it out in the airport. We met our representative from the hotel, the Dhiguveli Breeze, and then sat and waited for our ferry.
We were then ushered to the ferry dock where it's quite chaotic with people trying to board different boats and people panicking that they're gonna not get on theirs. However, we all made it on the boat and got a row on the ferry and set off toward our island of Dhigurah. It was about an hour and a half ferry ride with a brief moment of panic when our ferry broke down in the open water. However, they were able to get the engine restarted and we continued on our way.
Once we arrived in Dhigurah we checked into our hotel. We were welcomed with some sparkling juice and got some explanations of the area and of our rooms that we couldn't quite understand all of. We headed up to check out the rooftop, which was a little below our expectations as it wasn't the most comfortable place for lounging. And there was some bird poop. We headed downstairs to the restaurant in our hotel for dinner. The food was quite tasty after our long day of traveling. We sampled the local fare of burgers and fries. The menu was quite large. Anything you want you could have ordered. After dinner, we went for a short walk and met some of the local cats and fed them some treats.
February 19th
Chris and I woke up early and headed down to the beach where I did some pre-breakfast yoga. We then went back to the hotel for breakfast. Jana debated whether or not she should have a chocolate donut, and she decided to, which was a good thing because the next few days there were no more chocolate donuts offered at the buffet.
After breakfast, we headed back to the beach and blew up our water hammocks and went for a nice swim in the turquoise blue waters. At first Jana was skeptical of the water hammock, but liked it after she tried it out. The water was quite warm and very enjoyable as we floated around. Chris made it quite far in his floaty all the way to the end of the beach where he had then got out and walked back.
Next, we rented some bikes. The bikes had seen better days. We got two adult-sized bikes and one child-sized bike. Jana had one that was a little large for her, and it took a little spill at one of our stops. She then traded with Chris.
Next up, we went to the local grocery store where we bought a few snacks and some cold drinks that we packed with us for our trip to the sandbar. We rode our bikes to the southern tip of the island. It was quite a bit further than we thought, but I think the bicycles made it feel further than it actually was. Once we reached the end of the road, we parked our bikes and got off and walked to the beach where we found a spot under an umbrella to go for a short swim and eat our lunch.
We then decided to make our way to the sandbar. Our timing wasn't the best as it was high tide, so there was one spot we had to wade across the water to reach it. We took some photos on the sandbar and then headed back before we got sunburned, or so we thought.
We went for dinner at the Beach Fresh Cafe. We got a table under the umbrella in front of the bar where they were pumping out some tunes. We ordered some mocktails for Jana and me, and Chris had a smoothie. Chris and I had curry for dinner, and Jana had a brownie. They had a very large menu with lots of selection, like everywhere on the island. After dinner, we did our same circuit as the night before and met up with the cats again and fed them some treats.
February 20th
We had an early breakfast at the hotel and then were driven to our boat, a traditional Dhow. Jana came close to missing the ride to the boat as she forgot her snorkel gear for the snorkel trip. We boarded the boat and then set out in our search for rays and whale sharks.
The first sighting was of a manta ray. The guides spotted it in the water and told us all to jump in. It was a little chaotic as everyone rushed to get their gear on and get in the water as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we got held up by some members of our group who were a little slower jumping into the water, and we missed seeing the ray. So after a brief swim in the ocean, we were told to get back in the boat, and we continued on.
Our next stop was in the whale shark area where we looked for some whale sharks but didn't have any success, so we just did a snorkel instead and saw some coral and some fish. Once back on board, we continued on to our next snorkel spot.
After about 30 minutes, the captain got a call from someone saying there was a whale shark spotted in a spot that we had just left. He turned the boat around and headed back to the same area. Once there, there were lots of boats all looking for the whale shark, but no one seemed to know where it was. We tried to find it and then stopped as the divers decided to do a dive from that area if there was not going to be a whale shark.
While the divers were getting their gear on and jumping into the water, our guide spotted a whale shark, as luck would have it, right beside the boat. We all jumped in the water, excited to see the whale shark. We had one minute of enjoyment swimming beside the huge fish and enjoying the sight of it gliding through the water. However, by this time, many other boats and many other people were all trying to see the whale shark. When we surfaced above water, we saw a total of 24 other boats around the same whale shark and a horde of people in the water. At this point, we gave up trying to follow the whale shark as it was probably diving deeper to get away from the masses.
While sailing back, we were making conversation with one of our guides, and the guide was from South Africa, so he has one of those quirky South African accents, which is sometimes hard to tell what they're saying, and Jana thought that when he was talking about a whale shark, she thought he was saying a Welsh shark, as in like, a Welsh, which is a region or language people in the UK. All of it? Wales, yeah, and you're Welsh if you're from Wales. Okay, this is all being recorded. Fix this in post, please. Yes, so she, Jana, thought that our South African guide was saying a Welsh shark instead of a whale shark, and she almost asked him how the whales made their way down here from the UK or how they got their UK descendancy, and she's very glad that she just took one more minute to actually focus on what he was saying and did not ask that question because then she realized that he was just saying whale shark but in his South African accent. She told this story to Chris and Chris later on in the evening, much to their enjoyment. We all had a good laugh.
One other thing we saw on the boat was a pod of dolphins. They were spinner dolphins. Did some tricks for us, jumping, and spinning out of the water. We then made our way back to Dhigurah, looking for manta rays on the way, but unfortunately, didn't see any. So we then stopped at the reef on the edge of Dhigurah, where we got out for one last snorkel. It was a snorkel along the ledge of the coral where we saw lots of fish. It had quite a strong current, and the current carried us along while we looked at the coral and fishes.
Before our last snorkel, one of the guides asked Chris and I if we wanted to go home or if we wanted to do the snorkel. We said we'd like to do the snorkel, so I guess the whole boat had to rely on our decision. We got back to our hotel and freshened up and went to watch the sunset from our rooftop. We were just a little late for sunset, but turns out we timed it right for the hour that all the bats fly around, and we saw lots of large bats flying through the air.
We went out for dinner at the Whale Shark Beach Hotel restaurant. We went to enter the hotel, and there was a welcoming crew of cats and kittens. They were playing to greet us. Once inside, we went up to the rooftop on the top floor and were seated at a corner table. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn't open until 7 p.m., so it was quite dark, and we couldn't enjoy the views. Once again, it was quite a large menu, and we could have picked anything. I had a fish burger, Chris had a chicken sandwich, but Jana tried a local specialty of prawn Maldivian curry.
We sat after a meal enjoying the rooftop, and we had a couple of rat sightings. There were a couple that made their way down from the rooftop onto the railing and then onto the ground. I assume they must have had some other escape route as they didn't come running past our table, thankfully.
We walked down to the beach after dinner as we were told if you shone your light into the water, you might be lucky to see some eel swimming but unfortunately, we didn't see anything in the ocean, just a lot of crabs scuttling along the beach. We made our rounds, but we didn't find our pom-pom cat that we had fed treats to the previous two nights. She must have been out adventuring somewhere else.
February 21st
We woke up early again this morning. Jana went for a walk on the beach, I did some yoga, and Chris floated in the water with his water hammock before the sun came up so he wouldn't get sunburnt. After our morning activity, we went back to the hotel for breakfast. Still no donuts.
We then decided to rent paddleboards. Chris didn't want to get sunburnt, so he chose to walk on the beach while Jana and I paddleboarded towards the sandbank. We glided over some nice coral, enjoying the crystal blue water. We then turned around to come home. We knew it would be harder going back, but we didn't anticipate just how hard it would be. We were going against the current and into the wind. It took a lot of effort to not get very far.
When we were part of the way back, the guy from the rental place came out on his jet ski to tell us the hour was up. And we said okay, and were unclear what we were supposed to do, as he didn't offer us any options. We then told him that we were okay paddling, and he seemed concerned about charging us for a second hour, but we told him that would be fine. We continued to struggle back against the current and the wind, watching him leave on his jet ski, and realizing just how far we still had to go.
Chris was still walking along shore, but he was much faster than we were. So he would stop, find some shade, relax, and read while he waited for us to catch up. We finally made it back to return our paddle boards, and then Jana and I decided to check out the reef and go for a snorkel. It was much better than we anticipated, and we saw lots of different types of fish and some interesting coral. We were hoping that we would also spot the turtle that we saw when we were on our paddle boards, but we could not find him again.
We found a comfortable spot to relax with some bean bag chairs and a cuddle couch and a cat to keep us company. We also watched the cat hunt down a lizard, which he then toyed with quite a bit before consuming. After having some snacks and reading and relaxing, Jana and I decided to go in the water to cool off and went for a swim. We took our hammocks back into the water and watched as someone decided to rent the car, which was actually a boat.
While we were watching the boat drive back and forth, we floated on the water hammocks, and I noticed Jana was approaching a large thing floating in the water named Rockin' Mabel. This thing was pretty gross. It had been there a while, tethered. It had lots of stuff growing on it. I warned Jenna that she was about to hit it. I tried to do so calmly as to not startle her, but she looked over her shoulder, caught Mabel out of the corner of her eye, and was a little surprised.
After a swim, we headed back to our room to freshen up and relax for a bit. We then sat on our balcony and played Chronology. At one point, there was a near drop of cards over the edge, but luckily we found them all. We then wrapped up our game and rushed to try and get to the rooftop while it was still a little bit light out to enjoy the views. Unfortunately, it got dark quite quickly, but it was a good job we got there early as the restaurant filled up quite quickly.
Jana and I were a little disappointed in our dinners. I had a burrito, which didn't quite taste like a traditional Mexican burrito, and Jana had the beef satay, which turned out to be hamburgers on a stick with some peanut sauce. Chris enjoyed his shawarma, though. After dinner, we made our rounds, looking for the cats again. Still no pom-pom, but we did visit the family outside the Whale Shark Beach Hotel. At first we thought there was only one, but as soon as I took out my bag of temptations, they all came out of the bushes.
February 22nd
Another early morning, headed to the beach. Jana and Chris immediately jumped in the water to go for a snorkel, and I stayed on the beach and did some yoga. They emerged from their first lap, I joined them for a second lap of the reef. Once again, we saw lots of different fish. Headed back to our hotel for breakfast. Still no donuts, but today they had banana bread as a nice surprise.
After breakfast, we headed back to our relaxing spot. The same cat was there waiting for us, and he was interested in playing and chasing strings in our bag, and a toy that Chris made for him. We read our books, and then went back to our rooms, packed up our things, and checked out of our hotel. Our shuttle picked us up, took us to the port, where we met the boat that would take us on to the next island – the island of Omadhoo. It was a quick ferry ride, going at about 70 kilometers an hour, and quite smooth. We got to Omadhoo in what felt like less than an hour.
Once in Omadhoo, the staff from Hitha, where we were staying, were waiting for us. They showed us back to the small hotel. We checked in, we were given some fancy coconut drinks, and some crowns woven out of the palm tree fronds. We posed for a photo, as we did an awkward cheers, wearing our crowns, holding our drinks. Jana's room came with a courtyard, which the staff seemed to kind of upsell. We went out to have a look at the courtyard, and it turned out it was a tiny enclosed area with concrete, and zero view, and maybe somewhere you could hang some clothes to dry, and that was it.
We walked to the beach at the end of our street, and sat in the shade for a little bit, before going out and independently exploring. Jana made it around and down the Bikini Beach. I made it to the fence at the start of the Bikini Beach, and Chris tried to explore the inland routes that were not in the sun. It was very hot, and we all returned back to our original spot. We then decided to try and explore a bit more of the island. We walked around, and again, very hot. We made it as far as the pier. Jana and I walked out to the end of it, but it was too sunny for Chris, so he waited in the shade. On the pier, we saw a ray gliding through the water, and a few fish. By this point, we were starting to melt, so we headed back to our room to turn on the air conditioning, and Jana did some reading on the beach.
We heard there was a feeding of the rays at 5.30, so we headed out to the stingray point to watch them being fed. There was one guy tossing food into the water. At first, there was just one little ray getting fed, but after a while, three or four more larger ones appeared. It was still very hot, standing out there watching the rays. There was one kid who joined in on the feeding. He was quite interested in feeding the rays and enjoying it. He was able to do so, until a girl asked him to move out of the way, as not to ruin her Instagram video, so she could get some poses in herself with the rays.
From there, we headed to dinner at The Island Dream Cafe. We were the only customers there. We put in our orders. Unfortunately, they were out of the drink that they wanted, and there was no tandoori chicken that Chris wanted. So, Jana got some stir-fried noodles, Chris had a chicken burger, and I had the kottu, a local specialty. The food was quite tasty and in large portions, and it all came with eggs. It took quite a while to arrive, so I think the same guy making it was our waiter as well.
After dinner, we headed back to the pier, as we were told it was a good place to watch rays and sharks. We only had to take a couple of steps out onto the pier, where we saw the first sharks and rays appear.
We made our way to the end of the pier, where locals were dumping off their compost into the water and attracting the sharks, creating a feeding frenzy. There were lots of large nurse sharks feeding, as well as rays, and in the distance, there were some black-tipped sharks hunting some fish.
We would have liked to enjoy this in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, the thing to do seemed to be to call someone on your phone and FaceTime them. There were many, many people on their phones, solving their teenage dramas and talking about random things, unfortunately taking away some of the enjoyment of the experience. Maybe the next night, we should make a sign that says, "No cell phones allowed."
February 23rd
We headed out at 6.30 in the morning to get a head start on snorkeling. Our plan was to jump off the pier and snorkel with the current out to the point. We walked out to the end of the pier and saw a couple of nurse sharks circling in the water and then decided to change our plan. We walked back along the beach and found another entry point where we swam into the water.
At first we were a little disappointed as there wasn't much to see. And then we reached the coral ledge where there's a wall of coral with a steep drop off down to the ocean. We snorkeled along the ledge and saw many different types of fish including a couple of sharks. We saw a small blacktip shark followed by a much larger blacktip shark. We continued on our way and it turned out to be quite a long swim. Maybe longer than we were planning on. We made it all the way to Bikini Beach and just before we turned to come into the beach I noticed a fairly large size fish. Likely a shark swimming behind Jana and Chris. But they were oblivious to it.
Came back to our hotel to get ready for breakfast where we were served it on the beach. We had a wide variety of food including the local tuna dish, some beans, pancakes, sausages that were actually hot dogs, some Kathi wraps, and some watermelon. And hard boiled eggs. Our table was on the beach. A few of the local crows came to join us. Very interested in our food. Our table was also a bit on an angle, slipping down towards the water. We agreed to rotate seats each day. As I had the best one this morning, Chris had the second best one, and Jana had to look at the trees.
After breakfast we went exploring along the beach. We headed to the tree that's famous where everyone climbs up onto it to take their photo as the palm reaches out over the ocean. Jana made the first attempt at climbing the tree. Her technique of going up on her stomach with her arms and legs wrapped around it was not the most successful. We then realized if you sat on the tree facing backwards and inched your way up you could get a lot further. We took a few photos and then a guy came along and asked us to take some of his as well. He used our same technique, which we wondered if he had been watching us, to get up the tree where he had some creative poses on the trunk. We then headed to the tip of the island where there is a hashtag heart Omadhoo sign. Jana and I posed for our photo. While Chris tried to take it from the shade.
Once back on the beach we found a nice shady spot that was nice and breezy where we decided to camp out for the day. We went back to our hotel, got some chairs, our beach supplies, and everything we would need for a relaxing day at the beach. I did some yoga, we all read, Jana went for a few swims, including one point where Jana and I were both in the water and the same guy was helping some random woman showing them the tree climbing technique and how to pose on it. He then ventured into the water coming in right where Jana and I were swimming. I saw him approaching but Jana was floating along with her back to him and she had another Rockin' Mable moment where she was startled and she turned around and he was right there.
As it was now approaching sunset time we decided to venture out again into the heat. Chris got his snorkeling gear on and Jana and I rented a glass bottom kayak. We were pleasantly surprised at how much we could see through into the ocean through the kayak. We paddled out to the edge of the reef and went along the ledge in the ocean towards the pier.
Chris finished his snorkeling seeing a couple large rays in the ocean and then came out to the pier to take our photos. However at this point Jana and I had gone back towards the beach where he had been previously. We then realized we had more time left so we decided to do one more lap out to the pier. By this point Chris had come back to the beach where we had been and missed us again.
At the pier there were some Australian girls shrieking and falling into the water out of their kayak and a group of snorkelers looking at something in the water but we weren't sure what. We saw some more fish, one ray and then headed back into the beach where it was time for the feeding of the rays at the beach bar. We floated in as the rays were getting fed watching them swim in the shallow waters. We got out of our kayak and waded in as the rays came and brushed up against our legs looking for food. Two late nights in a row as we didn't get to bed till 10.30.
February 24th
We did our same morning routine, waking up at 6:30 to go for a morning snorkel. By now, we knew the route to take into the water to avoid the shallow coral, and swam out to the ledge where we swam along the shelf. We saw a lot of brightly colored fish and had a good snorkel. We came back and cleaned up for breakfast on the beach. Today was the American continental breakfast where we got lots of carbs: pancakes, three slices of toast, the hot dog sausages again, and one egg and some watermelon.
After breakfast, we headed back to our spot on the beach to try and get there before anyone else did. We set up our little camp. I did my yoga, and Chris and Jana read and listened to podcasts. We were entertained again by our friend from the previous day who decided to come and stage a picture right beside us. He brought two coconut halves, some water to pour into the coconuts, a bounty bar, and a straw to stage a photo shoot on the beach. He spent quite a while doing his setup as we watched, wondering what he was doing. Eventually, he finished and then moved on, thankfully.
We spent the rest of the morning relaxing, and Jana took a stroll into town to look for some snacks for lunch, where we shared two oranges and some almonds and various other things that we were trying to eat up out of our bags to lighten our load. After lunch, we played a game of tri-bond and enjoyed the nice cool breeze coming off the water.
We decided to go for an evening snorkel. We went back to our usual entry spot by the beach bar, where our friend at the beach bar who worked there said hi to us and tried to get us to buy something every time we walked past. We went into the water, swam out again to the shelf where we floated around and looked at various things. Jana was lucky enough to spot both a ray and a turtle, but neither Chris nor I saw them. We swam back to the beach where the stingray feeding was just starting.
After our snorkel, we went back to our hotel to get changed. Chris and I rushed out to try and catch the sunset, but we were too late. We watched on sunset beach as a couple tried to enjoy a romantic dinner with a group of about 20 tourists also there right behind them, being very loud and watching the sunset with them. We continued on to the stingray beach, where the feeding was already underway. We hung out on the edge of the feeding and still saw lots of interesting things. Every once in a while, a stingray would come close to us, and we even saw an eagle ray float past us, which looked really interesting as it had an eagle-shaped head with a beak and wings. We also saw a few little blacktip sharks circling on the edge of the feeding.
We went for dinner at Turtle Garden. We brought a game with us as we were prepared for the long wait for our food. We played a whole game of Chronology, and then shortly after we finished, our food arrived. For the second night in a row, Chris tried to order something that they didn't have on the menu. He wanted a banana milkshake, but I guess they were out of bananas, so he had to settle for vanilla. As we were finishing dinner, we had another rat sighting as Jana saw a rat scurrying down the post.
We then made our way to the pier, where we once again saw many rays and nurse sharks and blacktip sharks. We also saw a whitetip shark, which looked different than the blacktips as it was much more silvery-gray and bigger. Various groups of people came and went, including a father and son that tried to fish, which seemed like a bad idea as they were casting off, having to watch out for all the other people around them.
February 25th
This is our third day on the island of Omadhoo. By now, we had our routine down pat. We woke up at six thirty in the morning, went for a snorkel, came back, had our continental breakfast, and then went to stake out our place on the beach where I did yoga. We read, relaxed, played games. And then when we were done with the beach, we headed back to our rooms to get ready for our evening activity, which usually involved the stingray feeding, followed by dinner and then out to the pier for shark and manta watching.
Key differences on this day were in the morning we spotted a white tip shark while we were snorkeling. Jana was the first one to see it and pointed it out to Chris and me. Once back at our hotel, we were told again no excursions for today as the boat was already busy. We'd been hoping for the last two days to do one, but hadn't had any luck arranging one through our hotel. Maybe tomorrow, they told us.
When we arrived at our spot on the beach, our friend was there, but he had made some new friends. Luckily, he moved on with them, and so we were able to get our same spot again. Today's game that we played was Sushi Go. And we also had dinner or had lunch on the beach at our hotel where Jana and I had a curry, and Chris had a grilled cheese for $1. We again relaxed on the beach in the afternoon. Just as I was about to make my way back, I came across a cat, a friendly one who came and hung out with me on the beach for a little bit.
Chris and I tried to rent a glass bottom canoe, but unfortunately, the tide was too low, so we weren't able to take it out. Chris lounged in the water, trying not to get sunburned, while Jana and I walked down to sunset point. We once again watched the feeding of the rays by the beach bar. While on the beach, it's about the time that crabs do their nightly migration from the sandy beaches down into the water. There were hundreds of crabs making their way out and trying to get down to the water, and we were in their pathway. Also, around this time of night, the bats come out and start flying around. So there's always lots to look at between the crabs, the bats, the rays, and some sharks, and the other tourists.
Tonight for dinner, we went back to the Island Wave Cafe. We sat at our same table, put in our order, and then once again played Chronology. The food tonight was quite slow, as we had to wait for a while after we finished our game. Our same cat friend that we met the previous night at the cafe came to join us, and I gave her some temptations.
That evening, when we headed out to the pier, we got a good view of some blacktip sharks. There were fewer people on the pier tonight, so I think they were more comfortable with coming closer, as there weren't quite as many loud voices to scare them off. We saw them hunting some flying fish, which was entertaining to watch, as the fish would jump out of the water and fly through the air with the sharks chasing them. We also saw a couple of large fish that looked like they were water skiing across the surface of the water as they tried to escape the sharks. It was hard to say whether the sharks were successful or not in catching the fish. Also of note, there was one guy that decided to stand in the water with the sharks, and I'm not really sure why.
Back at our hotel, there was still no word on any excursions, so we assumed that it probably wasn't going to happen. So we planned again to do our 6.30am snorkel the next day.
February 26th
Today is our last day on Omadhoo. We thought we'd do our same morning routine since it didn't look like any excursions were happening. We woke up at 6.30, went for a snorkel, came back, had our continental breakfast, and then we're just about to gather our stuff to head to our beach spot when the hotel guy told us there was an excursion happening! Surprise surprise! Just as we had talked ourselves out of it, saying like how good the snorkeling had been, we didn't need to go on an excursion, and that's good we weren't going today because it was pretty wavy with a strong current.
By this point we had no choice but to go along regardless. We got our stuff packed up and got our things together to go on an excursion. As we were getting ready, an Austrian tourist came to the hotel looking for the staff as she had many, many questions about her stay coming up in two weeks, where her daughter was joining her to celebrate her birthday. We headed out to get a selfie with our tree that was on our beach spot. It had a number painted on it, Tree 65. Christopher got his sunglasses and backtracked to grab them, where once again he started chatting with the lady as she still had some more questions, and he showed her our room. This may have been a mistake in hindsight, as that stemmed from many more questions. Janet and I went back to rescue Chris, and we made our way to our tree for the selfie.
When we got back to the beach, the lady was still there, and still had a few more questions. By this time, the hotel staff had also arrived, so she had a few more questions for them as well, and several potential complaints about the rooms and how they didn't resemble the photos that she had seen. The hotel staff fielded a few questions, and then told her to come back in the evening, as they didn't have time to answer all her questions at that moment. "Ok, goodbye" the guy just had to blurt out at one point to get her to leave. We headed out on our excursion, where we got in the boat, made it about two minutes from the harbour before the boat stalled, but luckily they got it restarted, and we continued on to the turtle snorkeling spot.
We arrived at the spot and jumped in the water. Immediately, Chris and I saw a large turtle swimming through the ocean, and then it went and hid under some coral. Jana unfortunately missed seeing this one. We continued on in our search of more turtles, where we found two more, resting near the bottom of the ocean. Eventually, one of them came up and swam gracefully to the surface for some air. As it came down, it swam quite close past us, and we were able to get a very nice view of the turtle. We continued around, swimming in the fairly strong current, where we saw a couple more turtles and one lionfish, where our guide got quite close to it to take a video.
We got back to our rooms and finished packing up our things for a jet boat ride back to Malé. It was quite a bouncy ride, as the ocean was fairly rough, and took longer than we had anticipated. We got off the ferry and then took a taxi, where we got a bit of a sightseeing tour and some local knowledge about the island we were staying on, which turned out to be an entirely man-made island. We arrived at our apartment, where we settled in and started watching a documentary called The Island President, that was about the president of the Maldives and his climate change efforts.
We decided to get pizza for dinner, and it took us quite a while to figure out a way to order it with no cell service. Eventually, we got it, and the pizza was delivered to our apartment, and it was quite tasty. It was an Indian fusion. We had put in a load of laundry when we first arrived, and it took five hours, so we relaxed and watched Love In The Maldives while we waited for our washing to finish.
February 27th
Another early start as we woke up to catch our flight to Dubai. We headed down to catch our taxi and waited for a while. Just when we were wondering what to do as it hadn't arrived, someone nearby came up to us and told us that he thought he saw some other people take our taxi. He was nice enough to call us another one, which came quite quickly. We headed off to the airport.
It was rainy and cloudy when we left the Maldives, so we didn't get as good views as on the way in, but we were glad we were leaving and had timed it right to be there for the good weather. We flew into the Abu Dhabi airport, where we had to connect to a bus to Dubai. We found our bus, drove into Dubai, where we then took the metro to our hotel, the Barcelo Residences. We checked into our hotel, relaxed for a bit, and then headed out for dinner.
We walked to Ritzi for dinner, an Italian restaurant on the marina. Walking in this area was a little challenging as there weren't many crosswalks, there were kind of weird, uneven sidewalks, and also many bikes and scooters zipping past you on the sidewalks as they chose to ride on the sidewalk instead of the road. It's probably the most dangerous thing we've done on our trip so far, walking around Dubai.
We made it to Ritzi, where we got a nice table overlooking the marina. It was a little on the chilly side as a cool breeze was blowing. We shared a pizza and pasta, which were quite tasty. Then we stopped at the Carrefour and picked up a few supplies for breakfast the next day before heading back to our room.
February 28th
We headed to the Atlantis Aquaventure water park. They supposedly were the largest park in the world. Once there, we parked and then took the shuttle into the park. It was pretty quiet as we walked in, not many people around, likely because the weather was still a little chilly and breezy.
The night before, we had come up with a strategy on which rides to do first to maximize our time and avoid waiting in lines. First of all, we headed to Trident Tower at the far end of the park, which was the newest tower. We had to wait for them to finish testing the rides before they opened them. After a few minutes' wait, we started making our way upstairs and did a few rides on the Trident Tower. Our favorite was Odyssey of Terror, an orange slide with a big drop where you went up the side and slid back down. We did this many times as we were also hoping to do Shockwave, but you had to have a precise weight to go on the ride. It was difficult to do as it was not busy, so there weren't any other people around to join us.
From there, we headed to Poseidon, where we did a couple of rides there. We had the same thing where you had to be the correct weight in order to ride, but luckily there was a family that we matched up well with and did two rides with them as we added up to the correct weight altogether. Next, we made our way to the Neptune area, where we did the Shark Lagoon, where you go on a water slide and then come out in the middle of the aquarium with sharks and rays around you. We did a couple of other rides in this area, but this time I was getting pretty chilly, so we decided to take a break to warm up and grab some lunch.
We went to Snapper's for lunch, and there were a few cats hanging around, which we visited with while we waited for our lunch to be ready. We had some nice views overlooking the ocean. After lunch, we headed back to try Shockwave again, hoping that other people would be there now. Luckily there were, but Chris and I had to split up to add up to the right weights. After all our tries, it was a little disappointing, as it was basically a ride that dumped a lot of water on the back of your head.
From there, we headed back to Neptune, where we finished off with a few rides that we hadn't done in the morning and then decided to call it a day. We headed back to our hotel, where we relaxed for a little bit before heading out for the evening. We walked towards the beach, through a slightly more pedestrian-friendly street. We watched as the sun went down and it gradually got dark, and the giant Ferris wheel lit up in interesting patterns.
After that, we went to Paradiso Bar, an interesting circus-themed cocktail bar. We were seated outside on the terrace, and we ordered some cocktails. I ordered one called the Legacy that was served in a book. When the waiter opened the book, some smoke came out, and in it revealed a cup with a piece of edible paper sitting on top of my drink. Chris ordered one that came in a clamshell, and seaweed was one of the ingredients in the cocktail. They were both pretty tasty, and we sat and enjoyed our cocktails and the Ferris wheel view.
After our drinks, we headed to Mercan, a Turkish restaurant for dinner. It was a bit of a hike to get there, so we got lots of steps in this day. We had some pide and mezes for dinner, and then made the trek back to our hotel, feeling quite tired after a long day of walking.
March 1st
We decided to head back to Aquaventures Waterpark as when we purchased the ticket, you got a second day free. We made our way there, and this time started in Neptune. At first, we thought the park was a little busier as the shuttle was very full from the parking lot, but once we got there, we realized it wasn't that busy after all and were able to walk right on all the slides. We did all of our favorites from the day before. We went back to Snapper's to look for the cats, but they weren't there yet this morning. We finished off the day with our favorite ride again, Odyssey of Terror. This time, we were paired up with two other people, our first time to not ride it by ourselves. The added weight made the ride even more exciting; we got some good speed and made it higher up the walls. It's a good way to cap off the end of our waterpark days.
We headed back to the hotel to quickly change and pack up. From there, we made our way towards the Burj Khalifa in the Fountain area, where we found an easy parking spot, and then from there, took the metro to a few different sites. Our first stop was Zabeel Park to enjoy views of the frame, as the park was the best spot to see it from. We made our way through the park and were surprised to see, once again, quite a few cats. These ones all looked pretty well-fed. We visited a few cats and took some photos of the frame. We also witnessed one cat fight. Upon exiting the park, we realized that we had snuck in for free when we were supposed to have a ticket to pay unknowingly.
We hopped back on the metro and made our way to the Emirates Towers area to check out the Museum of the Future building, which was a very interesting shape from the outside, slightly resembling a squished donut. We took some photos and then once again hopped on the metro back to the Dubai Mall in the Burj Khalifa area. We made the long trek from the metro into the mall, where we looked at a few different sites. We saw a human waterfall, a dinosaur, a skeleton, and the skating rink. By this time, we were pretty tired, so we sat for a bit in the Apple Store, as the mall had no seating whatsoever, and it was the only place we could find to sit down. It had views of the pools where the fountain show would be later that evening.
Next, we rode up to the 24th and 25th floors of the Burj Khalifa. We went through the gate and then made the trek towards the elevator as we waited in line with a screaming child behind us. Luckily, they did not make it on the same elevator as us to go up. We took the elevator up, and it was a very fast experience with some cool graphics on the way. The doors opened, and we exited the elevator where people were having difficulty using a revolving door to get out to the observation deck.
We just missed sunset, but we got to see Dubai go from daytime to nighttime as all the buildings began to turn on their lights as it got dark. We walked around both floors and spent some time enjoying the view. It was fairly busy when we first got there and then thinned out a little bit, which made it more enjoyable. We waited in line for the elevator to head back down and then decided to go for dinner at Din Tai Fung, as they had a fountain view. We got a table on the terrace where we had some tasty noodles and dumplings for dinner. Luckily, the service wasn't too fast, so we got to watch the fountain show three times while we were there.
After dinner, we made our way out to the promenade for a closer view of the fountains. We found a place along the railing and waited for the next show to start. There was a viewing area in front of us where you could pay about $10 to get a slightly closer view of the fountains. It didn't really seem worth it, as you didn't get that much closer.
The show began, and it was a pretty good one. Some interesting effects, fountain spraying, and the music around us. At one point, there was a different spray formation, and it sprayed all the people sitting in the closer viewing area. They were all quite surprised and got very wet, including a couple that was all dressed up to take their photos. Chris and I found it quite entertaining to watch them.
After the fountain show, we made our way to the end of the pools, where there were some interesting-looking dandelion sculptures illuminated in the night. We also realized that there was a light show on the front of the Burj Khalifa at night, which had been going, but we hadn't been on the correct side of it to be able to see it until now. After that, we headed back to the car and made our way to the airport to wind up our trip.
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