Ingrid and Marcel World Journey

Leaving Oman was easy enough, Rashid dropped us off at the airport at the evening, where we took a plane to Mumbai at 00h45. We got lucky, we asked simply if we could have a window seat and they upgraded us to business class for free, cool.

The hard part was the transit…. No visa for India + cheap ticket = 19h to waste in the airport in Mumbai. Luckily we could go into a lounge where they had food and drinks, internet, a few reclining seats, all for free. So don’t ask me how is India, I only saw the 4 walls of the lounge. You may want to ask Marcel, who had to cross the airport to another “lounge” to smoke and had interesting encounters with the guy in charge there. I can only say convicing him to go back to India would prove to be a challenge….I won’t try it for now.

Anyways, we did of course finally land in Singapore, where our old neighbours from Egetswil Mat & Eelyn now live. They welcomed us with open arms and took us to all the cool places in Singapore and introduced us to a few highlights of the asian culture…. We had bubble tea (a cold drink of milky iced tea with huge tapioca balls in it, yum!), took a foot bath with munching fish (it’s freaky the 1st dip, but afterwards really funny tickling, the little fish eat the dead skin on your feet!), had lunch like the locals at a food court (at the ground level of every housing estate there is such an assortment of basic counters with yummy local food), learned about the existence of durian (a local fruit that stinks so much it’s forbidden in the public areas in Singapore). We had a great time with our friends, and after Eelyn equipped us with maps, Malaysian money and instructions we boarded the bus to Kuala Lumpur 2 days later.

After leaving the desert we did head out to the coast to watch giant green turtles nesting.

When we arrived at the reception hall we were offered a room at an exhorbitant price and anyways we had all the gear so we figured we’d just camp in the neighbourhood. Next to the lodge there was a field of rocks and hardened dirt where we were showed to to install our tent. We found a spot where we figured there was not too much wind and rocks, and started to clear the area. Marcel tells me to watch out when lifting rocks, that scorpions like to hide there during the day….he lifts himself one or two, and hallo! Here is the first scorpion! A tiny one, but nevertheless, a SCORPION!! I decide to change my sandals for boots and we manage to get the tent up and cook some water for noodles in the blowing wind that’s getting stronger by the minute. We sit down and start to slurp our noodles, when I see something crawling in our direction from underneath the tent…. YES!! But this time a HUGE one! About 8 cm long, black. Beurk! I’d like to say I kept my cool and reacted very reasonably. But no, I was not reasonable. After some screams and tears we finished our dinner and then went for the guided tour on the beach to watch the turtles which was really impressive. When we came back we hopped in the tent and spent the worst night. It was so windy we thought our tent was going to fly away with us in it. Luckily we go away with just one broken post and baggy eyes before starting our drive along the coast in direction south.

We had thought camping would be easy, but figured out the wind was not only at the turtles beach but basically everywhere on the coast, so we had to go further south before finding an idyllic spot right besides the sea. An empty beach close with only lots of cute crabs, we thought. Until we looked closer at the tracks in the sand and figured out they were not all of crabs. Viva el telefono, with Mike’s help our suspicions were confirmed, the gazillions of funny tracks were those of scorpions. Hourra!

From then on the whole camping idea took another dimension…. Organise all before dark, watch every step where you put your feet at night, don’t leave stuff out on the ground at night, etc. Actually we got used to it, never saw again so many tracks but were careful nevertheless. The next week was spent visiting the south of Oman, camping on a deserted beach again. It’s really amazing, they have these hundreds of kilometers of beach, totally empty. The light breeze in the night, watching the moon over the sea before closing our eyes to sleep. Smile.

Back in Muscat to give the car back we called Rashid to give him our camping stuff, and after going to dinner with him and a friend of his he invited us to spend the next day at his place while we waited for our plane to leave at night. So we spent our last day in Oman at his house, lounging on cushions and talking and eating and talking some more. It was a wonderful day. We’d never thought we’d make friends there, but sometimes the best things do happen in life.