I am in Oman. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Yesterday R and her entourage and I drove to Dubai to meet up with some of her colleagues for a little safari-esque expedition. We met at the Mall of the Emirates, which is probably best known as the place with the indoor ski park. It is the size of a decent water park ... but with snow. Slopes for skis, half pipes for boarders, a tobogan/luge run for kids with sleds or saucers. Outside the park, Borders and Nine West and Seattle's Best Coffee.

Dubai itself I barely recognized. We didn't go all the way to the city center, but the 10-lane road that leads up to it was once, 15 years ago, a sleepy little four-lane road past small bungalows. Now, not so much. We did see the Burj Dubai hotel hulking out by the water, and the world's tallest building, still under construction, looming sureally in the distance.

Our outing was a desert expedition: dune-bashing in 4x4s, camel rides, dinner, henna prints, bellydancing, shisha pipes. I left R behind and piled into the "adventurous" landcruiser with some of her colleages and a mom visiting from Michigan who, seriously, spent the whole trip badgeting our driver about the fact that it was a Chevy. You would think it would make her happy. We bounded across the dunes into the desert, nothing terrifying but enough to you second-guess your lunch if you're prone to that sort of thing. Eventually we stopped to watch the sun set, then rolled leisurely into camp. The camp was tucked behind a tall dune, walled with reed fences and offering flush toilets and beer and wine and plenty of food. We hopped on camels and were summarily paraded around the parking area and back. Really, once you're on a camel and have had the photos taken, how far do you need to go? My assertion that sandals were a better footwear choice than tennis shoes was borne out when my companions kept having to empty small dunes from their shoes while my feet slid blissfully through the send. It was slightly less blissful after dark when I stepped thoroughly in what I believe to have been camel droppings. It was sticky. I think the camel had been eating dates. Fortunately the camp provided an abundance of wet-wipes.

A phalanx of cruise-ship-style photographers were on hand to document the day for a modest extortion, prints available while you wait. We settled down to a ridiculously abundant meal of beef, lamb, chicken, tabbouli, hummus and a truly out of place potato salad that nonetheless pleased the midwest contingent. As dinner wound down, a belly dancer leapt onto a center carpeted platform and shimmied with great enthusiasm for close to half an hour. I had been skeptical beforehand but ended up being entranced -- she had curves and jiggles and she worked them all to maximum effect. It was, if I can say it without sounding hopelessly cheesy, quite a remarkable display of womanhood. Also, she can balance a sabre on her head. A few in our group indulged in henna or shisha before the drive back to Dubai and from there the 1.5 hours back to Abu Dhabi.

Did I mention that Tuesday also was National Day in the UAE? There were lights and street signs all over, tributes to the late Sheikh Zayed, and an abundance of cars decked out in patriotic decals. It was insanely noisy out on the street until the wee hours, but a dose of Unisom and a pillow over the head took care of that.

So today R and I headed out to Oman. To the border at Al Ain is about two hours or a bit more. We went through the UAE exit border, were directed to an office to get our exit stamps ... found the thoroughly unmarked office and got our stamps, then found ourselves in Oman very abruptly. As in, with no inbound border crossing. Eventually we found a barely marked tourism office, and they directed us another 30 km down a road in the wrong direction to get to an actual border office that would stamp us and register the car. We did this, got stamped, and after 2.5 hours of diplomatic vagueness were finally back where we started, properly stamped, and on our way.

There are so many kinds of desert. Desert with scrubby acacia trees, desert with no trees and just rocks, desert with just sand, desert with small piles of rocks. We got through all of them on the additional four-hour drive from the border to Nizwa, the mountain town that is our base for the next few days. We're smack in the middle on sheer, enormous, treeless mountains, tucked down in a valley along a dry riverbed (wadi). There are abundant forts in Oman to look at, a cave nearby, the livestock market, villages specializing in rugs and pottery and so on. It should be diverting. Our first expedition might be to find a new hotel, as the one we booked is, quite frankly, a shithole. We'll make it through the night fine but perhaps better lodging can be found. In the wake of my first pit toilet experience on the way here and the spartan amenities in the room, we invested in some tissue paper. I haven't carried my own TP since Africa, but it's time to get back in the habit.

Nizwa is a small, cute town built around a small, cute fort and mosque. It has an internet cafe (obviously) and dozens of shops for jewelry and dates and baklava and the fabulous embroidered fezzes favored by the men here. It also has, as far as we can tell, exactly one restaurant aside from the Pizza Hut on the outskirts of town. There are a couple of coffee establishments but not much more. We ate at said restaurant tonight and enjoyed traditional Omani cuisine -- chicken stewed with tomato and onion, and fried chicken over biryani rice. OK, so perhaps not full-on traditional but tasty. I'm stuffed.

More in the next couple of days. There will be good photos to post upon return.