Next up on our epic middle east adventure, Oman (or as I call it Oh, Man! for the number of times I said that as we drove around). The natural beauty is astounding. Not at all what you expect in the Middle East. (See pics.) Yes, it’s desert, but, the low mountains break up the vista in a most pleasing way. They are rugged but not tall. About the elevation of  the Santa Monica Mountains in Topanga Canyon. The Omanis are well aware of and very proud of their geographic uniqueness among the desert nations. If there were buttons on those dishdashas* they would be bursting. (*The long robe type traditional garments worn by men in the gulf region and also called thobes, thaubs, and thawbs.) If you are a very amenable guest in Oman you might be treated to a brief and entertaining lecture on the traditional clothing (including underwear) with demonstration. One is hardly ever aware of how impoverished their cross cultural knowledge base is until one gets a gander of some Omani “underpants” – a long, ankle-length slip really. (P.s. under jeans which young Omani nationals wear often, it’s just boring old boxer/briefs. No demo required.)

By the way, there are regional and national features of dress which are distinctive to the traditional clothing among all of the desert nations, including the headgear, which enables everybody (but me) to tell at a glance exactly wherefrom someone hails. I.e. which country. (My brain just doesn’t work that way. I think you have to be from there to be able to decode the finer distinctions.) Interestingly, clothing in middle eastern culture has NOTHING to do with religion. It’s about tradition and it only reflects religious devotion is as much as certain passages in the Quran make some suggestions about modesty and decorum. Some individuals, just as some cultures as a whole, take these suggestions more or less to heart than others of the Muslim faith. Since a vast majority of the nearly 4 million Omani residents are Muslim you can factor in the peer pressure which may or may not be an outgrowth of religious devotion, and it won’t be surprising that most Omanis (especially the females who are noted to have far fewer rights) do prefer the traditional apparel, however it’s erroneous to make the assumption that Arabs must comply with any dress code. As I understand it, the Quran makes suggestions for devotees about “coverage” and every other aspect of life. And, I do mean EVERY. One that we can actually discuss in polite company for instance: it is suggested that men should walk in an erect manner with purpose and dignity and NOT speed. A slow gait is actually pleasing to Allah. Who knew? 

I hope I’m remembering correctly that it was the airport in Muscat that I consider one of the top if not THE top aesthetically pleasing airports in the world. (And, you know, Desto3 travelers have seen a few.) Clearly somebody made an effort here to stand out among the airports of the world. Rather than cave-like tunnels, the terminals are lit in hues of blue and adorned with large potted plants giving the weary traveler the sensation of moving languidly through a body of water rather than hustling down a sterile corridor.

Other features of our Omani adventure also made this small nation stand out. For instance, Oman was actually the only M.E. country that hooked us up with a local (Omani-Arab) guide rather than an expat. Expat workers and professional tour guides, no matter how in love they are with their adopted homes, can only give you insights from their perspective outside the culture. Local Arab guides have a very unique perspective. Ours was an early twenty something youngster fresh out of university who may indeed have been on his very first guiding assignment. The millennial generation of these nations are now expected to go to university and also to find gainful employment. In the other countries, local young people work mostly in ministerial positions or at least bureaucratic jobs like posts in immigration or even in the travel sector (airports, etc.). The university in Oman has a large tourism program and Oman is actively cultivating tourism as a viable industry. So look for and even ask for a local guide if possible.  Why? Just for instance I doubt very much that an expat guide will be able to fill you in on the finer points of Arab youth culture. Things like what it is to be a “chicken nugget”. (An Arab who’s “brown on the outside and white on the inside”.) In no country is it a compliment to be a “sellout” of one’s culture, however it was a designation that produced a lot of mirth among our new young Omani friends. I suspect, like many insults, context is of supreme importance. If you are carting old white dudes around all day and giving them the Down Low on every aspect of your country and your culture without censoring the story your friends are going to call you a chicken nugget. That’s just how it goes. 

Another perk of utilizing a local guide is the network they have among other locals. Only in Oman did we get to glimpse inside what it’s like to be a young working Arab or a young Arab university student. Guess what? It’s a lot like, almost exactly like, being a young American. It involves coded greetings much like secret handshakes and plans for future music events and midday video game sessions and doing favors for a buddy at a moment’s notice to impress a client and making sure to pick up a special treat (something called Omani sweets – like a gooey fudge) for your mama whom you will visit on the weekend. So, in this case we swung by to pick up a buddy who had knowledge of the famed irrigation channels built among the Omani residences and he dropped everything to become a guide to our guide. A guide + one if you will. It produced a most excellent experience wherein one of us (not I) scampered up a twenty foot wall with two much much younger men and proceeded to gather pure photographic gold, both in terms of pictures AND experience. How often do you get to caper up a world heritage site (there are five of these in Oman) with local guides and nary another tourist in sight? Never. So, if the offer presents itself, my advice is, go for it. 

Also, in Oman, do not miss the Nizwa Castle, part fort and part Castle, and be aware that Nizwa, since 2006 has been the official Islamic Cultural Capitol, aka “the egg” of Islam since it is in Nizwa that you will find most serious students and scholars of Islam and the Quran. 

A final note on the government of Oman: it is a sultanate and as such there are no elections. All ministers within the Omani government are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the sultan. When Omani citizens turn 23 years old they are able to claim a parcel of land near to where they were born. They are free to build and live on it or develop it commercially (within zoning limits). Since the population of Oman is extremely young, (almost half of Omanis are under age 15), this practice seems unsustainable. Won’t they soon run out of parcels? I don’t know who’s in charge of such things but I’m guessing somebody’s already working the numbers to figure this out. Nobody seemed alarmed about it though no one I spoke with had an easy answer for it either. 

All in all Oman is a country with many charms but also with some serious problems including a looming water crisis. They have a much larger agricultural industry (and thus a much larger demand for water) than other gulf countries and a majority of the fresh water is “fossil” water that emanates from the mountains. We saw no sign of desalinization yet on the Omani coastline though oil and gas is ever-present and a dominant economic force. You can’t drink oil though.

When the Desto3 team touched down at Bahrain International Airport the Jewish population of Bahrain skyrocketed from 37 to 38. Yes, Margaret, of the total 1.2 million Bahrainians a scant 37 (or 0.0%) are Jewish.

Slightly less than half the population of Bahrain are Bahraini citizens and slightly greater than half are expats living in Bahrain to work, most of them from India. Religious identity seems relatively insignificant although everyone seems to know on sight what everyone else “is”.  And that is quite a feat since the human make up of Bahrain is as complicated as it gets. There are Sunni Bahrainis (arguably the most influential ethnic group in Bahrain) who might be either Arab or Huwala. The Sunni Arabs typically hail from Zallaq, Muharraq, Riffa and the Hawar islands whereas the Huwala are descendants of  Sunni Iranians or Sunni Persians depending on who you talk to. And, please understand that people from Iran are NOT Arab people. You probably know that if you are Muslim you might be either Sunni Muslim or Shiite and in Bahrain there are more Shia than Sunni even though the royal family and most of the ruling elite are Sunni. A good number of Sunni people are of Baloch origin and among the African Bahrainis almost all are from East Africa. About 40% of the Bahraini residents are Christian and they can be either Christian expats or Christian native Bahrainis. Among the many Asian Bahraini residents you will find Indians from India plus folks from the Philippines, Sri Lanka,  and Nepal. This group can be Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i or even something called “unaffiliated” although that last group is really really tiny and only slightly more folks admit to no religious affiliation than admit to being Jewish. I promise you that I learned my lesson and I can tell you that I will never again admit to being “unaffiliated” in a foreign country that is so very “affiliated” – but that’s a story for another day. 

With a melting pot like this one there are a lot of languages spoken but the official one is Arabic and, thanks to the British who made their usual significant occupation, (1861-1971) all signage is bi-lingual in both Arabic and English – lucky enough for us. And, nearly everyone speaks at least a little English. 

Since Bahrain is an island, connected by causeway only to Saudi Arabia, it shares no borders and has a unique history and cultural identity. Bahrain was the first of the Middle Eastern countries to “get the memo” about diversification of investment and resources and so they are well on their way to being free from the yolk of oil industry dominance. They were first to discover and refine oil in this region and so it isn’t too surprising that they’ve been the first to move on from oil dependence. They are currently a major player in international banking and they do a very brisk business in gold and gold jewelry where once upon a time they were among the world’s greatest pearl traders. Large numbers of Indian families were spotted in the gold market presumably acquiring gold in preparation for those gigantic, ostentatious gold-laden weddings the Indians favor. Sadly, no golden trinkets were harmed (acquired) in the making of this Desto postcard.

Perhaps it’s the island thing but whatever, Bahrain is known to be (and you can feel it) quite a bit more “modern” in terms of cultural tolerance. For example, there’s more than a tiny bit of inter-marriage between ethnic groups and it’s one of the very few Gulf states that doesn’t have a law against homosexuality on the books. One source told us that while it isn’t technically illegal to be gay, it’s still frowned upon and gay people can find themselves jailed for other trumped up charges that basically amount to “breathing while gay”. Hence, gay Bahrainians are still a mostly closeted group.   

Yes, Margaret, there is alcohol to be had even though it’s a Muslim country. In fact, one night we walked right into a Lebanese restaurant in a large shopping mall and ordered a bottle of pretty decent wine from a not altogether horrible wine list. (Many other diners were also sipping fermented grape juice, all of them dressed in traditional garb, so we assumed that they were among the predominant Muslim population just out on the town sinning like us by wine consumption.) It was suggested (not confirmed) that our fellow diners were all visiting Saudis over for the weekend. Indeed this theory seemed likely since we were advised against attempting to go over to Saudi Arabia via the causeway because a normally twenty minute commute between the two countries on the weekend typically takes four to five hours sitting in traffic among the Saudis in their SUVs all coming over to party in Bahrain. Our waiter suggested that what happens in Bahrain stays in Bahrain if you get my meaning. 

Another group that likes to party and likes to do it in warm climates with pretty beaches and for a reasonable price is our Russian friends and there were quite a few installed at our hotel. They seemed to stick pretty close to their home away from home utilizing the beach, the pools and the bars and doing very little sight seeing. I know this makes me a horrible person but next time I go to Bahrain I might think about inquiring as to how many chubby white people who have no business wearing bikinis and speedos I can expect to be lolling around the swimming pool at the hotel chain smoking and slugging vodka shots and I’ll look elsewhere for my lodging. 

I know. I’ll take a karmic hit for that.

Ask the average American (myself included in that group) what they know about Kuwait. I’ll bet you a fiver that all they can tell you is…”something, something, Gulf war… something else, something else, Persian empire… oil, oil, oil…” And they couldn’t find it with anything like speed on the globe. Can we just admit that, on the whole, we (most of us) are pretty ignorant when it comes to the rest of the world and extraordinarily ignorant when it comes to the Middle East? I can admit it. And I’ve BEEN THERE. 

I don’t know what I expected. And, I’m still not entirely sure what I saw, Or, really, if what I saw and was told is all that accurate. Not that I think we were lied to. Well, okay, maybe a little bit. They don’t get a lot of American tourists in Kuwait. (Compared to some of the other countries in the Gulf.) The ones they do get are by and large, Americans on holiday who are working either in Kuwait or elsewhere in the Gulf’s “energy sector” (oil). Also, a generous number of military personnel who are stationed there and off duty. Educated American and European teachers are imported to staff the private schools for the expat workers in those fields who have brought their families to live with them. Those groups are the “tourists” you see in Kuwait. I don’t think we saw one group of American tourists or even European tourists that would fall outside those narrow populations. 

And, us. Just us. We were definitely the anomaly. 

Since we’re both a tad bit gray of the hair and long of the tooth we are obviously not there working and not military so, as one Kuwaiti said to us, “Why are YOU here?” Or, maybe it was “Why are you HERE?” Either way we took it to mean that we were a relatively unexpected sight. Not just for being American. For being THERE for no other reason than because we could. 

And, now, Jesus…I can’t count all the people who have sent messages to one or the other of this Desto team congratulating us on our timing. I haven’t checked but I wouldn’t be surprised if the state department is advising against travel to the region and that’s a damn shame. I loved this trip and ordinarily I love to recommend out of the ordinary places to other travelers, but, now…I just can’t. If I had to synthesize all I learned in the Middle East in general it would be that for the most part people in the west have NO real understanding about what the people and the place are like. Most folks just want to score some fresh fish at the fish market for dinner and go home and watch mindless TV. Just like us. There is no “them”, or rather “they” are “us”. We’re all so much alike in so many ways. The main difference between us is that they don’t have Rupert Murdoch et al telling them day in and day out that we want to kill them because they aren’t “Christian” and we do have those Fox idiots cramming people’s heads with the stereotype of the Muslim beheaders. It’s so not true. Well, not yet anyway. What day is it? Are we at war yet? 

But, let me tell you of some observations and impressions starting with Kuwait specifically.

From the vantage of the airplane you can see that most of the coastline has been dedicated to industry (oil). It’s kind of screwed up the coastline if you want to know the truth. Instead of what probably was, pre-oil discovery and exploitation, miles of pristine beach, you see instead, miles of refineries. So, nary a 7 star hotel like we’re going to visit in the UAE, or even a modest resort for the Russians. (No Russian tourists spotted in Kuwait. If they want to go to an oil spilled beach they’ll stay home, thank you very much.)

Although we were assured that Kuwait was extremely safe, (yeah, a lot happens in just 3 weeks) there was a heightened sense of …I don’t know…I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what. Maybe it was that we were such an oddity. There was something in the air that was definitely NOT present in any of the other Gulf countries. It’s different there. Maybe it’s just that they don’t really have their groove yet when it comes to broad scale tourism and what I sensed was their suspicion of us and why we were there. There was just an uneasiness that we felt nowhere else. (Egypt, too was different but in a different way from the Gulf states. We’ll get into that in a future post .)

Like Qutar, the population of Kuwait is about 4.5 million and fully 70% are expat workers.

Kuwait is rumored to be safe. Trip Advisor among other sources will say so. (“You can go anywhere.”) It’s also rumored to be “modern”, both in terms of cultural norms and in general. Women have more rights and more visibility than among other Muslim nations. (No booze though. None. Not even in the hotels. It’s illegal in the country. They serve “mocktails”. I’d rather drink battery fluid.) However, here’s an interesting factoid: we were told that “everybody” and by everybody I mean all 4.5 million Kuwaitis typically have easy access to home distilled beer and wine -some of it not godawful. (We did not get offered any and if you’re caught you can go to jail, so nah, we’re good. Several people were quite amused at our naiveté in believing there was not any at all to be had and they delighted in our surprise.) In fact, every interaction we had with average Kuwaitis was marked by what can only be described as “delight” (plus a smidge of the already heretofore mentioned suspicion). 

As elsewhere in the M.E. Kuwait has a considerable population (nearly a million and mostly expats) that practices other forms of religion than Islam. We, in fact visited a large Catholic church right in the middle of Kuwait City. There are also a few Buddhist and Hindu Temples.

The souk was interesting in that it was clean and orderly and very chill. Not an aggressive store clerk to be found. A very personable pharmacist helped me acquire some over the counter heavy duty antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory for the asking (who needs a doctor?).

Although the Kuwaiti skyline has some impressive structures, and for sure the Al Hamra Tower (the tallest sculpted tower in the world) impresses, it is the system of water towers thirty four in total, headlined by the three known as The Kuwait Towers, that are the pride and joy and maybe even the symbol for modern Kuwait. You may (and we did) take an elevator (for a fee) up to the top of one of the towers and look down through a glass floor. Only one other party of tourists accompanied us and they were foreign visitors not from the west. 

Which brings me to my conclusion. Kuwait is one of those places that other Americans don’t go, so if you’re like me, it’s the very best time to go. You will feel not only welcomed, but cherished and it will surprise you in a hundred different wonderful ways. 

Leaving Kuwait at the airport we took separate customs lines. No particular reason. Just a burst of autonomy. My station was “manned” by two customs officials, one male and one female, head fully covered. Not a single hair in view. They were engaged in a lively discussion in Arabic and barely took note of me. When the exit stamp was stamped and the young man told me to have a nice day I addressed the young woman. 

Me: Excuse me, may I ask you a quick question?

Customs lady: Of course. What is your question?

Me: Well, we’re leaving for Bahrain and I was wondering if you know if I have to cover my head when we leave the plane in Bahrain?

Customs lady (grabbing my hand and pulling me slightly to the side): Listen, it used to be that in these places you had to completely cover, but now, no. You don’t have to cover your head or anything else. Anything goes now. Now, you could take off all your clothes in the middle of the street and no one will say a thing to you.

Me: Oh, trust me, honey, NOBODY wants to see that! They WILL say something. They’ll say, PLEASE PLEASE for the love of all that is holy, be merciful and put your clothes back on!

Cracked them right up.

And so I began my stand-up career in the Middle East.