We got back to Riyadh last night only to find that we had no Internet, no landline and no cell coverage on any of our phones. Oh, and the radio that we use for emergency communication with the embassy (and vice versa) was not working. Talk about being isolated from the world! As a result, I have been unable to post or comment or view email. Tim got his cell phone replaced and has set up a hotspot using VPN so now I can at least see my favorites page and will attempt to catch up this evening.

I had photographed this boat last year, but there were no flowers and no water bubbling around the hull. The Omani parliament is in the background.

"Just outside Al-Bustan Palace Hotel, a small roundabout is home to the Sohar, a boat named after the hometown of the famous Omani seafarer Ahmed bin Majid. The boat is a replica of one sailed by Abdullah bin Gasm in the mid-8th century to Guangzhou in China. It was built in the dhow yards of Sur from the bark of over 75,000 palm trees and four tonnes of rope. Not a single nail was used in its construction. Tim Severin and a crew of Omani sailors undertook a famous voyage to Guangzhou in this boat in 1980 – a journey of 6000 nautical miles that took eight months to complete.” (Oman, UAE and Arabian Peninsula,” Lonely Planet, 2013.)