The South Pole of the deserts, Face 1, intitial research

I almost love the research before an Expedition as much as the journey itself. And I know, it has to be thorough, professional and open-minded, because a lot of the success of any serious Expedition has to do with the amount of good research an explorer puts in. For me who love books, maps and since the Internet appeared as a research tool, unfortunately meaning the death of the libraries, this period is a big journey in itself. You almost have to become a scholar. Even though I will only remember a few percent of what I learn now and put into use on the expedition in itself, it will, still, most of it, be there in the back of my head, when the Expedition is over and it is time to do something with all the collected material. Like writing a book, doing a film or preparing for lectures. And it will put you in the right frame of mind already now, even though I am in reality holed up in a small, dusty little apartment in a dark and boring suburb to Stockholm. But already now, I will for example remember, knowledge gained from just the couple of days of research that I have done now, whilst doing research on Westerners Travelling in Rub Al-Khali or The Empty Quarter -well, the Bedu have travelled there for thousand of years of course, something the white West tends to forget, but they have no written material left behind, unfortunately- that one of the legends of the area is Bertram Thomas.

The Empty Quarter, or Rub Al-Khali, was often referred to in the first part of the 20th Century as one of the few remaining genuinely unexplored regions of the world, on the same scale as the South and North Pole. Therefore many explorers wanted to do the first crossing of this vast sandy desert, 650 000 square kilometres in size, like putting Belgium, Holland and France together, but first of all gold digging explorers to catch this price -forgetting the local Bedu who lived here- turned out to be a simple civil servant from Bristol in the UK, Bertram Thomas. He crossed the Empty Quarter together with local Bedu 1930-31 and wrote an excellent book called Arabia Fenix. Amazingly enough his book can be read on the Internet!

At this stage when I have decided on where to go, understanding the objective of the expedition, all effort has to be put into finding the right contacts and background material. Both tasks filled with joy. Communicating with experts on the area is half the fun. And so far almost everyone I have contacted have been very helpful, showing a camaraderie unknown between people in the same business as me here in grey Sweden. One of them is the Grand Old Dame of desert and Camel travel, Arita Baijeens. And as always, you come across people associated with other things and other dreams you have had. Today, by pure coincidence during my research, I came across an old acquaintance of mine, Dan Mazur, and remembered that I had told him a few years ago, that I of pure interest after reading Hillary´s account of his conquest of Everest, wanted to make an attempt on Hillary´s and Tenzing´s original route. Dan Mazur, like me using Facebook, so I contact him and said, I am still interested. He advised me to go for it, if prepared, april 2010. Why not then....life is short.

Second task is to put an enormous effort into getting a picture as big and broad as possible regarding the area. What I have to learn and try to understand in a very short time, 10 months or so, is a gigantic task. Even though I have already had quite a lot of insight into Islam, Arabs, the Middle East and desert travel from earlier travels, I know almost nothing about the Gulf, camels or, most important, their original inhabitants, the Bedu. And I need to learn Arabic, in shallah.

At the same time I have to try to support myself, find sponsors, set up the media kit, keep extremely fit, eat the right food, be relatively happy, have a social life, but still spend most of the time studying, no easy thing. Gee, there is some sacrifice indeed! It is at the same time, one of the best moments of an explorers life, but also the worst in some ways, because you love it more than other parts of your life. But it is the same thing before every Expedition. Most people who are close to you, genuinely fear and hate it! This is what a true explorer want to do more than anything else in life! travel, be it through books or in reality. I do look forward to this Expedition more than ever before!

Why I love Oman

Oman! I have just been back in Sweden for three days and I wish with my heart that I was back in this spectacular country. What then is it I miss and long for?

Well, it is a country with lots of diverse natural beauty. The coastline in itself is amazing with its natural reserves like the diving at Dimaaniyat Islands and the preservation of the green turtles, Ras Al Jinz, great wadis, sandy beaches and charming cities like Sur, Salalah and Muscat. But for me, the best side of Oman is the interior. This is where you find a feeling of the old Arabia and Oman with its castles, palm oasis’s, giant wadis, deserts like Wahiba Sands and the great Rub Al-Khali and amongst the spectacular mountain scenery at Jebel Shams and definitely amid picturesque towns and settlements like Misfah, Bahla, Al Hamra and Nizwa. And cruising the souks of Nizwa and Muttrah smelling the frankincense, seeing the diversity of stalls and all the people, is a strong memory. Not for the shopping, but for the atmosphere and one has to stop at one of the coffee stalls and have a kavva whilst watching life, that is happiness! I also have a strong memory when my guide Kamil Al Raisi and me avoided one of the more upper class touristic restaurants –after awhile, since it is all buffets and full of tourist from everywhere, you get fed up, after all one is in Oman to meet local people- and instead just sat down on a mat on the parking lot outside the souk in Nizwa and had a bunch of tasty mutton kebabs together with two rough looking Yemenis who had come in for the weekly cattle market. That is the true Oman. It´s people.

It is the people I met I remember the most. Oman is unique in many ways. And when I talk about people it is not just the Omanis themselves, but all the Indians, Pakistanis, Baluchis and also Europeans who live here. There´s such a spirit of pioneering, dignity, kindness and generosity, that I am amazed that distinguished behaviour like that still exists in a world which by the day is getting harder, more violent, stupid and more difficult. There´s a few meetings I remember more than others, due to their dignity. One was an old man, a beekeeper, living in a small village compromising a few houses, all his family, somewhere in the Jebel Akdar range. The bees had once come from Yemen and had travelled all the way to his village and he kept this tradition alive with a constant twinkle in the eye. Kamil had warned me before, he will invite us and we will not get out before we are stuffed with honey more than we’ve had all together before in our lives. Very true indeed! During this visit, my first day in Oman, I witnessed the dignity of just serving a cup of coffee to a visitor. As a visitor you feel honoured indeed! He didn´t only look like one, but had the awareness of a great mullah! We felt sick for a couple of days after that, Kamil and me. Too much honey!

Next stop was a visit to a Bedu family living deep into the great Wadi Ghul. Carpet weavers for generations. I asked one of them through Kamil, if everything was better nowadays, since Sultan Qaboos Bin Said had modernized the country and he answered:

“Everything! Nowadays we can travel anywhere without being worried to be attacked by another tribe.”

He and his family had ended up far into this deep wadi to get away from hostile tribes once upon a time. We sat there in the shadow of a big ghaf for a long time, eating dates and drinking tea. If it hadn’t been for the parked cars and the eternally ringing mobile phones, it could have been a scene from a time hundreds of years back.

In Wahiba Sands we came across the desert Bedu. And I stopped to take a photo of the first camel I saw. Big mistake. Suddenly a car shot out of the desert with a yelling woman. After some continuous yelling which felt like a long time, I thought she was screaming at the guy who came to pick up the camel, maybe her husband, so I didn´t realise it was at me. Then she drove up to our car and screamed through the window:

”Is he stupid. Surely he must see that she is pregnant and if he takes flash photos, she might loose her baby!”

“No, he doesn’t know anything about camels” Kamil my Omani guide and very good friend said, “He didn’t understand that you were shouting at him.”

“But he is English” she said a bit surprised, “They know everything!”

She looked both stunned and upset at us for a moment. The finger tips on both hands were henna painted black, she had a scarf slightly covering her very dark hair, lots of golden looking armbands on both wrists and her stare was proud and free of any worries. Except for her female camel.

“You see?” Kamil said grinning when we continued our trip on the sandy and bumpy, very corrugated, desert road, “Just like the story from Africa you told me yesterday? That local people believe white people are better? And that a flash can kill the baby of the camel? This is because they are not educated. They live here, they’re people of the desert, hard and tough people, but they are not educated all of them. Then they would know what I know, I know you are not better than us!”

Next we visited a bedu camp located in between two great dunes. An old woman and her son who treated us to their generosity and I didn´t even know that they survived on selling carpets to tourists, because nobody told me. That is another great thing with Oman, there´s no hassling by tiresome sales people. Not even in the Muttrah Souk. The same regards the issue of religion. In some countries you get a 50 minute lecture from a local if you by chance don´t belong to the same religion. The word is dignity. Oman is a country to love.

See the slideshow from Oman here!

Regarding Rub Al-Khali and Oman

It´s me and my very good friend and guide Kamil Al Raisi on the photo, standing in front of the tomb of Bibi Miriam. Both Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta stopped here on their travels. Very good company indeed. And that is what I will miss the most from my two weeks in Oman. The people. Like Kamil, Robby, Salim and the two Mussalems. I miss Oman more then most countries I have visited. Anyhow, here´s the link to my visit in Rub Al-Khali.

http://rubal-khali.blogspot.com/

On top of that, I have done two slideshows, one about Rub Al-Khali, the other about Oman. To see them, just click the links below.

Rub Al-Khali
Oman

Looking for the next Ibn Battuta

I´ve just come back from a press conference at Al Faraj Hotel, arranged by my friends at Discover Oman, in the capital Muscat, a meeting filled with joy and hope. But right now, half an hour after midnight, I am dead tired. So much emotions, so many great people, so many questions and on top of that, all the strong impressions that I have collected during these four days of touring parts of Oman with Kamil al Raisi, my friend. But, I guess I can rest the day I stop kicking. Could be sooner then I think....Tomorrow I am off to Salalah and time to see if I still have what it takes! My first little outing in almost 4 years....Rub Al-Khali!

I just have to say:

There´s such a positive spirit going on in Oman that it is almost impossible not to feel that everything is possible! And even if they -the local journalists from all media- probably thought that my idea is close to suicide, I did get the feeling that they saw a lot of possibilities in the upcoming Expedition. And I was amazed at their genuine interest. I just love the spirit and sense of pioneering that is going on at the moment. There´s no limits in Oman. I hope, because one thing I specifically asked for during the press conference, was help to find a young Omani, who would like to become the next Ibn Battuta. Because this is not a project for me as an explorer first hand, but I see it as a chance to build a bridge between Arabia and the West. And then, of course, I am just the tool for a young Arab, preferably Omani, to join me and then do what his great compatriot, the great Morroccan, Ibn Battuta did in the 14th Century. He travelled for over 30 years and covered 117 000 kms, traveling mainly by foot and camel. He makes Marco Polo look like a nobody.

Maybe I will meet him, the modern day version of the great Ibn Battuta, in Rub Al-Khali. Wait and see for my next report!

Angresi, are you stupid?

”Is he stupid?!” the annoyed Bedu woman shouted through the window of her rusty pick up car, pointing at an illustrious camel next to the desert road, “Surely he must see that she is pregnant and if he takes flash photos, she might loose her baby!”

“No, he doesn’t know anything about camels” Kamil my Omani guide and very good friend said, “He didn’t understand that you were shouting at him.”

“But he is English” she said a bit surprised, “They know everything!”

She looked both stunned and upset at us for a moment. The finger tips on both hands were henna painted black, she had a scarf slightly covering her very dark hair, lots of golden looking armbands on both wrists and her stare was proud and free of any worries. Except for her female camel.

“You see?” Kamil said grinning when we continued our trip on the sandy and bumpy, very corrugated, desert road, “Just like the story from Africa you told me yesterday? That local people believe white people are better? And that a flash can kill the baby of the camel? This is because they are not educated. They live here, they’re people of the desert, hard and tough people, but they are not educated all of them. Then they would know what I know, I know you are not better than us!”

In that instant I was experiencing both sides of Oman, this spectacular country. On one side the very modern, educated and forward-looking state with a very proud modern Omani-people. On the other side, still, primeval Arabia, like a 1000 and a night, both romantic, harsh and stuck ancient traditions. But very proud. This reality is what makes Oman so different from its Gulf neighbours like Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and UAE. They haven’t fully bought the modern society with all the good and bad things. Sure, it has in many ways, like one directly notices when arriving in the capital Muscat, modernized the country, but Oman has also kept its great ancient Arab and Bedouin traditions. Which a visitor will be clearly aware of when doing a tour of this beautiful country. Since I arrived three days ago it has been like a dream in many ways. First we passed through the Rocky Mountain-like western Hajar Mountains, picnicked at the green and lush oasis of Wadi Ghul, passed through the antique cities like Bahla and Nizwa and crossing the sand dunes at the Wahiba Sands (Sharqiya Sands), and, everywhere, the old traditions are kept. Not only through preserving their immense forts, and mud cities of past, but mainly through the great kindness of the local people. Even though Oman has surprised me a lot with its diversity and natural beauty, it is the people I’ve met which have fascinated me. They’re free from any aggression, very service minded, kind, generous, interest and full of wisdom. Wherever we come we get invited for kahva (Arabian coffee) and dates. It is served with great dignity, sitting down the Arab way, legs crossed and one is continuously served until you shake your right hand as a sign that you are satisfied. Dignity is the word describing these meetings the best.

“Is he not married then? No children?” one old man asked, a keeper of a 200 year old tradition to keep bees, a query which is one of the most common questions I’ve always received in Moslem countries I have passed through in the world, when they find out that I have spent my life travelling and when I answered no, the old man said: “Ah, he’s lucky then, free from worries and responsibility.”

In many Moslem countries an answer like that from me would have put me in a 30 minute interrogation regarding this odd behaviour. The same applies to the religious issue, which is always the main question you always get in a Moslem country. In Oman they respect your answer and don’t continue to pursue the issue even if they disagree. The Omani people are a very dignified and respectful people. So far, I am in awe over this country, its people and coming here is the best choice I have done in a long time. My Arabian dream has been awaken again and I am eager to get into Rub Al-Khali soon. Until then I will enjoy the coast of Oman and its fruits. And yes, the generosity of the people have made me put on a lot of fat again, so I guess I am getting prepared in every way. But, yes, when it comes to camels, I am still very stupid!