Oman, Dubai and Tunis

For Kevin's birthday in April we visited Oman, staying in a resort often recommended by our Doha friends, Shangri La's Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa (here's my TripAdvisor review). We stayed in the Al Waha hotel, the most affordable of the three hotels on property and the most family friendly (one is a business hotel and the other "adults only."  We loved being in an oceanfront room and we loved renting a car which gave us the freedom to trip around the area near the resort and into Muscat.  Kev is a bit of a history buff and enjoyed the Mirani and Jalali forts, though you can only see these from afar (no tours).  The forts are also very close to the Mutrah Souq, the main souq area in Muscat.  We drove around the forts and souq on Friday and hoped to spend Saturday snorkeling but high winds and rough surf put the kibosh on those plans.  We instead spent most of the early day at the pool or in the lazy river.  We ventured out to a random mall and found a bookstore to hang out in.  We read about a recommended Indian restaurant, Mumtaz Mahal, in Lonely Planet and decided to give it a try for dinner after a visit to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  Note to any tourists - this mosque is only open to tourists on specific times/days.  We found out the hard way and were only able to take exterior shots, but at dusk we were rewarded with a nice walk and great views.  In the future we'd love to come back to Oman and trip through some of the terrain for hiking... this just wasn't the trip.

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
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For our 10th wedding anniversary in early May we visited Dubai.  We just love Dubai.  Fun, fun, fun.  We stayed at a new hotel for us, the Villa Rotana (review), which was a 5 min. cab ride or 30 min. walk from the Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa (we know both times as on Day 2 we started walking to the Burj Khalifa for our timed tour when halfway there we realized that I had pulled the tickets out of Kevin's bag and left them in the hotel room; he sprinted back to the hotel room and took a cab to the Mall just in time for our tour)  Both Kev and I had been back to the States this year separately but not together since Christmas of last year.  Dubai is just fun for Americans - lots of familiar brands and chains - and I think it's best appreciated by Americans who have been out of the States for a while (as opposed to someone who flies directly from the US to Dubai for vacation).  We started our trip off right, like any boring Americans, with dinner at On the Border at The Walk at JBR and a dessert of donuts at Tim Horton's.  For the next two days we spent all of our time at Dubai Mall, the happiest place on earth.  Much like Vegas, time just disappears in this mall.  We went to At the Top, the Burj Khalifa's observation deck, lunched at Outback and spent the afternoon trolling the mall.  Dinner was spent at Thiptara, a Thai restaurant at The Address hotel overlooking the Dubai Fountain, Burj Lake and Burj Khalifa.  Worth it alone just for the views!  The next day was built around us seeing The Avengers at the mall with a late lunch at Texas Roadhouse.  We would never hit Outback in Dubai again... Texas Roadhouse is half the price and much more delicious!  As I found out in March, there's a Magnolia Bakery (of Sex & The City fame) in the mall, but I was a bit disappointed with my cupcake.  They can't all be winners!  :)  So sure, we were touristy Americans and hit mostly chains, but so what.  This was my fourth time to Dubai and I think I've tried enough of a mix to stick with what works for me.  :) 

Anniversary dinner in Dubai
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And for my last travel before the giant 24 hr. flight from Doha to Atlanta, I had a brief work trip in mid-May to Tunis, Tunisia.  I stayed at the Residence Tunis (review).  I was fortunate that the conference I was attending arranged a tourist day for those staying an extra day as it looked miserable to try and arrange a taxi/rate once I got there.   I was immediately struck by the awesome weather.  Even though Tunisia is in North Africa I had some perception that it would be hot like Doha but I was surprised to see it was about 20-25°F cooler than Doha.  On the tourist day we were brought to two stores with handmade goodies and then taken to the seaside village of Sidi Bou Said.  We had a great lunch of meze and lamb shank with couscous overlooking the sea at Restaurant Dar Zarrouk.  The path leading up to the restaurant had some great little touristy shops... lots of ceramic tajines!  We then ventured to Carthage, which I was expecting would be one big site of ruins but ended up being lots of little sites with ruins.  The most picturesque site I was taken to was the Antonine Baths, pictured below.  I just had 2 days in Tunisia and would have liked to have spent more time (did you know the Skywalker home sets from Star Wars are still standing?), but it was a great trip nonetheless.  Odd fact - Tunisia might be the last place on earth where you can smoke in every square inch of their airport.  Yuck!

Carthage in Tunisia
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