So, is today the day we leave Khasab? Who knows, really. We have already talked to our hotel here and we can extend the stay if needed, and we don’t have anything booked in Muscat so that we don’t have to cancel and we haven’t rebooked our flight out of Oman either, just in case.

So, we pack our bags again (never really unpacked from yesterday) take a look out of our window (different angle this time since we had to change rooms when checking back in) and head out for a little walk. Pay attention to the sky, it doesn’t look bad, right? Right. Here’s hoping everything is okay today!

Just as we’re about to leave… the plane lands!! We’re so happy!! My partner’s smile is almost as big as mine. A little early to be landing at like 9:40 am for a 1:40 pm flight, but maybe they just saw their window and they took it. Who are we to decide how these things are done?

Well, we can confirm that what we thought was for drainage, is indeed for drainage as we saw it in action. The sky still looks okay, but it is definitely wet out from yesterday.

And then… tragedy struck. As we were in front of the Khasab Castle taking a few 360 degree pictures… the Oman Air flight took off. My partner’s heart just absolutely sank. By this point it was about 11:40 am. Why would it leave so close to the 1:40 pm takeoff…? Oh no, another day in Khasab? It wouldn’t be so bad if we had a guaranteed day and could make plans, but just sitting around waiting to see if we will or will not take off is a bit much. Well… we have no other option. We walk back to the hotel and ask the receptionist, she just smiles and says that there are two flights, and ours is the afternoon one. Interesting… definitely not what the website says, but at least someone is positive we can leave today, haha.

So we leave you with our last looks around Khasab. Honestly, who knows if they will be our “last looks” or not.

We get in the hotel driver’s car at around 12:15 pm with one other guest who is going to the airport. We’re not too worried about the time because the plane has yet to land, so we don’t really need to rush to the airport, even with our flight at 1:40 pm and “boarding” before that. Well… the next part of the story can only be told in one way, as we lived it. We haven’t told anything in this style before, and if you hate it, just skip to the end, but here it goes.

12:15 pm – as we said, we get into the driver’s car at our hotel.

12:30 pm – arrive at the airport; no one is there. It is us, the other guy from our hotel, and that is it inside other than security personnel. There are two men waiting outside. This for a flight “at” 1:40 pm

12:50 pm – there are now 4 people waiting. All of the tourists from yesterday are nowhere to be seen. Did they all take the ‘drive to Muscat’ option?

1:15 pm – 7 people are waiting. No plane has landed yet.

1:16 pm – a woman arrives and goes behind the checkin counter! We have not been so happy in quite a long time! Yesterday we did not get this far.

1:20 pm – there are only 11 people here getting checked in. Is that it? If they’re doing checkin the plane must have left Muscat, right? Is it coming for sure?

1:40 pm – time that the plane is supposed to be taking off. One more passenger arrives along with the ground crew.

1:55 pm – we give our luggage in and checkin for the flight. We are the last ones to checkin. My partner’s boarding pass says that the gate will open at 1:25 pm for boarding, the plane has still not landed.

2:07 pm – we are now outside of the airport just doing laps of the parking lot as we wait. There isn’t any point in just sitting inside without anything to do. My partner is writing some blog entries on his phone from the parking lot, some of which you may have already read at this point. Unfortunately there are signs everywhere saying no photography, unfortunate because this is actually a nice location where the mountains narrow in on the city. We overhear an Indian man call someone else and tell them to buy a ticket because the plane will definitely take off today. Hopefully.

3:30 pm – still nothing. As we have been doing laps in the parking lot ever since we gave our luggage in we have noticed that the Omanis waited long enough to checkin to the flight, give their luggage in, and then they left the airport. They come back every so often just to check if there is any news, and when there isn’t any, they leave again. We also talked to Ali, one of the ground crew members from Bangladesh. It was a nice talk and he asked a lot of questions about us and was telling us about the countries of the Middle East where he has worked. He also told us that this usually happens. They show up to work, but nothing happens and no one knows if the plane will come or not, it’s just a waiting game. He also tells us that there was a flight in the morning that took off with lots more people than are here right now. Why weren’t we told about this or put on that flight…?

3:47 pm – a new Omani arrives with suitcase and everything to checkin for the flight. Inside we can see the airport staff and some security personnel chatting as everyone waits for some sort of news about what is going on.

3:54 pm – they tell everyone to please enter the airport. We still don’t hear or see the plane, but hopefully this means that they have received word that the plane has at least taken off from Muscat as it is about a one hour flight.

4:00 pm – we cross security! So close! Still no sign of the plane and they haven’t verbally confirmed to us that it is coming… but this has to be a good sign, right?

4:12 pm – the ground crew goes outside to receive the plane. They go out with the cones and our suitcases in anticipation of the plane.

4:25 pm – the plane lands! Woo! Finally! And there are about 14 people waiting to board the plane at this point. Not a lot.

4:30 pm – they start to prepare the plane to leave and people are getting off the flight…. Does this mean that this is the regularly scheduled flight from Muscat we took to get here…? Which landed at the correct time…? Which means that there was never any plan to take off at 1:40 pm…? Hopefully not. Hopefully we are just overthinking this… They wouldn’t do that, right?

4:47 pm – we are on the plane. I think we are about 17 people on a flight that can hold maybe 216 people (about 36 rows of seats with 6 seats per row).

5:06 pm – they are done the announcements and we are ready to take off.

5:15 pm – we take off! The views are of course absolutely incredible and we take some pictures to break up this time stamped retelling of our day, haha. In the second picture you can see the beach that we have told you about on almost all of the previous days in Khasab.

6:01 pm – we land in Muscat. Just one picture from that as we couldn’t really make anything out in particular in the dark other than the Grand Mosque, can. you see it?

7:50 pm – the bus finally arrives to take us into Muscat. We waited more than an hour for a bus that is every 30 minutes. At least we took a picture or two while waiting.

8:35 pm – made it to the hotel room, the same one that rescued us when they cancelled the flight to Khasab in the first place. Done our adventure from Khasab!

So now we can return to how we usually write these blog posts because there is a little bit more that we can tell about the people we met along the way and the way things work around here. First we will start with the actual flight.

When we were on the plane, I of course needed to take a selfie in the airplane seat as any traveller must do. The flight attendant saw us and asked me to tighten my seat belt, so I did.

Then my partner and him got to talking about the World Cup, our travels, and what we had done in Oman. We explained that we would likely be leaving the country tomorrow and he almost begged us not to. That our next destination (still a secret for our dear readers) was not as exciting as all that Oman had to offer. So, he gave us some ideas, but, unfortunately for us we need to get a move on if we would like to continue exploring countries in the region. Especially if you consider that our original plan was to leave Oman on the 25th of December and we are already at the 28th and not 100% sure when the next best flight will be.

And then when we arrived back at the airport in Muscat we saw why we didn’t know about the busses in Muscat. You leave the arrivals area and all you see is a giant sign for the airport taxi. Well, we knew that there were other options, so off we went. You almost have to know what you’re looking for to find the signs leading you to the busses. Or, we assume that if we would’ve asked the information desk they would have told us, but when we first arrived to Oman we didn’t know that we had to ask.

Anyway… remember how we took a taxi from the airport to our first hotel? And we were charged 10 OMR? Well… we went down to the bus and there are taxi drivers waiting there to try to scoop you up as well. They asked where we were going and we told them our hotel. “10 OMR!” “No, no thank you, we will take the bus”. “8 OMR!” “No thanks, we are okay with the bus”. “How much will you pay me?” “No, no, there’s no point, you will not take what the bus charges, 500 baisas”. Of course they laugh at this, and we don’t expect them to take it at all. Then we start talking to one of the taxi drivers as our wait ended up being over an hour. He tells us about Oman and how tourists don’t go to Oman from the Americas. Most tourists come from Europe with a lot of Russians, French, and Germans visiting Oman. As we’re talking more and more people come out and he tries to get them to take the taxi, but they all say they’ll wait for the bus. At the same time his price keeps dropping for us, first 5 OMR, then 3 OMR is the lowest he will go because he has to pay for his airport parking. Keep in mind that our new hotel is much further from the airport than our first one. So, a tip, if you want a cheaper taxi you can go downstairs and wait for the bus and negotiate with those taxi drivers. If you seem very uninterested and there aren’t a lot of potential customers, you can get a decent price. Eventually some of the Indians that were waiting for the bus give in and take him up on the offer of 1 OMR each for 4 of them. We say our goodbyes and he goes off with them. Eventually the bus arrives and we go off happily with our 0.500 OMR instead.

And then, once at the hotel, we just quickly go out in the neighbourhood and find a nearby hypermarket for tomorrow’s food and an Afghan restaurant for supper. It was delicious, as all of the food has been on this trip so far. Let’s see what tomorrow brings, but for now, goodnight from Muscat!