Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Buraimi Oman

Took our first trip across the boarder into Buraimi today. It must have added something to Al Ain when you were able to drive back and forth across the open boarder without going through the checkpoints. Now Buraimi feels a little isolated, and you get the sense that while in Buraimi you are only in half a town, whereas Al Ain feels complete. You do get a sense that you are in Oman rather than the UAE which is nice though.

I think it is a bit of a shame that somewhere has developed as part of another town and then has been cut off, but at the end of the day many travel back and forth across the boarder daily. As a UAE Resident you only need to show your passport at the boarder post and it is only about another 30 kilometres into Oman that you actually come to the “real” boarder post where you need a visa to cross.

So what is in Buraimi? There is a very nice looking new but small souq; unfortunately it mainly is fruit and vegetables rather than items that are unique to Oman. There is also a very impressive fort and Buraimi Oasis, but being about 45 degrees we decided to leave investigating it further until we have some cooler weather... we did go and have a look through a little antique/souvenir shop near the fort called for obvious reasons “Fort Antiques”. It is well worth a look... got hold of some very good quality Omani frankincense, and looked through a lot of very old and dusty things of interest.
I think one thing to note though is that I went to the ATM to get some Omani currency, but their Rials are one of those currencies that are difficult to work out in your head quickly. So while I thought it was clever to take out a couple hundred Omani Riyals, it actually translated into over 2000 Dirhams! Then of course we found out while trying to hand over a 100 Omani Rials that no one had change (as it was the equivalent to a 1000 UAE note)... they accepted Dirhams anyway!

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