When the truly deluxe Dubai-Muscat bus finally reached its destination at the "downtown" Ruwi area station around one PM, I got out and started my usual exploration of the area on foot looking for inviting hotels. Before I'd gone far I ran into a group of men squatting around a matrix of cup-sized pits formed in the tree shaded plaza concrete. Each guy in turn grabbed all the stones in one pit and placed them one at a time in the adjacent pits down the line. The popular game is called Hawalis here in Oman, though I first saw a version played in Africa. Before thinking I pulled out my tiny camera and snapped a picture, but not so fast that one of the guys failed to notice and gave me a dirty look encouraging me to move along.

After three hours of trudging it looked like there were no lodges at all in this particular part of the sprawling city other than the really cheap ($55 is cheap here) flea trap next to the bus station and I began to think this might be one of those whirlwind visits where I take the first bed I can find for the night and then hop on a return bus immediately the next morning... not something I really like to do... unless absolutely necessary.

At my wits end, I bumped into Ahmad, a banker who informed me all businesses were closed for the four day holiday commemorating Oman National Day. When asked about nearby decent hotels he said we were close to the Al Falaj Hotel and could give me a lift. Quickly agreeing to accept his offer, we reached the 41 Rial ($114) hotel in short order. This five star place is out of the way, but offered real luxury and provided a truly wonderful breakfast experience. However, Internet access was a shock: $8/hr... and to make matters worse, their damned computer shared a virus with my camera fdrive. 

No one walks in Muscat Oman it would seem. Everything is so spread out that life would slow to a crawl, if they did! Local health nuts like me must all use indoor gyms. The city reminds me a lot of Los Angeles the way it is laid out. Transportation is mostly provided by private automobiles and for visitors, taxis. One sees few luxury cars here, at least not in the areas I've been wandering. There is a pretty good taxi-bus system that covers fixed routes. These eleven passenger minibuses stop at marked locations: you check with the driver (In Arabic, naturally.) where he is going, then jump in and bang on the roof when you want to get out. One sector rides are a single 100 Baiza coin (about 26 cents) and gets you several kilometers. Going farther costs 200 and most places are no further than that. Regular taxis are abundant and toot their horns anytime they see someone on foot. Every time I hear one of the taxi horns while walking I think to myself: "Just saved another 10 cents and extended my life by another minute!" Exercise certainly has many benefits!

While grabbing a quick bite at the nearby Mc Donald's Restaurant I've entertained myself by watching how all the masked ladies manage to handle a messy Big Mack. It turns out it is no big deal for them: just lift up the vale a little to make room for the bulky sandwich and chew away... same goes for drinking a Coke. In the West we have peanut butter; in the Middle East they have date paste and delicious it is and cheap! A one pound package cost about $1.40 and makes a great snack just like a spoonful of peanut butter... but without any of the fat!

Also observed in a Mc Donalds is the complete lack of macho behavior among the teenage boys who hang out there. I wonder if being forbidden to pay attention to girls has something to do with it for the Muslim boys or insecurity feelings for the immigrant boys. More generally, all the teenagers I've watched appear unusually content, rarely overly excited or boisterous. Makes me wonder what they are taught as little kids (who are decidedly not very well behaved!).

Since arriving in the Gulf region I have seen no beggars... until one day in Oman when a well dressed middle-age man in a white robe approached me near my upscale hotel speaking rapid Arabic (I think) and waving an obvious medical diagnostic printout showing the sonic scan of some part of someone's body... and pleading (the tone of voice and body language are unmistakable in any culture). Not speaking his language made it easy to avoid a protracted conversation, especially in this land of the fabulously rich where religion protects the poor.

During one of my morning walks I paused to admire the famous Zawawi Mosque that sits a half block from the hotel. As I entered the grounds for a closer look Kourosh approached me and in perfect English offered to answer any questions I might have until morning prayers which soon would commence and he would then have to go. But, in the mean time he suggested we step across the street for a cup of tea and a chat about his favorite religion with this obvious infidel. A university educated banker, he clearly wanted to regale me with tales of the miraculous impact his religion has had on humanity and reasons why I would do well to consider converting. For a while he cited passage and verse from the Qur’an with references to "Western" scientific "proofs" of the ancient prophecies... much as I have seen equally zealous Christian evangelists do.

As quickly as possible without giving offense I let him know of my extensive studies of comparative religion and my international travel background. Soon, the evangelizing ceased and mutual education began. "Notice," he said, "how god has caused His name to be written in Arabic in the shape of the fingers of our hand as a reminder to always remain aware of Him. See how the Arabic word for god looks like the back of your right hand" he noted pointing to the calligraphy painted over a door into the mosque." Sure enough, one could indeed write Allah in Arabic calligraphy tracing the back of the five fingers.  However, Kourosh wanted me to believe that god had designed the hand as a reminder to always keep his holy name in mind. ... Never mind the human hand had existed long before the prophet Muhammad, the Qur’an, or the Arabic language, I observed in a questioning voice.

As we returned to the mosque so he could meet his prayer obligations we ran into the Imam who spoke no English. Kourosh noted with great respect that the guy had memorized the entire Qur’an and could deliver sermons from his memory alone. Of course, millennia ago the only way accumulated learning could be passed  down to subsequent generations relied on the oral tradition: many people committing large bodies of knowledge to memory and then reciting the information verbatim to others. As we talked it became obvious he considered Islam to be the only true religion and he became silent when I noted that only the accident of his birth had made him a Muslim rather than a Jew, for example! He left to join the others in prayer inside the mosque, touching his heart as he left and smiling benignly.

The Omani Sultan's image is displayed everywhere and a friend of mine, a former reporter for the Christian Science Monitor pointed out that Sultan Qaboos is widely rumored to be homosexual a rumor which he apparently chooses to ignore. That is particularly interesting "because both gays and lesbians can be jailed for up to three years in Oman. That’s a step more progressive than Saudi Arabia, where they can be punished with execution..."
 

An evangelical Christian friend sent me a devotional essay by Billy Graham that concluded with the aphorism: "Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil - it has no point."

I spent some time thinking about this particular piece as the final quote suggested deep philosophical complexities. My personal reaction, my final unequivocal reaction is that the statement perfectly reflects the fundamental nature of reality and made me wonder why anyone would question the truth of it. Further, the implication that everyone must accept the implied suggestion that life MUST have a point beyond making more of itself prompted deep reflection on my part. Yes, life is indeed pointless! Most of us don't seem to be able to handle that and adopt the meaning long ago invented by the culture into which we happened to be born (The consensus point of life is dramatically different as we move around among cultures!).

Curiosity seems to have been selected by evolution as a successful survival strategy. Perhaps what appeared to be an obvious connection between causes and effects in early humanity's everyday life led them to conclude all effects must have a cause and those for which none is obvious must have hidden causes. That uncaused cause someone named "god" ... or some one of the hundreds of other names invented throughout the ages and cultures for the mostly invisible, ineffable hidden "ultimate" cause.

But chaos abounds throughout nature. Absolutely random events trigger effects which simply have no meaning; they just happen. To quote Shakespeare's Hamlet: "...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." So, LIFE in capital letters is pointless, having no other purpose than to perpetuate itself and many of us spend a good part of our lives looking for  personal meaning; looking for an ultimate purpose. What we each find is often wonderful. For me it is the magnificence and intricacies of the natural universe and our scientific understanding of it; it is the enlightened recognition of the profound problems with wrong thinking as taught by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha 2600 years ago.

Though I do not for a moment think the purpose of my life is to understand ultimate reality, I am delighted by every new bit of evidence gathered by objective research. My life along with all LIFE is pointless in the final analysis... except for the meaning I find in each and every single present moment and that is sublime beyond reverence.  It is sublime for me in the same sense that the love of Jesus is sublime in the life of a Christian... or the submission to the will of Allah in the life of a Muslim!

The paths others have chosen differ from the one I have chosen. Note the word chosen; it is VERY important. Any of us would have chosen very different paths had we been born here ten thousand years ago... or yesterday in Saudi Arabia or tomorrow in the Himalayan foothills of the Indian subcontinent. My wide travels leave NO doubt about that conclusion at all.

So, life is pointless for the unenlightened. For thinking people like us, it is not pointless because we have chosen belief systems that add meaning beyond what is inherent in the raw reality. In all likelihood we will all die embracing those beliefs we each have chosen and we are dramatically better off for having made those personal choices... as different as they are.

Returning to the Muscat-Dubai bus terminal ready for my afternoon bus trip back to Dubai the dilapidated piece of junk they had selected for our trip shocked me. Based on my careful shopping for the best service out of Dubai I naturally expected comparable equipment for the return. To make matters worse, the vehicle experienced mechanical problems and we were diverted to the transport company's garage. Fortunately, they moved us all over to a just slightly better conveyance. However, starting only half full meant many stops along the way until every seat was occupied. The six hour trip from Dubai turned into a nine hour return trip getting us into Dubai minutes before midnight. Half of the people on the bus had colds with sneezing and coughing sounds providing our travel "music." For the next several days I fought head and chest cold symptoms myself. Oh my... the joys of adventure travel. Don't you wish you were here?

Until the next postcard, possibly from Abu Dhabi,

Peace

Fred L Bellomy