A night in the desert

While on holiday in Oman, boyfriend T and me decided to take an overnight trip away from our hotel to spend a night in a tent in the desert.

In the car on the way to the desert, our guide tells us a lot of things about Oman.

"Before the current Sultan came to the throne in 1970, Oman was a very tough country," he says, "no roads, no schools, no hospitals, there was nothing here. A lot of Omanis left for India and Africa, although some of them have come back now."

"So everything has been built since then?"

"Yes. Actually, the Sultan had some of his education in the UK, which I'm sure is where he got some of his ideas from. But we're all worried about what will happen when he dies."

"Doesn't he have a son to take over from him?"

"Nobody knows!"

"Isn't he married?" asks boyfriend T.

"Again, no one knows," answers the guide.

Being aware of Islamic sensitivities to homosexuality, I don't ask the question that's on my lips about the Sultan (although a comment on my previous post later confirmed what I was thinking). Instead I ask a different question.

"But what are the taxes here to pay for all this infrastructure?"

"No taxes here :-)," answers the guide, smiling, "the oil pays for everything!"

When we booked the night in the desert, I had in my mind the image of a tent fit for a Sultan. It would be full of white fabric flapping gently in the breeze with sumptuous red cushions and luscious embroidery everywhere, expensive Arabian carpets and maybe the odd hunky eunuch to tend to our needs :-). However the reality was slightly different!


"So we've given up a night in that lovely hotel for this :-(," says boyfriend T in disbelief, "I can't imagine an Arabian prince staying in a tent like this!"

"Well a Bedouin style tent is OK for one night, isn't it?" I reply, determined to enjoy myself, "it's not every day that we get to spend the night in the Arabian Desert!"

There are two double beds in the tent, both with thick duvets, which seems a bit unnecessary given how hot it is inside the tent.

"Which bed shall we sleep in?" I ask.

"Which bed do you want?" he replies.

"Awww, can't we sleep in the same bed as usual?"

"I think it's going to be too hot for that!"

After dinner, even though it's 4 hours since the sun went down it's still very hot inside our tent, so we duly get into separate beds. Eventually I fall asleep, waking up just in time to get up and see the sunrise over the sand dunes.

"It was amazingly quiet in the desert," I say to boyfriend T the following night when we're back in our hotel, as we're cuddling up before getting to sleep, "did you sleep well last night?"

"Actually NO!" he replies, "didn't you hear all the goats with the bells round their necks that kept wandering past our tent?"

"Um no, I must have fallen asleep."

"Yes you did! Your snoring was another thing that kept me awake."

"Ahhh, sorry about that, I hope that doesn't happen too often"

Boyfriend T doesn't reply, and as he lays there in my arms, soon I can tell that he's fallen asleep.

"So did you sleep well?" I ask him the following morning.

"Yes thanks, I slept very well :-),"

"You see," I reply triumphantly, "sleeping in the same bed is always best :-). You can't get to sleep properly without cuddles!"

"Sleeping in the same bed IS better," answers boyfriend T, "but only because I can elbow you to stop snoring if I have to. When we were in the desert, I might have slept better if only I'd had a long stick to use on you!"