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Although the landing and parking fees to
OAMC (Oman Airports Management Co.) were a reasonable 11 OMR (30 US$),
we also had to pay a handling bill from Oman Air of 55.5 OMR (150 US$)
for which we did not receive many services apart from a huge passenger
bus for our departure. The items were: Crew clearance OMR 9, Engineering
charges OMR 8, Ramp passenger coach OMR 14.5, Technical stop charges OMR
24.
Although the early morning temperature was only 33 C, humidity was high
and we got extremely hot before we were in the air. Air traffic control
under radar through Oman and UAE went smoothly and we were soon talking
to Teheran and making our position reports to them. The air was stable
and we were able to pass the time replacing the African charts in the
files with the Middle East ones. Initially we flew over water near the
coast, then over mountains and the Musandam Peninsula in the extreme
north of Oman, before crossing the Gulf to southern Iran.
On arrival at Shiraz, the first thing Flemming did was to help me to tie
on my scarf before I stepped out to a large audience. Several cars and
people had shown up on the apron to receive us. I wasn’t dressed very
correctly as my pilot’s shirt had short sleeves and didn’t disguise the
shape of my bum but at least I didn’t appear to raise any eyebrows. We
were afraid of ‘attacks’ from friendly handling agents but one of the
men who welcomed us reassured us that he was the airport operations
manager. He said we could call on him if we needed anything and then
sent us off to the terminal in a car with one of his staff.
We had come prepared with Iranian visas that we’d obtained at the
Iranian embassy in Bern the last week in February. However, the
immigration official was a little puzzled by Angela’s passport because
it said it was from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, whereas he’d thought my nationality should be ‘English’. The
poor man must have been new to the job as each time we thought we’d
finished with the formalities and Flemming put our passports back in his
bag, the official asked to see them again to check something else. In
Oman, most people speak quite good English, but here it’s a different
story and we were grateful for the help of a man from the tourist office
who was recruited to interpret for us.
We took an air conditioned taxi to a decent mid-range hotel called Aryo
Barzan in the centre of Shiraz with its own internet café. Temperatures
here are lower than in Muscat but it’s still hot at 36 C. We therefore
waited till late afternoon to visit the Bagh-e Eram garden, famous for
its cypress trees, and Eram Palace. Iranian and European tourists
wandered around and took photos of each other. We noticed that all the
women dutifully wore their scarves and tunics, although most of them
allowed plenty of hair to show and they often wore quite tight fitting
jeans.
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Heat haze over the mountains in northern Oman
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Pink water in the Gulf
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