Daytrip to the Desert

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I had a bit of a ride out today, eventually I was about 60 miles from Muscat into the interior of the country.  There were some old Portuguese forts I would have liked to see, but the road signs stopped as soon as I came off the main road, and my satnav (Copilot Middle East) lacks detail outside the main population areas.  Rubbish.  Anyway, it all mostly looked like this:

 Spotted this today, I looked on longingly - I'm really missing the tactile experience of a bike.  However, the standard of driving here is absolutely atrocious, way too risky for biking.  I thought it was OK last week, but that was the weekend when the roads were empty.  The working week is Sunday to Thurday, and it's total anarchy.  There's a multiple pile-up on the expressway almost every day.
Also saw this - a new Renault Safrane!  Doesn't look very Renault, because it isn't - it's actually a Samsung SM5, which is in turn based on a domestic-market Nissan.
Back to the hotel then.  The horse statue in the lobby rotates every so often - I have no idea why.  They do some bloody terrific coffee here!  I don't normally drink it, but there's no decent tea to be had.  I've been eating a lot of excellent curry here too; again that's something I rarely go near.  
I also visited a big posh shopping centre.  It was utterly unremarkable, except the signs were in Arabic.  

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