Preparing for departure and logging into my blog

 Well it is the sunday before our departure and I am establishing a blog to illustrate our voyage.

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Palms and the Empty Quarter

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As I said in the end of this post, we left the high mountains (the highest in Oman 3000 meters) to stay in the desert. We stopped in a village called, Misfat al Abriyyin.  It is a very old town with thousands of date palm irrigated by a gushing spring.  We had some coffee (arabica) and delicious dates.  The winding narrow streets reminded me of some villages on the french coast near us.   There were signs about the pest, the red palm beetle that is destroying soothe date palms and this is a real disaster when it is the only product you export. On the way to our next stop I was looking at the many minarets and admiring the variety of styles. Sunset of our first night on the dunes. I thought of Maria Muldar’s song “Midnight at the oasis”.  The sand was sand blasting because the wind was up. I do understand the wearing of veils for wind and sun only if you want to. A view from near the bottom of the dune. I couldn’t make it to the top. It was like walking on ball b...
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Architecture must be experienced so here is entry to the Taj Mahal in the morning. must be experienced I have again no way of changing the sequence of these photos without losing most of them. This is one of the towers at the corner of the Taj Mahal. It’s really incredible that they are so perfectly pristine after all these years.  It is a beautiful story. She Mumtaz Mahal was a childhood friend of Shah Jahan and they were about the same age. She gave him 14 children and died at the age of 38. If you do the math, most of her married life she was pregnant but then only 6 of her children survived.  Shah Jahan was devastated at her death after the 14 th child and made this mausoleum to her.  He later in life wanted to make a black Taj across the river for himself but his 3rd son wasn’t having it and cut off his two elder brothers heads and imprisoned his father Shah Jahan.  Aurangzeb became the new emporeur.  So goes it. Here below is a detail of the beautiful marb...
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