Today we returned home. We had an early start to catch an 8:45am flight (which was delayed 1 hour). As airports go, Dubai is pretty civilized and we got through easily.
The flight was 16 hrs. Emirates is OK as an airline. Nothing special. They got us home.
Overall it was a great trip. We had never been to this part of the World before (except for a brief visit to Muscat) and it proved to be fascinating and different. For those of you who are concerned with safety in the Middle East, Oman and UAE are about as safe and stable as you can imagine. This is strange given their neighbors (like Yemen) but the strict rule of the Sultans / Emirs coupled with vast wealth from oil coupled with a very tolerant form of Islam seems to be a winning combination. We never felt unsafe once although the customs search at the UAE border was a bit tense.
The photography parts, traveling with Chris Rainier, was great. It's always inspirational being around a great photographer and he offered some real help along the way. We'll miss him.
Things weren't always organized and the itinerary changed as we went along but overall it worked out great. Mind you NGS should know better than to put a group like this in a "dry" hotel. But we survived just fine and made up for it consoling ourselves over the result of the election.
Thanks for traveling with us. Photo album to follow.