Lived Experience - Oman

After finishing up the India adventure, I found myself drawn to stop over in Oman. If India is a speedboat, Oman was a canoe, the lifestyle was very relaxed.
 (if the video shows an error, try in a 480 p rather than 360 p)

 6 months before landing in Oman, I honestly knew "I will probably never go to Oman". Have you ever doubted a country before?

 Life lesson: There are two paths, what you plan and what you do.

Lived Experiences - India

There is so much more to travelling than getting from point A to point B. There is so much more to working abroad than the 9 - 5 (or 8-2). India was an adventure, here are some of the little moments that made it unforgettable.



For all those heading to India, particularly Sarah Hummel and Chungsoon Haw, I wish you the best adventure you can find.

The Shirt

Here is my first attempt at sharing valuable insights to a Global Network.

How was International Congress?

International Congress in Kenya!

I am now about an hour away from boarding the plane for Kenya. To give you a snap shot of the experience about happen, consider these numbers:

63rd Annual AIESEC International Congress.
10 days at the MMU Hotel and Conference Centre, metres from Nairobi National Park.
Up to 50 000 virtual participants.  tune in Live starting August 20th
111 countries with delegates in attendance

This is when we get to see who is in our network, what we have done this year, which direction we are going, and why AIESEC is relevant to the world we live in.

Pretty stoked. http://www.ic2011kenya.org/

What's the Difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut?

Two weeks.  And being in Oman. I have two awesome haircut experiences on my trip so far.  

1. I wanted to get a haircut for 10 rupees (20 cents) under a mango tree (UMT) in Chandigarh, but the girls at my trainee house were very strongly opinionated about the risks (diseases...).  As an alternative, they offered to cut my hair for free on the balcony, which was beside a Guava tree (BGT), so I accepted.  Now, when you get offered a free haircut, you lose all ability to provide insight to the style and quality.  Lets just say two sets of safety kitchen scissors takes a damn long time to get a trim, and you end up with racing stripes on one side of your head.

2. I wanted to visit a 'Turkish Barber'.  For 2.5 OR (Omani Rials) you can get one of the most precise haircuts known to man.  They are artists, not barbers.  The second part of this epic hair cut was the straight razor shave.  I purposely held off on shaving for a few days just to get the full value out of the experience.  I quite literally did not see stubble for 3 days afterwards.  I suspect lasers were used.  A complete face and head massage were included and the experience turned me into a better man.

The Middle East During Ramadan

This is a unique experience that is completely different from anything I have ever witnessed.  As Oman is a devout Muslim country, the rules are followed closely and I am amazed.

1. No eating or drinking during the day.  If you are caught eating in public, I was told that you could be fined and put in jail (for a little while) to learn your lesson.  All those times when out of habit you would just stop by the water fountain or grab a bottle of water are when this rule becomes most apparent.

2. Everything is closed during the day.  Stores were open earlier in the morning and then close from about 10 am until 7 pm.  The night is filled with feasting and socializing.

I wouldn't say that I followed all the rules, but I respected them and followed the routine.  We wouldn't eat all day and then all gather for a dinner, and then a post dinner dinner again around midnight.  Any sightseeing we did during the day made sightseeing in India look crazy.  It was like going through ghost towns, there were no cars on the road, no people at the beaches.  Ramadan, very interesting experience.