.jpg)
We sailed into the port of Muscat, Oman this morning with a bit of blue sky showing through the typical haze. The landscape appeared to be volcanic rock, eerily similar to the terrain around Lake Mead, NV where we had a ski boat for years.
Here is the Top Photo Gallery:
Click here to view the detailed Muscat Photo Gallery.
Oman is one of those places few people know much about but, upon doing a little research, found it to be an interesting place. Let’s start with a few facts. The Muscat metropolitan area consists of six province (wilayats) and has a population of about 750,000. There is evidence of life here over 6,000 years ago and over the past 2,000 years Muscat has been an important trading port and was, therefore, controlled by its own tribes as well as the Persians and Portuguese. It was a military power itself in the 1700’s.
In the 1960’s conflicts between tribal leaders and the Sulant Said bin Taimur caused him to seek the help of the British to quell the distrubances. The Sultan moved his residence to Salalah (where we are going in a few days) and his son ended up doing a coup on his father. This man, Sultan Qaboos bin Said has been very popular since he took over for his father in 1970.
Surprisingly, this area has some significant infrastructure including large a shopping mall, modern opera hall, stock exchange, many museums (other tour) and several large mosques including the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (another tour went there and it was well received) and an international airport.
Today we are going on a dhow cruise. Margaret wasn’t feeling well so I turned in our tickets with Paul and Kathy and joined them on the bus and boat. The drive from the port to the pleasure craft marina showed old Muscat to be incredibly clean and almost sterile. It seems that the architecture of the houses is controlled with only straight lines, white plaster, Persian-style windows and many had domes. We passed a shopping center (souk) where we would return after our tour to do some shopping. We certainly didn’t see the typical outward signs of extreme poverty as we have in most cities lately.
After a 20 minute drive we arrived in the marina which was quite modern. Many nice yachts were docked at nice floating docks and we were whisked down one to board about a 60 foot wooden dhow. This was strictly a motor boat purpose built to do about 40 person tours and it had areas that had pillows on the floor and bench type seating. Paul chose to “reserve” the rear section so he could sit like a Sultan on pillows on the floor. I took the opposite side of the bus and kicked back in my pillow stash.
After pulling away from the dock we sampled some local coffee. Not bad once you get used to the interesting spices. The boat chugged along at about 6 knots until we noticed the Dolphin Watching tour boat further out. It seemed that they indeed had found some dolphins so our driver decided to speed up and let us join in the fun. There were about 100 dolphins gently gliding through the water, showing us some fin and occasionally a little air. I didn’t take any pictures but many of our group had fun doing so.
The tour continued on its way to the main port area where the Voyager was tied up. On the way we went past the Sultan’s palace and capital buildings, saw a big rock and then, on the way back to the marina saw a 5+ star hotel that had recently been built on the South part of town. That’s about it! After a couple hours we pulled into the marina and jumped on the bus. I checked out a scuba diving shop in the marina building just in case I could go when we return here after our Dubai stop.
Next stop was the Sultan’s palace. Neuvo/faux Arabian palace architecture. This place was pretty new and modern with the typical Arabian flair. Huge central courtyard/parking lot between large buildings that went on for blocks. We took pictures for about 30 minutes. While this was happening Paul decided that we would just take a cab back to town to do some shopping and that’s just what we did.
The cab was pretty shabby but it ran well enough to get us back to old town Muscat. The souk was rather interesting but incredibly clean. Reminded me of a small version of the bazaar we went to in Istanbul. To make the story shorter Paul and Kathy shopped for about an hour finding various items to take home as gifts. I figured Margaret and I would return in a few days so held off on any purchases. The hightlight was Paul looking at 3 foot long carved “tusks” made from fused camel bones. He passed in the end but enjoyed posing under the 6 foot versions and then found about a 30” saber made from Damascus steel and in a engraved silver sheath. He’s working on a complete Arabian outfit bit by bit.
I killed the fun by saying I had to get back to Margaret who I was sure was waiting for lunch. We grabbed the free shuttle back to the ship and, sure enough, upon returning to the room found Margaret all dressed up and eating lunch in the room. Oops! I felt bad but grabbed a quick bite in La Veranda and settled back in the room for a relaxing afternoon.
Next stop is Dubai after a sea day.