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October 15, 2003
Arrival in Muscat, Oman
Left Dubai at the crack of dawn and headed to the airport to catch a flight to Muscat. Dubai's airport is a capitalist wonder -- a duty free paradise on a scale like no other. If you can buy it legally, it's available at the airport -- and at actual duty free prices, rather than the typical ripoffs you see at most airports. I'll definitely have to hunt around here when I finally get ready to head back to the US.
Boarded my Emirates airlines flight -- great airline. Comfortable Boeing 777 with all the amenities of a transatlantic flight, even though this flight only takes 50 minutes. The flight attendants are a United Nations in themselves -- US, south africa, bulgaria, germany, estonia, India, Pakistan, UAE, Mexico and Malaysia were all represented. And apart from someone's travel alarm which kept going off every 10 minutes, it was a comfy flight.
Muscat arrivals was less comfy. According to the Oman embassy in DC, my UAE visa would be accepted in Oman, so I could get straight in the immigration line. No dice. I get to the front of the line and I'm told I first must fill out a form, then get eight Omani rials to pay for the visa fee -- no other currencies accepted. There were no ATMs and only one currency exchange desk, so I had to stand in line for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, at least two other flights arrived, so by the time I got my money and stood back in the immigrations line, nearly two hours had passed. At least I wasn't deported for identifying myself as Jewish on the "religion" question of the visa application. I was hesistant to write it, but I was more hesitant to leave it blank or writing something random like Rosicrucian or Klingon or Jain or Methodist.
I grabbed a cab at the airport and hit the highway to cover the 40 kilometers between the airport and Muttrah Harbor, which is where I planned to stay. The six-lane highway was as modern as the Hollywood Freeway or I-95, and with the mountains looming over to my right, I felt as if I was zooming through Albuquerque -- if Albuquerque only had beachfront property on the opposite side of the highway.
Muscat is an unusual city in the sense that it's actually a large metropolitan area comprised of smaller, isolated neighborhoods each ensconced in a mountainous cove along the Arabian sea. Driving along the highway, each neighborhood looks as if it's isolated from the entire world, with dramatic, jagged mountains soaring straight up from the perimeter, with a pretty harbor right on the sea. If it weren't for this wonderful highway system zipping up and down the mountains, I can only imagine how slow it would be to get from one area to the next.
Eventually we passed through magnificant stone gates that have been restored with an adobe covering and orange paint job -- almost giving it a disneyfied Aladdin feel to it. We then arrived in Muttrah -- the part of Muscat with perhaps the prettiest harbor in Arabia. The waterfront corniche is now an active thoroughfare, but the street is still lined with whitewashed buildings and giant wooden dhows floating in the harbor. Solemnly guarding the town is Muttrah Fort, an imposing structure perched atop one of the local mountains. Muttrah Fort is actually only one of two forts in all of Oman that were built buy the Portuguese during their stint here in the 16th century. The rest of them - dozens of them - are totally home grown, 100% pure Omani. Hopefully I'd get a chance to visit some of the more famous ones during my brief visit.
The taxi dropped me off in front of the Naseem Hotel, a modest joint that will get you a bed, a strong airconditioner and a broken TV for 10 rials a night -- about 25 bucks. For whatever reason, Oman still hasn't developed an infrastructure for mid-range tourists. Either you pay 25 bucks for a room or 250, with practically nothing to choose from in between.
After dropping off my things I grabbed my camera and walked along the corniche, admiring the view and appreciating the breeze, which just barely made up for the fact that it was 98 degrees and humid. The first thing I needed to do was to swing by a hotel in the Ruwi neighborhood to meet up with a travel agent who was a friend of an acquaintance back in DC. Oman is notoriously expensive, even by western standards, and a day tour could easily set me back $150 bucks if I weren't careful, so hopefully the travel agent would have some ideas.
I caught a microbus across from the hotel; microbuses are shared taxis that meander around the city, between the various neighborhoods. A taxi ride from one part to another might cost you eight bucks or more, but a microbus would cost you 70 cents. The only downside was that your travel route was rarely direct; people in the bus would have different destinations, and you'd just have to wait your turn as the bus dropped people off and picked up others.
As we drove to Ruwi I followed my map, and noticed that it appeared we were passing the area I needed to go to. I asked if this was where the Mercure Hotel was, and the driver simply pointed ahead and said Ruwi. After another mile we pulled over and a Sikh man next to me said "This is Ruwi now." I got out with him and started to walk east, but was unable to find myself on the map. I showed it to him and he replied, "You went too far, so you must walk two kilometers north." Great, I thought. Next time trust your topographic instincts.
I walked in the stifling heat, unable to find much shade as the sun loomed straight overhead. Eventually I got to the hotel, but discovered that the travel office was closed. An older gentleman named Ali said it wouldn't be open for another day or two, but he was one of their tour drivers and said I could book with him. I asked him how much it would cost to visit Nakhal Fort and do a loop to several other sites. He said 15 rials, or about 40 dollars. I reconfirmed that he said 15 instead of 50 by showing him one finger then five, and he said yes, 15. So I agreed to go with him and asked him to pick me up at 8am the next day.
I cooled off with a diet pepsi at the hotel cafe then headed outiside to find another microbus. Ali was just getting ready to head home for the afternoon, and he offered to give me a ride, since he lived near my hotel.
After getting dropped off along the corniche, I then went to explore the souk, Muttrah's covered bazaar. It was approaching 1pm, so most shops would soon close, but at least I got to catch them for a few minutes. The shops here reminded me of the souk in Old Jerusalem - tight, winding corridors packed with shops selling spices, chotchkes, clothing, artwork, and in this case, tons of frankincense. Most of the frankincense was loosely packed in hastily sealed plastic bags - not the kind of packaging the average US customs inspector would appreciate, I imagine.
As the souk shops closed up for siesta, I hiked counterclockwise around the corniche in search of a particular restaurant listed in my lonely planet book. After 20 minutes I gave up -- clearly the scale on the map wasn't as accurate as it could be. I backtracked my way past the souk and my hotel, searching for a few more restaurants. Closed for siesta. Closed for renovations. Out of business. It took me another half hour or so, but some time after 2pm I finally found a hole in the wall Indian joint that offered two items on the menu - chicken masala and chicken biryani. I went for the biryani, which here in Oman is served as a piece of fried chicken buried under a heap of basmati rice, with a cup of curry sauce and a plate of onions and sliced cabbage on the side. At least they had Diet Pepsi, though.
After lunch I went back to the hotel and talked with the man at the reception desk about tour ideas. He mentioned an Australian woman was planning to hire a taxi to take her around greater Muscat for four hours late that afternoon, and asked if I was interested. I wasn't sure just yet, since I was getting a little tired at this point, so I told him I'd let him know by 4pm.
I went upstairs and crashed for a couple of hours -- I could feel jetlag kicking in, so I took a shower and watched some Omani football teams duke it out on TV. I started to feel better so I went downstairs to join the evening tour. An Australian woman named Margaret had booked it, and I offered to split the costs with her. We'd each pay nine rials, or around 25 bucks. But I figured this would be my chance to see the local area in greater detail.
Margaret and I jumped into the taxi, and then proceeded to wait 20 minutes as the driver tried to restart his dead battery. He comandeered two poor young lads walking down the corniche, getting them to push the car while he tried to start the car. The boys tried four different times, then left us to fend for ourselves. The driver now broke out his jumper cables and waited for a kind soul to pull over and give us some juice. We decided to give the guy another five minutes before demanding our money back, but right on cue, the car started up and we were on our way.
We drove along the corniche until it rose out of the cove, over the craggy hillside, and down toward Old Muscat. We had a pretty view of the town as we approachead, its white buildings turning rosy in the waning sunlight. Our first stop was Beit al Zubair, an Omani mansion turned into a cultural heritage museum. It was a wonderful place -- they did a very effective job of using lighting and background music to add ambiance to their impressive collection of weaponry (including their famous Khanjar daggers), tribal costumes, silverwork and furniture. If only more city museums were this interesting.
Outside we found our cabbie sitting in the car, the engine running -- I guess he didn't want to take the chance of having the engine die again. We then drove to the center of Muscat harbor, a dramatic location that hosts the Sultan's palace and two imposing forts. Unfortunately none of them are open to the public, but we stood along the harbor, snapped some pictures and soaked in the view.
Our next stop was Jussa beach, a popular spot about 20 minutes east of town. We zipped up and down the mountainsides, causing my ears to pop again and again. When we reached the beach, the sun had just set below the mountains, so the view was fading fast. But it was still a very pretty spot, with several enormous limestone islands jutting out of the ocean about half a kilometer from the shoreline. Several boatman offered to take us on a ride for a small fortune, but we decided to enjoy the view from a distance. Meanwhile, our driver had called a friend and asked him to bring a spare battery. Of course, as soon as it arrived, the car was working just fine.
"I don't understand," the driver said. "I have no new battery, the car does not go. I have the new battery, the car does not need it."
"It's a universal truth," I said. "You bring an umbrella and it won't rain; you leave it behind and it pours."
With our spare battery stuck in the trunk, we continued onward to the al Bustam palace hotel. Everyone had said it's worth a visit, but I wasn't sure why until i arrived. The hotel is one of the most luxurious I've ever seen, certainly the kind of place the Sultan would want to put his guests. Its atrium was exquisite, rising as high and as wide as the interior to Aya Sofya in Istanbul. It was truly magnificent. While we explored the hotel, we discovered they offered a Bedouin dinner out in the desert every week for 15 rials a person. We decided it would be a good splurge, especially if we did it the night before I returned to Dubai, so we made a reservation.
The taxi drove us back to Muttrah, dropping us off at the souk. The souk was busy with shoppers, and all the shops had opened from their siesta. We allowed ourselves to get lost, absorbing all the sights and smells of the bazaar. Getting hungry for dinner, we tried to orient ourselves towards the corniche, wandering through the gold souk along the way. The souk was full of young women and their mothers, covered from head to toe in their black abayas, each browsing through a small fortune in bridal gold.
"Perhaps you should bring back one of those necklaces or tiaras for Susanne," Margaret said, pointing to a window full of the most over-the-top gold jewerly I've ever seen.
"I think she'd want something that'd make a bit more of a statement," I replied, smiling.
Finally working our way back to the corniche, we walked past the hotel to the Orchid Restaurant, where we each got a plate of shwarma -- mine chicken, hers mutton -- piled over a heap of hummus. Served with a stack of fresh pitas and a bowl of sliced veggies, it was a nice little feast that set us back about one rial each.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel around 8pm. I soon fell asleep, longing for the nap I probably should have taken many hours earlier.... -ac
Posted by acarvin at October 15, 2003 8:50 AM
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