Life of the Mayers: Oman Adventures: Exploration of Muscat

What an incredible country, what an amazing city.
Oman is very similar to the UAE minus all the glitz and glimmer. The buildings, the architecture, the landscape, all elegantly simple and beautiful. We stayed at the Intercontinental Muscat and I could not recommend it highly enough. The rooms, the service, the pool and beach, and the restaurants were all fantastic.

View from the hotel

Hotel from the sea

We hired a private tour service to escort us around the city and country for two days, since there was four of us, and no one wanted to worry about driving or navigating. Oman Day Tours is the service we used, and they were AMAZING. We did all negotiations and planning by email, and everything that went of perfectly. Our guide was a local Omani, Abudullah for both days, and he was fantastic! He did this as a side job since tourists "tip so good", but he is a government firefighter who works for their search and rescue. It was nice to have him on our side with all of Adam's climbing and jumping antics that he gets into.

First stop was the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. I think I have made it quite clear how captivating I find the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi and this place is just as incredible in a completely different way.

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

After the tour we had about a 90 minute conversation over Arabic coffee and dates with a few men who volunteer at the Mosque to educate visitors and dispel any misconceptions about Islam and Muslims. They were incredible and fascinating, all of them being collegiately educated in the US (one of them CompSci like Adam).

After the Mosque we headed to the Old Muttrah Souk, which really isn't old, as there was a cylcone that took out most of the city in 2007. This was a commercialize rebuild of it, and you could definitely tell it was primarily for the tourists. Most of the things being sold were made in Cambodia and Nepal, and we had already experience those actual markets. We only spent about an hour here, Jay indulged in dishdasha (clothing) and kuma (cap), but otherwise it was unremarkable.

Old Muttrah Souk

Old Muttrah Souk: Traditional Omani Kuma

All of the forts in Muscat are private and used for military functions only, so we did a drive-by to see them, as they are all remnants of the various empires that had come and gone.