Captain and Tennille, Muscat Love

Ok, the song was Muskrat Love, I know, but it's the song that popped into my head when I saw were going to Muscat, Oman. And it was................Wonderful!!!

It was a beautiful day, perfect desert weather, not too hot and a light breeze. We decided to do a "taxi tour" with our new friends, Scott and Anita. In the smaller, contained ports, the taxis do a great job going to the same sights and providing the same great commentary as the much more expensive ship excursions. The taxi for 3hrs was $75, for all 4, not each. He did such a great job, we gave him $100. We started out at the grand Mosque since it closed at 11 on Saturdays. It was exceptional. We could see similarities with a Mosque we visited in Penang, Malaysia, but this Mosque was 100x bigger and more ornate. The crown jewel is a 1 ton chandelier with 1200 lights, followed closely by a hand-made rug covering the entire floor (30,000 Sq ft?) with NO SEAMS. It took 600 woman 4 years to make.

We then headed to the opera house, which was interesting.

Then off to the palace.

These were the main sights except the Souk (marketplace), where we headed to after a quick tour of old Muscat.

And finally lunch before the market. Terrific Middle Eastern food at a place called the Grill. We ate al fresco, overlooking the sea, our ship, the Sultan's new yacht and his old one.

We had the mixed grill, which included lamb kabobs, chicken kabobs, rolled gyro meat, pita bread, hummus, falafal and other dipping sauces. Including 4 drinks, $39.50. Such a great meal with great people in a great location on a great day.

Fully nourished and refueled, we headed into the Souk. It was a maze of stores in what felt like a cave, so quite unusual. It seemed like they built the buildings without excavators, meaning they built them into the mountains without moving the dirt or rock. So inside this cave-like structure, there were multiple levels, between the shops and even within some shops. The shops were small but full of all sorts of tchotchkes, (a small bric-à-brac or miscellaneous item. The word has long been used by Jewish-Americans and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere. It is borrowed from Yiddish and is ultimately Slavic in origin).

Some of the items you'd find in any market, like the pillow covers and chess pieces, which we saw in Mexico too. But some were unique to the middle east like the lighting and pashminas and the Arab headdress called a Taqiyah, the Arabic word for a Muslim skullcap. In the Indian subcontinent, it is called a topi (Hindi: टोपी, Urdu: ٹوپی, Bengali: টুপি) which means hat or cap in general. I tried one on....I think I just don't have a hat head.

Here are some random pics from the day that didn't fit elsewhere.

I also got 2 geocaches, which Anita found fun and she might be hooked.

We got back on the ship around 3pm, which didn't leave much time before dinner where again, we agreed to all wear our clothing purchases from the day.

Dinner was standard fare and then the show, which was a magic comedian or funny magician, not sure, not enough of either to be sure. But it was pleasant.

Before the show, we headed up to the top deck to watch the sunset over Muscat. The sky went from blue to yellow to burnt orange in a matter of minutes. It was breath taking. I never tire of the sunrises or sunsets.

After a nightcap, we headed back to our stateroom. We have 5 consecutive sea days now, so time to catch up with work, our kids, the grand and things at home. Not yet sure what I'll blog about but something always comes up 😉.