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Bee-hive tombs and a place called Jebel Shams

Tuesday, January 16th, 2007

We’re back in Muscat again tonight after spending the last couple of days exploring Nizwa and the surrounding areas. Today we rented a car and saw quite a few things including two forts, the ruins of a village, the so-called ‘Grand Canyon of Arabia’ (which really shouldn’t be given this title as it creates unrealistic expectations) from the top of Jebel Shams, the highest peak in the Arabian Peninsula. But strangely the highlight was seeing some small, ancient bee-hive shaped tombs at the foot of a dramatic mountain. We had been told about the tombs by our Belgian friends in Yemen and promised them that we would try to visit the tombs, and though they were hard to find, they were definitely worth it.

We only had one other thing we wanted to do in Oman which was to hike through another wadi, but Wendy’s leg is hurting a little so we thought we would give it a miss and save ourselves for the High Atlas instead. So, tomorrow we’re leaving Oman, and that’s a good thing as it gives us more time for other countries later on, which we’re very happy about. We’d planned to spend about three weeks here but ended up only staying for one week – I guess there weren’t as many things to do as we had thought! The thing about Oman is that while everything’s nice – nice beaches, nice forts, nice views – nothing is spectacular.

So, while Africa beckons, there’s still one last place to visit before we leave this peninsula (I presume) forever: the grandest of all the oil cities, Dubai.

Muscat

Saturday, January 13th, 2007

Yesterday we arrived in the Omani capital Muscat after attempting to arrive instead in another city called Nizwa (long story, not worth telling). Muscat is OK – infinitely more interesting than Doha, but without the magic of Sana’a. Overall, Muscat is probably the most liveable city in the Gulf because it has all the facilities of the oil cities but retains at least some old-world character and charm.

Muscat is really several suburbs put together. Today we walked from one of these, Mutrah, to another, Muscat itself, which was pleasant enough. Mutrah is the tourist hub of Muscat with hotels and restaurants on the corniche and a famous souq that is supposed to be great but is actually just a covered alleyway full of tourist souvenirs that has none of the enchantment of the bazaars in Old Sana’a. More interesting was the morning fish market, which sort of rendered useless our trip a week or so back to Al-Hudayda in Yemen to see something very similar.

Anyway, the corniche. Doha’s corniche is proclaimed as the most beautiful in the Gulf, but really that’s only because the water is a nice colour; there’s nothing to actually do on Doha’s corniche (there used to be two things to do – go to Palm Tree Island and eat at the Al-Bandar restaurant complex – but both have been destroyed). In Mutrah you can admire the old houses, drink fruit juice at one of the cafes, feed the seagulls (don’t laugh; we did that today), shop in the souq etc. The walk to Muscat proper was about 3km and quite nice in the early morning. The Walled City of Muscat is where the ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos, lives. His palace and the area around it is quite a surreal place – sort of like British New Delhi, with imposing buildings, huge open spaces, and perfectly manicured lawns and gardens. There are a couple of old forts in Muscat as well but they’re closed to the public as (I think) they’re still being used by the military.

Tomorrow we might head back to Nizwa or along the coast road to Sur, where there are some hiking opportunities. We’ll probably only be in Oman for another week or so, and then we’ll hopefully be able to change our flight to Africa to move it forward by a couple of weeks, insha’allah.

(Note: when it seems like all of your entries end with insha’allah, this is probably not a good sign…)

Oman – arrival and impressions

Thursday, January 11th, 2007

We've been in the western part of Oman for two days now after arriving yesterday morning from Yemen. Border formalities were slow but uncomplicated, and it was certainly the first time I've crossed a border between 1am and 3am!

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