Oman - Muscat

 Back in the 1950s, Hammond Innes was probably one of Britain's most successful authors, writing thrillers featuring ordinary men in unusual situations.  I inherited a number of his books from a grandparent a few decades later and devoured them.  He's probably little known these days but I've never yet disposed of a book I once owned.  

One of his that stuck with me for a long while was The Doomed Oasis. A Cardiff solicitor sets off after the headstrong son of a housemaid, who has run away to Arabia in search of his natural father, a Lawrence of Arabia character in a region newly discovering the black gold that was to transform it.  

Fast forward a few decades and I'm in a plane flying over the Empty Quarter, that great desert where country boundaries mean very little, listening to an old pilot refer to the Trucial States, thinking that one day I'd love to follow in the footsteps of Hammond's heroes.  

All of which is a very long winded way of explaining part of the reason why I'm sat in Heathrow waiting for a plane out to Oman...

A slightly odd start to the day of arriving to an immaculate beautiful and efficient airport at 7.30am when your body's convinced its actually 3.30am. A couple of hours chill, a shower and ready to go exploring.

First mistake - this isn't a city where anyone walks. Pavements are erratic and prone to disappearing without warning. As for pedestrian crossings, hah, you're on your own. That said, the traffic is mostly quite civilised and the only horns were from taxi drivers convinced I must be in need of a lift.

After a few kilometres I decided they were right - I'm a redhead that was born to live in Scotland not 28° and rising - but none to be seen. So I found myself sharing a taxi with a lady from Jordan called Wafa who's taught at the University here for 20 years. As you do. Which stood me in good stead for later for the next taxi share and haggling over the price and shared contribution.

I've never paddled in the Arabian Gulf before. That's another sea crossed off the list.

Edit: I got my seas mixed up; the Arabian Gulf is past the Straits of Hormuz, this is the Gulf of Oman. Paddling in the Arabian will have to wait for another time...


I was tempted to post a picture of the Omani Royal Opera House, just to alarm some people, but the Grand Mosque has to be seen to be believed. Marble from Italy, chandeliers from Germany, stained glass from France, carpets from Scotland and Jordan, teak wood from Arabia, trees from Australia, combined into a stunningly beautiful and serene building, allegedly the largest mosque in the world, capable of hosting twenty thousand people in prayer (only seven hundred women however).
Unlike Uzbekistan, it's a very modern construction. A bit like this city itself. Fifty years ago, Muscat was a small town nestled in one small cove around a narrow harbour. Then oil happened, and gas, and now the city stretches for 200km along the coast, in the thin land between sea and mountains.

One thing I hadn't appreciated was just how new everything in Oman would be. Half a century ago, oil - and now gas - made a small country of ships and dates immensely rich overnight. Roads, houses, mosques, schools, universities, offices, shops, harbours, parks, all were suddenly built new as decreed by the Sultan, a process continuing to this day. Even the fish market we visited this morning is only a few years old, clean and bright and airy - but still selling fish caught by sun-scourged men in small flat boats, unloaded while turtles swim and dive around them, hoping for scraps of fish to fall fast enough to beat the circling gulls.

So it was nice to see an old Omani castle, slightly restored, and now surrounded by scrubland and housing, instead of thousands of date palms as it was originally built. There's lots of housing - until recently every Omani child (male or female) was given a plot of land as a gift from the Sultan on reaching adulthood. Followed by a visit to a restored grand family house, originally owned by ancestors of the half-brother of the current Sultan and now a museum of family life.

Lunch was a picnic up in the lower reaches of the mountains, by a natural hot spring where those of us who wanted could sit with feet in the warm stream with small fishes nibbling at skin. I've had worse pedicures...

This evening, the classic tourist trip of a dhow cruise to watch the tropical sun fall behind the coastline. That's definitely one for the memory bank.