Muscat, Oman

On Sunday, March 18, we stopped in Oman for a visit to the capitol city of Muscat. What an amazing day this was! It was grey and looked a bit rainy and cloudy but nothing major. Then the captain came on and told us that, despite the weather forecasts for upper 70s and sunshine, it began raining in Oman yesterday. Little did we realize that rain is a MAJOR event! It only rains TWO DAYS A YEAR! The next announcement was from the Tour Department saying that because of the weather, the tour operator had advised them that the tours couldn't operate because places would be closed and ALL of the tours would be cancelled! It was raining, but all of the tours??? Everyone was wondering what was going on. We had a special tour scheduled by out Virtuoso travel group and after some discussions, they told us that they were going to try and operate the tour; it might not be the same as planned and we might sit in traffic and not see much - but at least we would be bored sitting on a bus in Oman, as opposed to being bored sitting on the ship at the dock!
So off we went - and down came the rain! It poured! Major flooding on a lot of the roads - the water just flowed over everything! Cars were submerged up to the roof and rolled over. Just amazing! We had a great guide who really spoke excellent English; he's in college here - majoring in tourism! We drove around a bit more than planned, since our first two stops were flooded. But what an amazing country! It is spotless and all these stretches of green, green grass by the road - and black stone mountains and craigs rising up right behind them. The current sultan is 67 and took the throne in 1970 on the death of his father. The father had kept Oman isolated and kept visitors out; for a person to come into Oman, they had to have a visa -- signed by the sultan himself! When his son, the current sultan, took the throne, things changed dramatically. He brought people in to develop the country and educate his people. They have now started to work on tourism and want tourists to visit Oman, but they also are being very selective in how they present themselves and the type of tourists they attract. It is a very conservative country; Islam is the overwhelmingly predominant religion. Although the women aren't' in birkas as in some of the fundamental countries, they are still very modestly dressed. Many of the men wear long white smocks and a type of turban on their head.
With the new push to tourism, and with the wealth brought by oil, things are moving along. Our lunch was at the Shangri-La Hotel, which was built by the government to attract tourists and is a very deluxe property. An average room is about $700 a night (but it includes breakfast and dinner!!)
We went to the main Mosque (there are hundreds of them in Muscat) which is also new, and built by the Sultan. The mosque holds 20,000 worshippers! Unfortunately, we couldn't go in and could only see the outside. The weather delayed us, and only Muslims are allowed in for prayer after 11:00 am. We were still glad to just be able to see it.
We were so impressed with the country. We came here knowing nothing about it and would love to return and spend some more time. Maybe someday!