MUSCAT, OMAN
We sailed east from Dubai through the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman to Muscat. This is our last stop in the Middle East on the continent of Asia. It is a Sultanate led by Sultan Qaboos bin Said who took over from his father in a bloodless coup in 1970. He is very forward thinking and has done much to modernize Oman which was at a standstill during his father’s reign. Besides the revenue from one million barrels of oil per day, the economy is boosted by copper, marble, dates, gas and tourism. It was a treat to visit gentle Oman after glitzy, pretentious Dubai.
We stopped at the beautiful, huge Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque with a capacity of 6000 inside and 25,000 outside. The enormous Persian carpet inside took 465 women in Iran 4 years to make. It arrived in Muscat in 4 pieces and took 4 months to assemble inside the mosque. We saw the Sultan’s palace, we visited the Mutrah Souk where we bargained for clothes, jewelry and frankensense and stopped at the Bait al Baranda Museum.
We couldn’t help but notice all the car dealerships. The most impressive 2-story, all glass Toyota-Lexus showroom is the largest in the Middle East. There are also many U.S. companies here: KFC, McDonald’s, Baskin-Robbins, DHL, Fedex to name a few. However, Oman has a character of its own: no skyscrapers like Dubai, the architecture is Moroccan, Middle-Eastern and the people are friendly and kind. It was a welcome change from UAE.
We left the Middle East on a southerly course in the Indian Ocean to a new continent: Africa.
We sailed east from Dubai through the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman to Muscat. This is our last stop in the Middle East on the continent of Asia. It is a Sultanate led by Sultan Qaboos bin Said who took over from his father in a bloodless coup in 1970. He is very forward thinking and has done much to modernize Oman which was at a standstill during his father’s reign. Besides the revenue from one million barrels of oil per day, the economy is boosted by copper, marble, dates, gas and tourism. It was a treat to visit gentle Oman after glitzy, pretentious Dubai.
We stopped at the beautiful, huge Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque with a capacity of 6000 inside and 25,000 outside. The enormous Persian carpet inside took 465 women in Iran 4 years to make. It arrived in Muscat in 4 pieces and took 4 months to assemble inside the mosque. We saw the Sultan’s palace, we visited the Mutrah Souk where we bargained for clothes, jewelry and frankensense and stopped at the Bait al Baranda Museum.
We couldn’t help but notice all the car dealerships. The most impressive 2-story, all glass Toyota-Lexus showroom is the largest in the Middle East. There are also many U.S. companies here: KFC, McDonald’s, Baskin-Robbins, DHL, Fedex to name a few. However, Oman has a character of its own: no skyscrapers like Dubai, the architecture is Moroccan, Middle-Eastern and the people are friendly and kind. It was a welcome change from UAE.
We left the Middle East on a southerly course in the Indian Ocean to a new continent: Africa.
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