Tag Archives: Muscat

Day 250 – It’s sinking in

This view greeted me from our kitchen window in the morning

Time to leave Muscat. Not without visiting the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque though. Since our visit to Muscat fell mostly on a Friday, we had no chance to see it so far. It opens at 8am on Saturday mornings so we planned to pack up and visit it before riding on.

Breakfast was had in our studio kitchen, which makes it so nice and cheap. Packing went okay but then we realized that the mosque is 20km in the wrong direction which dampened the mood a little. We had to see it anyway.

Once we were at the car park, I took out my headscarf to put it on. It is more difficult than it looks. Unsure if I had to cover all hair, I kept tugging on my hijab self-consciously. Which made the whole thing dissolve. *sigh* I can feel some youtube tutorials coming up in the future. Continue reading →

Day 249 – Thunder and lightning

The morning started out sunny, in more than one way. The sun was actually up and we finally got a chance to really sleep as long as we want. Breakfast was good as well (and also cheap, thanks to the kitchen in our studio). We even fully caught up on blogging, to the point that I am just writing this on the day, as it happened.

Finally got it. Been driving through it for about five times by now!

We booked two nights in Muscat, so this was our day to go back to town to explore and take heaps of photos. Pretty much only take photos, because today is Friday and most museums are closed on Fridays. So we saddled our bike in the usual town setup with empty panniers and a ready backpack and got going some time after 9 am. The plan was to roughly follow a walking tour suggested in the lonely planet.

Since we were not feeling like going to the fish market and had done the Souq last night, we did the first km along the promenade on the bike until we were below Mutrah fort. We parked our bike in the shadow of this impressive piece of Portuguese heritage and made on our way around it to maybe find a way up and inside. We failed, but judging by the works that were going on near the entrance, future travelers might have better luck than us.

Looking out to the harbour

By this point, more and more clouds had gathered overhead. Good in principle because they keep the midday sun at bay, this time the sky looked a bit more serious. Sheets of rain could be seen over the sea and hills to the north-west. We still decided to keep walking a little bit more along the corniche towards Old Muscat. All around, police and workmen were busy preparing for some sort of event along the road. We saw at one point that there would be a show-run of the Red Bull F1 team tonight. Nothing that sparked our interest, though …

There was a bit of back and forth about how far we would walk when I saw another option in the guidebook. Apparently, there was a hiking path from Al-Riyam park back to where we had parked Rocinante. Once back, we could get on the bike and ride the remaining 3 km to Old Muscat and explore further. The guide book recommended sturdy shoes, but how bad could it be in the middle of town?

I’m mostly for scale

As it turned out – the track was really all out hiking. The path was well marked, but went up over steep steps and along a ridge. The last kilometer was down a narrow wadi. It was spectacular! Beautiful views of both the city and the hills, serene peace in little valleys and almost total quiet in some places. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit fickle at this point, with bits of light rain now and again. What really got to Nina though was the building up in the sky a couple of kilometers further, with regular thunder and lightning going. Although we were in a wadi, there was still not much to worry about. We were really close to town (although out of sight) and even in case of flooding could have climbed our way out.

About two thirds in, we were overtaken by a jolly group of four early-twenties Omani guys. They were real charmers and helped to calm Nina down a lot. We even got some wild sorrel they had found to try. It was really good. At one point we spotted a snake – something I had been looking forward to since Australia. It was not too big and pretty shy, so there is no photo, but wohoo!
From the end of the track (ending at the wall of a protective dam) it were only a couple of meters to our bike. We came out of the track just in time for lunch, so we hopped on and made our way to Old Muscat to a recommended cheap restaurant. Along the way, we saw that the preparations along the corniche had progressed a lot. One direction was now completely fenced in and police was setting up checkpoints along the route.

Iconic Muscat photo with Rocinante

The sky got darker and darker during lunch. That led us to decide to modify the walking tour a bit more and do it on the bike instead. The Sultan’s Palace and two more forts framing the harbour were the highlights of this part. When the rain started for real, we were ready to call it a day and head back to the hotel. This time, the police was on the road and directed the traffic onto a back road. Seems the Red Bull party was about to start … shame about the weather.

Slightly soaked we arrived at the hotel. Even though it was only just 3 pm, we called it there. I only went out one more time to pick up fresh veg from the supermarket for a dinner of delicious sandwiches and fresh strawberries with yoghurt for dessert. Tomorrow will be an early start to make it to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque by 8 am.

Once again, the day was filled with unforgettable moments – amazing and terrifying alike. Although we have been doing this for 8 month now, we are still surprised by how these things work out. Most importantly, we are humbled by the unending friendliness and hospitality of the people we encounter along the way.

: Finally got it. Been driving through it for about five times by now!

: Our first stop this morning: The Portuguese fort

: Well, this explains the “no access” to the fort

: So we could only take pictures from below

: The fort in all its glory

: Looking out to the harbour

: Looking back towards the city

: Looking up in a bus shelter

: This is the start of the hiking track. It takes good spotting skills to find it

: The weather wasn’t too peachy though

: Looking back down from the first ascent

: One of the sights of Old Muscat

: Nice views opened up next to the track

: I’m mostly for scale

: Muscat is still there even if it doesn’t feel like it

: Now it’s a real hiking track at least

: Quite epic for a hike you started in the capital

: The sign that we are still on track – even when it leads us down a wadi

: The water was an added challenge with some slippery bits

: Can you spot the wild dongs? The went all Lion King on us …

: It tasted pretty good – like sour snacks.

: Almost at the end now

: More water down here

: This is the inside of the dam – it protects the houses on the other side from flash floods

: The way we came

: And just like that, we are back in town

: Iconic Muscat photo with Rocinante

: The palace seen from the harbour side

: A fort on this side …

: … and one on the other

: Tom von Gherken

Day 248 – Muscat, the fairy-tale city

Rise and shine. Time to get moving again.

Good thing we got up with Lina and Michael today as the early start gave us plenty of time to pack. After eight stationary days, almost everything was unpacked. We also wanted to be good house guests and clean up a little after ourselves. 😉 There were a lot of administrative things we weren’t up to date with and so on and so forth. Lina had said that she will have time off from teaching from 9.40 am onward for a bit so we could drop by at school to hand back the keys.

Arriving at about 10 am, we handed everything back, showed Lina and Jorge the fully loaded bike and said good-bye until we’re on our way back out of Oman. It is weird to leave again. We’re looking forward to exploring Oman immensely, but catching up with her and Michael and living in a real flat had been amazing. Now, we were heading to Muscat, about 250 km from Sohar, which is the capital of Oman.

Waving goodbye to our temporary home away from home

Being on the road was different from our last experiences in Southeast Asia. For one, traffic is moving really fast with a speed limit of 120 km/h. But most importantly, drivers reacted to us, something which hasn’t happened in Thailand at all. There would be a tentative honk from behind and then a car would pass us on the fast lane, giving us a thumbs up or a wave or a smile. That was actually quite lovely.

When we were just over the half-way mark, we had a coffee stop. Flo enjoyed the roadside coffee a lot – it seems to have been flavoured with spices. I, however, bought a thin, honeyed pancake as a snack and can only approve of that. 😉 English is spoken widely so we had no trouble ordering food and explaining our trip as the interest in the motorbike was incredible. At the gas station, staff studied our world map before we even finished re-fueling so that it took us a moment to get where the “2015…long trip” comment was coming from. 🙂

Over the first hill. Next up, Matrah and Old Muscat.

Moving, the temperature was fine, just standing in the grilling sun was getting to us again. I took a couple of pictures on the road but really, it was getting into the center of Muscat that was eye-opening. The city sprawls for quite a while before you actually see the sea on one side and the mountains on all three other sides.

We headed to the waterfront as this is the “budget” area. The hotel we had seen in the Lonely Planet was closed and under construction so we asked around in the hotels close by. They were all lovely but way more than we need. This fact was reflected in the price. 60 euro for one night? *cough* They all pretty much stuck to this price. There doesn’t seem to be much backpacker tourism going on which makes more affluent people the most likely candidate for the rooms available. We checked Agoda and one of the hotels further inland had a rate of 40 euro per night. When we arrived, we got a gigantic room including a tv, a kitchen and a bathroom with a bathing tub. All of this is very nice but pricey so we will (have to) camp as much as possible from now on.

With enough space for 20000, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is a sight to behold.

People were incredibly nice to us though. They stopped on the street to have a chat when I was waiting for Flo next to the bike. Some recommended things, others were mostly interested in our travels. There’s a cruise ship in the harbour at the moment, so the German tourists also came by, had a chat and took a picture. I think the most adorable instance was an Omani asking to take a picture of us and then explaining that he is a motorcycle driving instructor.

By the time we’d checked in and unloaded our luggage, it was 3pm. Very hungry, we went out in search for food. Nothing around our hotel was open (siesta?) so we ended up back at the waterfront. Driving around Muscat revealed pretty views but my camera was packed away for most of it. You go along roads, a view opens up and suddenly there are jagged mountains, often even with a round tower or a fort on it. It makes the whole situation slightly unreal and simply looks like a fairy tale. In between the houses, mosques are dotted and you can see domes everywhere, even on the bus stop shelters.

A lot of necklaces

After “lunch”, it was 4.30pm. Instead of rushing to a museum which would close at 6pm, we went into the Mutrah Souq. I was instantly slightly overwhelmed by all the goods, the smells (mostly incense) and again, the attention we attracted in our motorcycle gear. The souq is a maze of alleyways, more or less covered, with stalls selling just about everything. We already found a sticker of the Oman flag to put on the motorbike plus, I bought all of the postcards I will write from Oman.

Pretty dead from a long day, we bought groceries on the way back to the hotel and crashed.