This morning we take a half day city tour of Muscat and Abdul, our guide, arrives promptly at 8am to pick us up. Two others, Nina from Thailand and Brad from Toronto, join us. Nina is lovely and a serious traveller. She’s been to over 150 countries!
Our first stop is the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. It’s stunning with a white marble exterior and manicured grounds. We’re allowed to visit the men’s prayer room since it’s open for tourists between 8-11am. The marble was Imported from Italy, the intricately carved teak wood is from Burma and the Iranian handwoven carpet which measures 230’ x 200’ was completed by 400 women weavers.
Abdul shows us the steps for ablution that must be completed before going inside to pray. Under running water he starts with the washing of the hands, then the lower arms, the face 5 times, inside the nose, the ears, the head and then lastly, the feet. Everything must be clean including your thoughts and things that you say. They pray 5 times a day at designated hours that are decided upon by the Imam, unless travelling and then they only pray 3 times. Women pray at home the majority of the time as they’re busy raising the children and running the household but there is a smaller version of the men’s prayer room in a different building for them. Children won’t attend the mosque until around 10 years old but will have been taught what to say and the motions required beforehand.
I ask Abdul if he’s married and he replies that he’s single. With an arched eyebrow I say,
“Oh really. Interesting.”
He starts to laugh and I have to clarify that I don’t mean that I’m interested per se. I mean, I’m probably old enough to be his mother! He has a big smile and is quick to laugh. He seems to be a bit of a character with a good sense of humour.
We have a quick visit to the Mutrah Souk. Due to the time of day, we’re pretty much the only people other than the shopkeepers. As soon as they see us, they hop up from their stools, grab their wares and begin their sales pitch. I’m not interested in purchasing anything, so I get lots of practice saying, “La, shukran” a.k.a. No thank you. To which they reply,
“Come into my shop. Looking is for free.”
Stray cats wander the souk, yowling and panting from the heat. I feel so badly for them. I see a man feeding a pack of them on the street and giving them bowls of water. Where do they all come from?
A few more sights, including one of the Sultan’s palaces and then Abdul drops us back at our hotel. He recommended a restaurant for us to try for dinner, Al Diwan Turkish Restaurant, so we put it in the GPS and head off to find it. I order the grilled King Fish and “Greek salad”. I’ve put that in quotations, because the only thing Greek about the salad is the feta cheese. The portions are massive and the bread that comes with Becca’s hummus is over a foot long. I try my best to finish my dinner but my belly can only hold so much and I when our waiter stops by the table to ask if I’m finished, I motion to my stomach and say,
“I have a food baby. So much food! I can’t eat anything else.” He laughs and gives me a high five.
It takes us a few u-turns and driving in circles to get back on the highway to the hotel as I’m having issues following the GPS. I see a sigh for Al Qurm and disregard what it’s telling me to do and take the exit. We’re back on track. Until I miss yet another exit at the 30th roundabout I’ve gone through today. There are very few traffic lights so the roundabouts keep the flow of traffic moving. By the end of this trip I shall master the bloody things. I’ve been cutting cars off due to being in the wrong lane when exiting, and also cutting cars off when I was in the correct exit lane until realizing it had suddenly changed to only one lane instead of two. I can’t win!
Tomorrow morning we being our road trip with our first stop being Bimmah Sinkhole for a swim.
