Oman - the Pearl of Arabia

Muscat, the capital city of Oman, is a kaleidoscopic mixture of the modern and the traditional, which extends over a large area, making walking an impossible option of transport. The modern part of the city hosts the royal opera house (the first one to be built in the Gulf), the several-kilometre-long Qurum beach, numerous shopping centres, a handful of museums and a modern grand mosque inaugurated in 2001, which contains the second largest carpet in the world. Most of the important buildings, such as the grand mosque, the opera house and the airport are named after the ruler, Sultan Qaboos, who is the country’s leader since 1970. He is the country’s sultan, supreme commander of the armed forces, prime minister, and minister of defense, foreign affairs and finance. One of his palaces is a cute colorful building close to the national museum and just a few kilometers away from the main souq, Muttrah, in the old town. 

 

 

I move between the new and the old part of the city by taxi – buses simply don’t go to the area where I’m staying. All taxi drivers are locals and most of them initiate conversation. They all ask the same questions: First time in Oman? Family here? Are you married? I enjoy the game of telling each a different story. Sometimes I am visiting family, other times I have friends in Muscat, the third time I am here on vacation. Whenever I say that I am not married, I can see their enthusiasm rise. They want to know the reason. They don’t believe the excuse that marrying at 25 is rare in my country. Then I ask about their wives and children. The enthusiasm plummets. Fortunately, the places I am visiting are insufficient far apart to get past this level of awkwardness.     

 

Public transportation outside Muscat is scarce, but the national transport company runs daily buses to Nizwa, an ancient capital of Oman about 160 kilometers from Muscat. The staff in my hotel are kind enough to ring the bus station in Ruwi and confirm what I read on a dodgy website – buses indeed depart at eight a.m. As I get to the station, a kind local asks my whereabouts. He seems to know about the bus to Nizwa and tells me to follow him. I do but his phone rings all of a sudden. He picks up, starts talking in Arabic with a lot of “inshallah’s” and “habibi’s” and he seems to have lost a sense of time. It looks like he has forgotten me, and the closer it gets to eight the more nervous I am. Luckily, there is an Asian tourist around who is headed in the same direction. She has just bought her ticket and she shows me to the ticket office. Mashallah, I will get on this bus on time!

 

 

The main bus station in Nizwa is in the middle of nowhere. There is a gas station, a highway, a couple of “Omani cafeterias” offering fresh juices and fried chicken nuggets around and that is it. There is no sign of the giant fort, which is supposed to be downtown. Not surprisingly nobody gets off here. Instead we all take a tea and bathroom break (the driver included) and continue after 10 minutes. I try to tell the driver that I want to go to the fort. Little success – he keeps repeating his “Inshallah” and drives on. I see a brown road sign for the Nizwa fort (yay, a tourist attraction!) and point to it. After a few hundred meters the driver stops in the middle of the road, just after passing through a roundabout and tells me to get off. The fort is just about 500 meters away. It has been recently restored and it houses a museum highlighting the role of the ancient capital and the local irrigation system use in date plantations known as falaj. It is educational, but lacks some signage. 

 

 

After the visit, I hang around the Nizwa souk, which is just in front of the fort. A handful of elderly German tourists are sitting in the shade and there are stray cats everywhere. The vegetable souk is very empty and so is the meat souk. I enter one of the handcraft souks, but I am asked to leave. Of course, it is well past twelve so it’s time to pause the work until four, get some lunch and rest while the sun is the strongest. Unfortunately, I cannot visit again after four – the only bus to Muscat is supposed to leave at three according to the driver. Just to be safe, I catch a taxi to take me to the main bus station in the middle of nowhere at 2.30. I reach the station only to find that it is closed. I ask an Indian waiter at a nearby cafeteria about the bus. He tells me it leaves at four. But the driver said three. Oh well, time is relative and since there is no other passenger around the station, I decide to get a fresh juice. The service is prompt (to be frank, I am the only customer) and the juice is phenomenal. Just as I finish, I am again asked to leave. The cafeteria is closing for the afternoon rest too! I return back to the closed ticket office. At four, it opens. At 4.30 the bus arrives. At 4.45 we head back to Muscat. 

 

Just a few hours later it is time for me to leave The Pearl of Arabia. As with most trips, this one was too short too. But at least I got stocked up with spices, took some cute pictures of dolphins and learned that whatever goes wrong, it will soon be fixed, Inshallah!