Leaving

In the night we will leave to the airport to start a journey back home. We have had wonderful (almost) 7 weeks in Oman – the country that I knew so little about only half an year ago. I must admit before coming here I had my prejudices, mostly based on what I had heard and read about the Islam religion. Also, it was kind of risk to come so far away with small kids for quite long time but we knew we would manage because we have taken them to different smaller and longer trips since they were born. We have not regretted once that we decided to take this opportunity.

Oman is the country that is very easy to get used to. Its people are very open and friendly, very curious and tolerate. Its nature and culture has so much to offer and I am glad I got to see at least some bits of it. In my mind there were much more plans and ideas but we did not get enough time either finances for everything. Next time!

I hope you have enjoyed to read this blog and learned more about this Middle-East country as well. Good-bye, Oman!

Muscat – the capital of Oman

I still have not told much about our “home town” Muscat. The city is very scattered and reaches around 40 km from one end to another. Through the city run 2 highways that connect different city parts (and the 3^rd highway is built; this is their solution to the problem that there are often traffic jams in highway exits as well as to the fact that Oman is the leading country of car accidents where people get killed) and the only possibility here to move around is to have a car or take a taxi, one cannot reach much by foot, the distances are just too long for walking (and one would “get stuck” while trying to cross the streets and highways even if it seems to be the favourite “sports” of the local immigrants – to cross the highways where there is non-stop flow of cars that drive at least by 120km/h). There should be also some public transportation (buses only) but we are told that only immigrants take it and in general I do not know much about it at all. By now, after 6 weeks, I have gotten to know the city a bit better and another day I told to Andres that maybe soon I could even imagine to drive around by myself (but we are leaving in some days, so I can postpone it;)). The population of Muscat is about 630 000.

As for the different city parts, i would describe the different city parts through my eyes like that: Muttrah is the most beautiful and visiting the Muttrah Souq (market) and walking on the cornice is the must. The Royal Al Alam Palace is also situated near Muttrah. Ruwi – the city part where Andres goes to work is the up-class area where many big and important companies have their offices. Qurum seems to be most of all holiday/tourist area – there are many hotels, restaurants, beach promenade. Ghubrah seems to be most of all living area. Our B&B was also situated in Ghubrah. In (near?) Ghubrah there is also the Grand Mosque – another must when visiting Oman. It is just very impressive and beautiful! Seeb is where the airport is situated. We are living in Muscat Hills now – very close to the airport and by the golf ground. Most of inhabitants in this area seems to be from Europe. There are more parts and districts but those have been the ones where we have been the oftest.

Muscat is very beautiful city – along the highways there is lots of greenery and flowers, and one can just imagine how much effort it requires. Basically all the flower beds and bushes have watering systems, there would not be any other way for the flowers, grass and bushes to survive when it can get up to 50C in summer. Also the street lighting of the city is very grand (that's why we have driven without the car lights several times – you can see so well in the dark thanks to the street lights that you do not notice your car does not have lights on), there is hardly any totally dark spot.

I have to admit I have not got very much of the "city feeling" here (like in London or Beijing or... but right, the population is not too big here either). The scattered city parts and big area do not give any over-crowded feeling, except the busy traffic.

Ar Rustaq and Nakhal

 My uncle and his wife arrived at Oman on Saturday night (they got inspiration for the trip from us:)) and since then we have had many lazy beach days with them and with the boys while Andres have been at work but also showed them around in Muscat. Today our last weekend in Oman started and we decided to drive out of Muscat like we use to do at weekends.

We headed to Ar Rustaq, also a former capital of Muscat. On the way we hoped to visit Al Hamr Fort but it was closed, so we could only walk around the castle and take the photos also from some old almost fallen apart clay houses. When we arrived at Ar Rustaq we first went to some hot springs near the town. Women can put only the feet into the hot spring water while men have private cabins for taking a bath in the hot spring water (or actually I am not sure it is so restricted, there are no signs but this is what we saw). We – women - took the chance and had a bath for our feet as well. The water was very hot, I actually could put my feet into the water for only some seconds, not more. Then we went to Ar Rustaq Fort but unfortunately we did not have any luck with that fort either, it was also closed for some renovation works. After light lunch in the town (we were lucky to find one restaurant that was open. I have probably mentioned before that most of the restaurants are closed on day time when it is the hottest outdoors) we drove on to Nakhal. The road was very scenery – lots of beautiful mountains around. We wanted to visit Nakhal Fort but since we could not find it at once we headed to another attraction nearby – hot spring near Nakhal town. The road was very narrow (but paved) and there was lots of greenery around: high palm tree “forests” on both sides. I really had not seen that much greenery in any other places in Oman so far. Finally we had arrived at big and busy parking lot and then we took a walk around. There were many local families having picnic in the area under the high palm trees, other people were taking a bath in the brook (or river?), some people had parked their car in the middle of the brook and washed it there! The water to the brook came from the hot spring that was a bit higher up and where the local boys/young men were having a bath. Me and the female colleague of Andres were wondering if we had jumped in as well what had they done – gone away or even more had joined us (ha ha, probably the last...) but we decided to not provide them that “pleasure”. We were anyway the only white tourists in the area and everybody looked at us anyway. It was really vivid, busy and merry place! With the help of GPS and a guide book we also found the Nakhal Fort (it was actually situated on the top of the rock but imagine that we did not see it before!) and finally we could visit one fort - half an hour before the closing time:) The fort was very impressive with many small stairs to climb and many lovely rooms with old furniture or pillows along the walls so that one could sit and relax there. We could also enjoy the view over the surrounding area and mountains.

Then we headed back to Muscat direction but decided to have beach stop at Barka, it was still light and everybody who wanted could have a swim in the sea. Tomorrow we will have a lazy beach day again. We have to gain sunshine and warmth before landing to cold and grey Estonia in some days, right?

Tenting and Sur

This weekend we decided to try camping/tenting in Oman. Weathers are perfect for tenting here, it also does not get cold in the nights and there are not any (or well, very few!) mosquitoes, plus it seems you can put up your tent anywhere. Tenting seems to be rather popular in Oman, among locals and tourists. Grilling/BBQ seems to be even more popular and one can often see locals having BBQ right by the highways – something that always looks very funny to me – but since they do not have forest here and more lonely places are probably difficult to reach, they probably do not have much choice either.

Anyway, around noon we drove to Sur direction, exactly where I was with Andres' colleagues a week ago. We decided to have our first stop in Wadi Ash Shab again where we went for a short walk to show the impression of the site. To my big surprise the water had got really down that meant in the beginning of the path we did not have to cross the river – there was no water any more. It was actually good when being there with the kids. After our short walk we decided to explore the seaside of Tiwi and have some snacks. We did not find any very nice/sandy beach at once but at the one where we stopped there were many lovely stones and shells to collect:) The sky was very cloudy and grey and with that kind of sky we knew in Estonia thunderstorm would begin, so we were doubting very hard about tenting. But finally we decided to take a risk and still go tenting for a night. Since it started to get dark in some hours we were trying to find a nice beach in the surroundings and finally we chose a place where there were some other tents up as well (ok, we thought of the other tents as “quality sign” of a good tenting place:)), we became neighbours of a nice family of an Englishman with his Oman wife and kids. When we had put up the tent we decided to go to nearby village to have some warm dinner (we did not have any BBQ equipment with us) and we found a lovely “restaurant” where we had some delicious chicken and bread. We were the stars of the evening – there was not any other tourists but lots of locals (all men, of course!) where they gather in the evenings to talk. There was one local who talked very good English and he became our translator for the Indians who run the restaurant and who could not understand much English but he also stayed with us while we were eating and telling more about the local life and asking many questions about Estonia. Yes, Omani people are very open, friendly and curious, they always want to know where you come from and what's the life like over there and usually the conversation ends with them sincerely saying you “Welcome to Oman!” that makes every tourist very much waited in their country:) After delicious dinner we drove back to our tenting place and we went to “bed” early. Next morning we had a breakfast picnic and then spent several hours on the beach, just swimming and relaxing. Before noon we headed to Sur where we first had lunch and then went for a walk up to the lighthouse. There were very narrow and very dirty small streets on the way to the lighthouse and most of the houses were small and old but there were also some nice villas. And goats everywhere, of course. We could not get into the lighthouse but we could walk around the building and enjoy lovely views to the sea and to the town. Then it was time to head back to Muscat. On the way back i also showed the Sinkhole to Andres and to the boys that also meant I saw the place in the daylight. It was another wonderful weekend!

I have again added new photos to our web gallery.

Museums

We have visited 3 museums in Muscat during this week! I am a bit proud to say it because it seems the museums opening times and “our schedule” never fit. The museums here are usually open from Saturday until Thursday and usually in the mornings, until 1.30 pm or so. Andres works from Saturday until Wednesday and on Thursdays we are often out of Muscat or we get out of the house only after 11am, so we never get enough time for museums visit.

On Thursday when I was in Wadi Ash Shab then Andres went to the Sultan's Armed Forces museum with the boys. They had arrived half an hour before closing time, so we decided to go there again on Friday (fortunately this museum is also open on Fridays). As the name says it gives an overview about the Sultan's armed forces, including lots of Oman's history. There is also outdoor exhibition with planes, army vehicles and even boats.

Today (Andres had a day off:)) we went to Children's museum first. It included different experiments from physics and chemistry areas and most of it was interactive exhibition. Though, our boys were still too small to make most of the experiments but older kids seemed to have more fun. At least there was a playground for the small kids and our boys enjoyed it to the fullest.

Our next stop was Natural History museum but we arrived at closing time:( Fortunately the museum was also open in the afternoon today, so we had lunch and went to the beach in meantime and then returned to the museum. There was very interesting exhibition about Oman's nature: different nature areas, animals, birds, snakes, insects, whales and dolphins. Outdoors there was also a small botanical garden.

Of course, with two small kids it is complicated to get enough time to read all the stands but we got pretty good overview, anyway. The ticket prices here are very low, 300-500 baizas (about 0,6-1 euro) per person (and small kids gratis). All the stands were also in English, of course, and very often the museum staff came to give further explanations. 

I have added new photos to our web gallery.