Muscat …. not Muskrat

 Kathy was not feeling well enough to go to shore today.  So you will have to put up with my writing for this post.  We took off from the pier before most of the buses to beat the crowds to the first big sight…the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  On the way we saw a awful lot of very neat, tidy, clean and well ordered buildings.  Numerous ministries of this, that and the other, all clean fresh and beautifully landscaped in one area.  There were also museums, various schools (both public and private) as well as a fabulous Opera House for performing arts and cultural ceremonial preservation; in another area near-by.  There were also usual commercial shopping areas with many familiar names like Lulu. 

Down near the water and beach there was a stretch for embassy row, but today there were some VIPs in the area so the police were restricting access. I was disappointed because I wanted to see if the American embassy looked like an out of place fortress as it does in so many places we’ve been. (They often as not look like prisons with all the barbed wire and high walls). The hotel area was not far from the embassies and near the beach.

Opeera house

All this super nice, clean, neat building is new since the sultan over threw his father in 1970.  Even with the discovery of oil in 1962, the old sultan did not do much for his country, but sit in his palace and recluse away.  Qaboos, as we said, has shown himself to be an oil fired terror at building, based on his plans for a big future.  What we saw in Salalah was the active construction starting phase with all the dirt and unfinished buildings and we see here vision largely done.  And the result is good.

By the way, all this neatness is not without a significant amount of government input; both money and many rules.  No residential buildings shall be taller than 3 stories; commercial buildings are limited to 9 stories and ALL exteriors must be white (except I note, mosques and royal property). This whiteness gives a vision of a sea of white buildings when one approaches the port.  This is supposed to be to prevent visual “pollution” , preserve a cultural norm and save energy (makes sense).

The beach did have people out enjoying the ocean….not many, but a whole lot more than the zero we saw in Salalah.  Not surprising that the hotel area is close to the water.  It is rather clear that Qaboos and his advisors are planning for that time when oil runs out.  They know that to fall back on the traditional trade in dates, mother of pearl and fish won’t hack it . They are obviously aiming at the tourist trade. They have a special school for hospitality management and related subjects.  In fact that is where our guide for today is doing his post-grad work.

Women's area

That huge carpet and chandeliers
in the men's section

Holy cow!  The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is a stunner!  The outside is lovely and surrounded by beautiful gardens with fountains and running water as well as golf-green like grassy area.  It also has a generous car park with trees shading almost every space; cars don’t get hot. The women’s area has a very large, hand woven rug from Iran and 4 Swarovski Crystal chandeliers and 2 TV monitors on the wall so they can see the Imam. That’s all beautiful, when you are a man you get much more!

Some statistics for the men’s prayer room (hall is a better word).  It’s huge. Nearly 300ft x 300 ft (1 football field by 1 football field).  It has 36 Swarovski crystal chandeliers; 35 the same size as the 4 in the women’s area and one outsized one in the middle.  The big one is nearly 120ft tall, under an ornate dome, has 110 light bulbs and weighs 18,000 pounds.  This is the 2^nd largest single piece (was 1^st till the one recently done for Dubai) hand woven oriental rug on the floor.  It covers the whole area and was woven in Iran by 600 women AND it outweighs the big chandelier at over 48,000 pounds.

When asked about the cost of this magnificent project we were told that is unknown as all the money came from the Sultan's own pocket and one does not tell of the cost of their charitable work.

Our guide was very anxious to explain the rituals and actually “prayed” one of the shorter prayers for us.  The way he held his eyes half shut and sort of sang the prayer made me think that this comes from having been required to memorize it from  5 years old.  He then told us about all that memorization and when asked he said that children did not come to the mosque until 10 or older so as to not break the concentration of prayer.

The walk to the 'covered' parking lot.

We did ask about his family.  He has 8 sisters and 4 brothers, but his father has only the one wife for all those. He also told us about the rules for choosing a wife; it’s the same as the other places around here…no surprise. If you choose to marry a second wife, the first wife has to agree.  And if the first wife doesn’t want the second wife to live with them, the husband has to build the second wife a home as nice as the first wie’s home.  Also, whatever presents he gets for Wife #1, he has to also get for Wife # 2.  With the ability to have 4 wives, this could be an expensive proposition.

Sultan's yacht

Bos in front of Sultan's office

One last item.  We see lots of men wearing the mussars, those little embroidered caps, and the turbans. Yossef pointed out that the turban goes over the mussar and is wrapped on in a specific way.  He then demonstrated the wrap for us.  Certainly more complicated than tying a tie. We then learned that all the public sector employees are required to wear the white dishdash and a specific patterned turban done just so.  Also the school kids do this too.  He wasn’t sure what the specific rules of dress for the girls/women are, but they also are uniform.