I cannot remember exactly why I wanted to have a look at this country, but something has had it on my list for a long time. We, my son Paul is looking after me, have only been here for a week and have spent time in two cities, Muscat and Sur, been up into the mountains, into a sandy desert, walked and climbed around forts and castles and looked at villages in ravines which have enough water to produce some green vegetation. Along the way we have had one spectacular and vertiginous day’s drive, seen a truly awesome wadi (canyon), spring filled water holes, many date palms, had the compulsory camel ride and desert sunset, wandered around not very exciting alleyways and been very HOT.
There are two groups of people in Oman. The locals and the immigrants. The local men usually wear a long white tunic, dishdash, and a brimless cap. Other colours are allowed but nothing too bright. The women’s outside wear is usually a black cover all outfit with varying degrees of face covering. Judging by the alternative female clothing seen in the souks they can be very bright, sparkly, and slinky when out of the public view. All the usual Arabic stuff. The tourist advice says men should not really wear shorts, and we have been pretty obedient, but I have been naughty on the last couple of days when the thought of hot longs was too hard to deal with. We have not seen a local male doing anything manual, like lifting something heavy or delivering you a meal, but they do drive taxis. The immigrants all seem to be from India, mostly Kerala, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, with the exception, in our Sur hotel, of some Philippinos. Given that we are travelling a bit before the tourist season this has helped us in watching a few cricket games in places where the real workers have control of the TV remote. We presume that the many large and grand government buildings have lots of under-worked local bureaucrats.
Local people we met, male only, are very hospitable and friendly. If you are in a shop and get chatting, a small coffee and dates are always offered. Or you will be beckoned in and the offer made. Because coffee makes me itchy, my polite refusal is greeted with an almost imperceptible hint of wonderment. Omani food includes a lot of rice, plenty of meat, and all in big portions. A meal that costs less than $NZ10 might have soup, salad, a big bowl of rice and more meat than I can eat. If the eating place is very local cutlery has to be requested because I am not well equipped for using my right hand to shovel food in. Luckily most of the restaurants are owned or run by the main immigrant group so good Indian food is available. Alcoholic drinks are a rarity but delicious cold fruit ones are not. Our favourite one being mango, and for me, lemon and mint a close second. The local currency is over $NZ4 for 1 dinar, so prices seem ridiculously cheap until you do a bit of arithmetic.
The first place we stayed was in Muscat, the capital and largest city. We got there after a 6-hour bus ride from Dubai. (One of the more boring places to be stuck in according to me.) I expected it would be mostly through arid country with not much development. The arid part was right, but most of the way there were built up areas along the coast that morphed into towns every now and then. Muscat sort of straggles around the coast line with different bits built into the ravines that go down to sea. The population is 1.7m out of a national total of 4.5. Our first impression when we walked from our hotel down to the waterfront was that half the shops were for "Ladies Tailoring" and the rest for second-hand furniture. Subsequent experience showed that the former was consistent in most urban areas but the furniture was a local thing. It has a waterfront corniche, but only a few places there for eating and drinking because only a nutter would want to sit out in the heat. There is a very tidy and modern souk with an area trying to sell you souvenirs but not in the shirt-grabbing way you get in some other countries. There is also a gold selling area which seemed to have no real security, which is consistent with a country where the vendors don’t bother to bring in their outside stock when they close for the night, or the midday to 4 resting time.
Politically the country is an absolute monarchy. The Sultan is the final decision maker for everything and also the minister of all the serious administration matters. The present one is a newbie now in his third year. His cousin was the previous one who clocked up 50 years in the job, and is greatly revered it seems. If you are a poor third world country, with a history of Sultans dying mysteriously, and then find you have reasonable amounts of oil and gas, then this country sounds like it was lucky to have had this long term ruler. There are no blatant signs of ridiculous wasting of money. The infrastructure is impressive with very good main roads, education seems to be a priority, important historical sites have been renewed, and there is a feeling of sensibility about the place. The roads have one downside which is a seemingly obsessive liking of speed humps, but we weren’t in a hurry. Part of the sensibility might relate to the British military educational influence on these gentlemen but I suspect it also reflects a national attitude. Of course, as with any dictatorship, all is not just sweetness and light. It is also a moslem dictatorship so not a good place to be gay, or married and fooling around with another married person. Both crimes can see you in jail. Women are naturally inferior to men and there is a special police force for dealing with any unruly people, like football fans, in whatever way they like. They cannot be identified either. Critics of the Sultan do not have a happy time, and I expect that the present younger generations, who do not know what things used to be like, will find the present system a problem in time.
In the museum and tourist literature there is plenty of stuff about the wisdom of the Sultans and not very much about the usefulness of the country having oil and gas reserves. In the bits about Omanis having been great boat builders and traders in the past, there is rarely a mention of their very important role in the slave trade. But when you compare Oman with its neighbours it seems a very sensible place. For tourists it is a very safe place with nil chance of someone emptying your pocket without permission.
In Sur we visited a dhow building yard and a maritime museum. The building seemed restricted to fixing up old ones and making models, although there was a big one being built from scratch for the tourist trade. The men doing the work had a pretty rudimentary set of tools and I couldn’t help thinking a belt sander or two would greatly improve productivity. We also came across a small shop that made models and the workshop was out a side door. We were invited to go in and have a look, which we did but only briefly because the air was thick with polyurethane which was being sprayed on a piece of work, without any sort of a booth or protection. A big dhow model, about 2m long, cost around NZ$16,000 and we did wonder quite what you would do with it.
We did a short 3-night tour with a delightful driver guide. He was very happy the tourist season was starting because it meant he could work seven days a week and not have to go home and argue with his wife. Apparently she is keen on "Ladies Tailoring" and she never has anything suitable to wear. The day we spent travelling up to a place in the mountains was the highlight for me. We took a shortcut on a track that was originally made by the army for its use and it is certainly not for normal cars. 4WD is a necessity although some tourists apparently have a go in their rental car because it is on Google maps. They would have an unforgettable experience and we did see one little Toyota car, stopped, and no doubt wondering if they could turn around and get back. Our man had done it all before but was very careful, thankfully, as often we were creeping along the side of a steep mountain with the bottom a thousand metres below. We were sort of following a very large canyon with forays up the side and luckily the drop was usually on the driver’s side. At one stage he pointed to a far away peak a long way above, and laughed as he said "We go there". It turned out he wasn’t joking and we ended up there, a bit over 2,000m up. From the place we stayed in it was a short drive to look at the starting point of this canyon. The sides went straight down for about 1500m, various figures were provided, and health and safety was minimal. I am all right with heights if there is something suitable stopping me from falling over, but here I crept carefully close to the edge, made my stomach go woop, and retreated. Apparently a couple of months ago some local guys were fooling around with chairs by the edge, and one went over. The nice thing about being up high was a considerable drop in temperature. We left by another very civilised road.
On the matter of safety, one of our hotels had a lift with no internal door, so if you leant against it while in motion a slicing effect would happen. Being very observant we kept well clear.
Outside of areas where there are springs, which are tourist attractions, and limited irrigation is possible, green vegetation is limited to small low solitary shrubs. In the mountain areas there aren’t even those. It’s all brown and grey and steep and rugged. It would be very easy to get lost. They do have some sandy desert which is a nice golden colour for a change, and on our drive to the place where we had to ride a camel for about 3 minutes we were discussing getting lost in a desert. It happened to Kay and me in Libya when both our driver and guide managed to get completely confused and we had to start thinking about how much water and food we had. This time it was our Omani friend who began looking around and slowing down and then stopped, having realised he wasn’t where he should be. Paul and I enjoyed discussing this with him as he turned around and sorted the situation.
Oman is an interesting place and certainly worth visiting. If you like walking there are lots of opportunities in the mountains of varying grades of difficulty, and the scenery is memorable. The people are very affable and while not a cheap place it’s a lot better value than Dubrovnik. It is also visa free now and you don’t have to catch a bus from Dubai. We just wanted to see the country.
Tomorrow we are off to Azerbaijan, as long as Armenia doesn’t do anything silly tonight.
Dennis.