Muscat, Oman March 31, 2007

Shocking jagged mountains right at the seaside. This is Muscat, Oman. Before 1970, Oman was basically in the dark. Why? They didn't even have power!! You cannot imagine the changes this country has made since 1970, when Sultan Qaboos bin Said took over. There were no roads to speak of in 1970, now they are all paved beautifully and have flowerbeds all down the center and on both sides. Their landscaping in the desert was like a golf course. Look at the mountains, they are rugged and dry. They have state of the art watering systems on common areas now to make their city beautiful. No trash exists anywhere. The people of Oman do not have to pay ANY taxes. School is free all the way through college and health insurance is $3.00 per year. The reason they have to pay $3.00 per year is because when it was free, people would not keep up with their health cards with all their information on them. The Sultan was tired of reprinting them and decided people would keep up with them better if they had to pay for their cards!! Other than the $3 per year for their card, all the rest is FREE!! The people here are really crazy about this Sultan. He is in his early 60's and had NO children and the people are not sure whether he is married or not. Supposedly, he has written in his will who in his family will become the next Sultan after his death. Surprisingly, the weather here was about as nice as any we have had. It was about 80 degrees but the humidity was only about 20%. Very nice. Oman has about 2.4 million people. Most of them are Muslim. In fact, Muscat has the 2nd largest mosque in the middle east. We went. You will see it. It was HUGE!!! 20,000 worshipers can be in there at the same time. Since Oman only really got modernized in 1970, there is not a lot here. What they do have is a very old shopping market and a really big fish market. Let's have a look...

Mary Pat and Jay could not resist their chance to "go Muslim" for a quick photo for our blog! They are always good sports! You will see that the Muslim men mostly wear white and the women mostly wear black. Here's why. The men consider white to be the most reverent color. The woment wear black because women are not allowed to show any outline of their bodies. White might be too see through. Even though the temperatures here can soar over 100 in the summer, they have to wear black. On top of that, most of them have a whole other outfit under that black robe! HOT!!! They have to keep their heads covered. You will see how well that went over with our group!


This old shopping market is called a souq. The souq is only for pedestrians. No cars or vehichicles allowed inside. They sell everything in here. Some things were bargains and some things were WAY expensive. The beads and necklaces were all over the place. There were scarfs, teapots, jeannie lamps....

These men look like Palestinians. They were sandal shopping and I thought it was a good picture.


Kathleen found this crazy ring in an old antique/junk shop. She loved it, I didn't. She did not get it!


Where would I wear this? He wanted $20 for it. I could not see me at Target or the carpool line in it so I passed. Maybe I should have snapped it up for somebody at home??

Look at all the necklaces!!!

The Grand Mosque. The carpet in the huge worship area here is in the Guiness Book of World Records as being the largest carpet in the world! I think that is what it says in Arabic!! One thing you need to know. Men and women pray seperately here. This huge place is for the men. Our guide showed us the Koran. He was trying to tell us how much Muslims and Christians have in common???

Can you believe the size of this place? It only took 6 years to build it, amazing.


This main chandieler weighs over 8,000 pounds!!

It was enormous. Heads covered, shoes off, we took the tour.

This is Kathleen outside the women's worship area. This is where the women go to worship. Lovely, but not nearly as extravagant as the men's.



Outside the mosque, marble was abundant.

This marble bench and fountain-like area was for the people to "clean up" before they went in to pray. They wash their hands 3 times, their feet 3 times and their faces 3 times. They even rinse out their mouths 3 times. There are more stations like this around the mosque.




A lovely asian toilet with a built in shower.

Kathleen got a lesson on tying her scarf.
I wasn't all that happy about the whole place. Can you tell?
Our guide had to fix Kathleen's scarf as her hair was showing.
I thought she looked cute with a little bit of hair showing in the front!!
Main entrance of the mosque.





The Sultan's palace. Well, it was his first palace. Now, he has 5. The gates that you see are a reminder of the past. Back before this Sultan, the gates to the city were locked up at 10:00p.m. every night!!!

The front of the Sultan's palace. This was as close as we could get. There is a large flagpole on top of the palace. If the flag is flying, the Sultan is home. There was no flag. He was not there!

We had to see the fresh market. Look at those veggies. He was loading up okra!! They eat okra here!!

Can you see the labels on the bananas?? Del Monte. Not made in Oman!!
This man was really unsure about what we were doing in the market. He did have nice eggplant.
Figs are a delicacy here. This man is forcing a fig on me!
Charles and the kids are happy to be in the fruit and vegetable area.
The FISH market. Nicholas is about spent on fish. He asked me why we have to go look at fish, dead ones everywhere we go!!?? It is where all the hustle and bustle is in the town and we got to see it all!!

This man tried to get me to clean a fish! YUCK!!

Fish, Fish, Fish and no ice...again!

Kathleen is being a good big sister. Taking care of Nicholas when he thinks he just can't stand it anymore!





BIG fish!!




Look at the crowds of people there to get their fish.

All these men were lined up cleaning hundreds, thousands of fish!!

Shrimp on an oriental rug!!!
Kathleen, Nicholas and Grant are all happy to be on the bus out of the fish market. We had a fun day. Next stop is Salalah, Oman. We are going to see the tomb of the prophet Job.