Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

September 20

We arrived early this morning and again, we are the first cruise ship this season – and the Queen Elizabeth 2 arrived as well.

It is change over day – a new cruise segment begins – so always a busy day for the ship and a good day to be out.  One passenger who was leaving told me that they tried to stay on but the ship is completely booked.

108 degrees today.  Our plan is to go to the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.  I booked tickets for 9 AM online so we wouldn’t have the same experience we had in Barcelona.

It is a sad day in Dubai as Shaikh Rashid, son of the ruler Shaikh Mohammed died yesterday at age 33 of a heart attack. They are observing 3 days of mourning here.

Our cab driver took us to the Burj Khalifa – and we were his first cruise passengers of the season.

The skyscraper is unbelievable.  There was no line when we got there, but you can see the way the queue would go when it is busy.  The elevator takes only 2 minute to go up to the 124th floor and you hardly feel it move.  Here are some of the views from there.

This is from the bottom through a skylight

This one is from the 125th floor looking down

Unbelievable place!

As you leave there is the story of how it was built – one floor added every three days, and the whole project took only 5 years!

After that we went to the Dubai Mall – which has 1200 shops.  We went into a supermarket first to buy camels milk and camels milk chocolate (chocolate is delicious, by the way – I don’t drink milk, but Norm thought it was OK). And there is this part of the store for non Muslims.

Here are a few other shots of the mall.  We had lunch there in a middle eastern restaurant, both bought some shoes and I had to go to Sephora.  There are all of the American stores and restaurants, including Cheesecake Factory.  In fact, if you didn’t see people in robes and headresses, you would think you were in any American city!  The signs are all in Arabic and English. There is an Olympic size ice skating rink, a streetscape with retractable roof, an aquarium and an underwater zoo!

Amazing when there was the call to prayer you heard it across the mall

This is a fountain with these silver diver statues

another view of the waterfall

Off to the lifeboat drill (again!) and then we will sail for Fujairah, UAE.

September 17

Today we did a tour called Mystical Muscat, recommended by one of the destination staff, Nancy, who lived here for 6 months.

Our guide was Abraham and he spoke almost perfect English.  They take English from first grade on.

All education through university is free as is health care.  They don’t pay any taxes at all, crime is low and each Omani gets a  600 meter piece of land to build a house on if they wish to.  While this is the most conservative country for dress for women (sleeves to wrist, pants to ankle and hair covered), they are more liberal in other ways- women can drive, hold jobs, serve in the military, etc. Local women are all covered, sometimes their whole face.

Here is a shot of us with my head scarf.

It was 101° today, not the best day to be so covered up, but cover I must! Not the men though.  And of course there were 2 women who came with capris or short sleeve shirts in spite of repeated instructions, both written and verbal.  The one with the capris got a loan of long socks from someone and the one with short sleeves had to wrap her arms in scarves. You just can’t enter the mosque otherwise, they are serious about this.

Muscat is the capital of Oman and its largest city. We visited the Sultan Qaboos Mosque which was completed in 2001. It holds 20,000 people in total. Women and men pray separately, the women’s section holds 700 and the much grander men’s section holds 8000 with the rest of the capacity in surrounding rooms. You must take your shoes off to enter.

Muslims pray 5 times a day and Abraham demonstrated both how they must wash and how they pray.

Abraham explaining the Koran

The mosque is quite spectacular with Persian rugs that are made in one piece for the huge room and chandeliers that pictures can’t do justice to.

The building and gardens are beautiful.

Here is the toilet at the mosque!

After our visit to the mosque, we put our shoes on, took our scarves off and went to the Muttrah Souk , a huge market that winds around in many small alleys, it is a place that the local people shop and there are also lots of tourists there.

A Muslim family leaving the market, tourists follow!

We were intrigued that so many similar shops can survive, and we loved the spice shops and the ones selling fabric and decorative pieces for sewing clothing.

Our last visit was to the Bait Al Zubair museum. It was a beautiful private collection of traditional Oman clothing, weapons, maps, household items, jewelry, etc.  They have a replica of an old home, a village and colorful goats representing those found in the country. We couldn’t take pictures inside but this is some of what we saw in the outside exhibits.

Norm next to the old style home

Muscat village replica

We then drove by the palace on our way back to the ship. The Sultan doesn’t actually live there, but it is the official place of government.

We also saw his yacht in the harbor near our ship. Quite impressive!That is a locally made wooden boat in the foreground.

We were very glad to get back to the air conditioned ship, but it was a fascinating day.

We have an invitation to dine with the captain this evening. Looking forward to that.

And by the way, Costco is supplying the ship, at least with water!

September 15

We reached the port of Salalah safely, at times we saw Navy ships (couldn’t see their flags) sailing along with us.

As we were waiting to go on our excursion, the destination staff set our expectations a bit lower, explaining that we should be “explorers” and to let our guides know if their English could not be understood, etc.  So we weren’t expecting a great tour of Salalah.

We first were given a tourist entry permit and told to carry it with us during our time ashore. As our vehicle passed through port security, a policeman came on board and checked that everyone had a card.

We were pleasantly surprised with our day – we do tend to look at things as explorers anyway!  Our guide was Mohammed and he shared a lot about Oman and also the city of Salalah. This city is a study in contrasts.  As you leave the port, you see the barren and bleak landscape of the desert. They seem to be doing construction everywhere.

But then, you begin to see green, some 5 star hotels and apartment buildings. There are a lot of cars and traffic here.  In the first picture below, in front of the apartment, there is a cemetery.

We visited the new Grand Mosque – and since we didn’t arrive in port until 10 and the ship wasn’t cleared until 10:30, we were unable to go inside (visits by non-Muslims can only take place between 8 – 11 AM.)  But it was worth seeing from the outside. There is a school and a library inside. There was a funeral going on there.  Mohammed explained that funerals here take 3 days.  First, the body must be washed, then the next day everyone goes to the mosque to pray and the third day they go to the cemetery to pray and bury the person.  People are buried on their side facing Mecca.  The tombstones don’t usually have writing on them as they don’t go to cemeteries to honor the dead.  Women have three stones and men have two. This is why the cemetery in the photo above doesn’t look like one.

Main entrance to Grand Mosque

Where the ritual washing of the feet takes place before entering the Mosque

Our guide, Mohammed

Mosque outside

The ritual washing chamber

We passed where tents are set up for weddings.  This is a big deal here, and usually hundreds of people come.  Three camels are slaughtered for the feast and many kg of rice is prepared and served.  People give the groom money and the amount usually pays for 80% of the wedding.  The homes are big here because usually a man has 4 – 5 wives. Mohammed is 27 and he has one wife and is looking for the second. They have many children too. Dowry for a wife is between 5 and 10,000 US dollars. If the man is wealthy he may have a separate house for each wife.

We then made a stop in the garden area where coconuts and bananas are grown – there are 20 varieties of bananas grown here, from finger sized to the size we are used to.  We had coconut milk right from the coconut!

A few other facts about Oman – their main source of revenue is, of course, oil, which accounts for 70%.  Gas costs 32 cents/liter here as compared to about 1.70/liter in Europe.  Average income is 28,000 US dollars but of course there are extremes in wealth.  Health care is completely free. They also have a health center at the border with Yemen and provide care for Yemeni people if needed. We saw huge homes and also slum like conditions.  We (women) were told to dress conservatively, shirts to wrist and pants to ankle. It was hot but not as hot as it has been. Men and women wear robes and women are generally completely covered, even their faces, outside the home. They do not want to be photographed, so we honored that of course.

Boys and girls go to school together for the first 4 years, starting at age 6, then the schooling is separate until college.  Women pray separately in mosques.

We stopped for a short time at the Al Husn Souq, which had shops of all kinds.  Their main product is frankincense.  They burn it, make perfume out of it and use it for medicinal purposes (more on that later).

Mohammed shows us how to use these scarves to make the traditional headress (some people bought and wore them!)

One of the fragrance shops

This is how they sell the frankincense

After the visit to the Souk, we went to our last stop, the Al Balid Archeological site, a UNESCO World Heritage site and we visited the frankincense museum on the site. This is on the Frankincense Trail where excavation has shown the remains of the importance of the trade in ancient times. Frankincense is a gum resin extracted from the tree trunks through an incision.  Legend says that flying snakes protected the trees. We didn’t see any of those! There are 4 types of frankincense and it is used for almost everything here! These posters in the museum show that.

The frankincense tree

Outside of the museum, you could not take pictures inside, but it was an impressive place

Here is what you COULD take a picture of – the hanging handle is to help handicapped people lift off of the toilet.  There was one in the ladies, Norm said there were two in the mens.  Guess they need more help!

Here are a few more shots of the area – the beach was deserted (women cannot go unless they are totally covered.)

Another mosque

Marketplace

The lagoon at the museum

The beach with the palm trees

So, we were explorers, and we learned a lot and enjoyed the day.  Tomorrow we have a sea day on the way to Muscat, the capital of Oman.