More Muscat

View of the giant ornamental incense burner in Al-Riyam Park and a watchtower from our perch. Something about the incense burner looks very UFO to me...

We continued our exploration around the Mutrah (older) area of town and the Corniche. The more we travel in the region the more we can see that each country has their own distinct style of mosque, and I really think Oman's are my favorite. Beautiful colorful mosaic tile domes tend to be the style here, and I got a little bit carried away with my camera..
.
Another mosque next to the Mutrah Souq. I love the contrast of the mosque with the mountains behind. Mountains and rocky cliffs are another prevalent sight in Muscat. The city is basically built into the mountains.

My attempt at an artistic shot of the minaret.

The Muscat Corniche.

View of the Corniche looking out toward the Sultan's yacht.

And once we got bored of exploring the corniche (and discovered that most of the forts are a lot more difficult to get close to and/or unable to be climbed), we got a little bored and decided to head down to the beach.

It was low-tide and there were tons of shells, so I had a blast collecting them. One of the best parts of Muscat is that all of the beaches are public beaches so you are free to just walk-on where ever, notwithstanding some very nice hotels with so-called 'private' beaches.

The weather was lovely, however, unfortunately, extremely windy so swimming at the beach would have been a bit chilly. We collected shells and walked around for a bit watching some men trying to fish in the low-tide pool using improvised fishing equipment. After we tired of that we found a little cafe right across the street from the beach and went for a little afternoon snack, or rather, sheesha for Jared, delicious fresh mint-lemon juice for me. Really relaxing and just nice to be out of town doing something different for a change.

We stuck around the cafe until the sun set and then headed back to the hotel to regroup before heading out to dinner at Mumtaz Mahal, which is supposed to be the best Indian restaurant in town and is also located on top of a big hill with great views down to the city. Our plans were thrown for a little bit of a loop, however, when we realized that the Muscat Festival was going on and that the restaurant was located right in the midst of it. So we got stuck in festival traffic trying to get to the restaurant to park our car. Luckily, the Klebanoff mantra of always leave excessively early for everything because early = on time and on time = late worked in our favor and we just made it in time for our dinner booking, although not without great frustration. Dinner was delicious though and because they didn't have my favorite Indian dish (chicken tikka masala, slightly boring I know, but it never lets me down) I ended up trying another yummy chicken green curry. A lovely and relaxing first day in Muscat.

View of Oman Dive Center's private beach and harbor.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and after having the sketchy hotel breakfast which included chicken hotdogs (actually a more common item than you would think on sketchy breakfast buffets over here, which we've experienced our fair share of) and chicken nuggets, checked out of the hotel to head to the beach.

Since we had already hit up the public beach the previous day we decided to try someplace new and instead headed out of town about 10 minutes to the Oman Dive Center. It took a little while to get there on hilly mountain roads, but it was well worth the drive because it turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

Wide view of the Oman Dive Center beach with their super-long dock jutting out 100 meters or so into the harbor.

So we luxuriated at the beach for a couple hours, soaking up some sun and swimming in the harbor.

Jared, with a view of the Oman Dive Center's beach huts in the background. There were only about 6 or 7 of them, but we were questioning our decision to stay at the sketchy Safeer Hotel Suites when we could have stayed in a lovely beach hut here... Although we comforted ourselves with the presumption that they were undoubtedly fully booked since we only decided to come two days before.

View of one of the two private beaches around the Center that are only accessible via water. We swam to this one and watched some Omani boys playing soccer for awhile before swimming back.

View back to the Center from the end of the dock. I was a little camera happy because I just couldn't believe we had found this little gem, and only 4 hours away from Dubai!

Another view out into the harbor. The Shangri-La luxury hotel complex are the buildings out in the middle. Apparently quite posh and uber expensive.

Self-take.

Me with the Oman Dive Center behind.

Another self-take. I guess I did get a bit carried away...

Once we determined that we'd had enough sun and sand we decided to head back into Muscat for a bit more exploring. I was trying to capture the steep hilliness of the mountain road to the Dive Center in this photo (we were truly skeptical as to whether the Lancer could make it up one of the hills), but I don't think the photo does it justice.

On our way back into the city we found a beautiful overlook, so stopped for some more photos.

With the mountains and Muscat in the distance.

Closer view from the overlook.

Beautiful mountains.

Our last bit of exploring in Muscat brought us to Sultan Qaboos' Palace.

The Palace Gate.


Another view of the Palace grounds. Simply stunning. I was really struck by how green Muscat is. Everywhere you look it seems there are flowers and open green space. Much more so than Dubai, for sure.

Jared in the Palace colonnade.

View through one of the archways around the palace. I thought it pretty much epitomized the city.

An old fort on the edge of the Palace grounds.

Close-up of the fort.

After our romp around the Palace, we decided it was time to head back to Dubai so that we could attempt to get back before dark and have a relaxing evening at home. After this trip we've concluded that we just love Muscat and would definitely come back. Such a relaxing little getaway from Dubai to what feels like a very sleepy little city. My only disappointment was that I was hell-bent on buying a Middle Eastern dowry trunk that I've been wanting for awhile (one of those things that I feel that I just must buy while I'm here), but we didn't time our stops at the Mutrah Souq very well, and most all the stores were closed both times we stopped in. In the one shop I did look in, they offered me a 90 year old antique trunk from Zanzibar for 600 Omani Rials (aka roughly $2000 USD or 6000 AED, yikes). Obviously, I walked away trunkless... There's always next time...