After a great few days in Istanbul I flew to Muscat, the capital city of Oman.  For those unfamiliar with where Oman is it is located on the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East, and is probably the greenest and most fertile land in the area.  (the blue line shows the route that I plan to cycle)

Where most of the peninsula is known for its vast sand dunes Oman is known for it’s mountains and peculiar climate – warm winters, steady sun and cooling monsoon winds.  That said, I arrived at the start of summer where it was around 40C degrees at midday but in another month or so the temperature would rise to +50C, which would make cycling impossible.

This was one of the reasons that I had changed the route of my cycle.  The original plan had been to fly to either the UK or France after leaving South America but I hadn’t really looked into the weather conditions when planning the initial route.

As Europe was coming out of winter the overnight temperatures in many parts was still just above freezing which would not be an enjoyable experience in a tent.  Plus, in another couple of months cycling through the Middle East would be impossible so I decided to fly into the Middle East first and then cycle back towards Europe where hopefully by the time I arrive there at the beginning of May the climate should be warmer and drier.

Decisions made and flights booked it was now time to get on with cycling through the Arabian Peninsula and when I landed in Oman I was picked up at the airport by Amanda who was a friend of a friend. (Thanks Anne-Marie for arranging)

The day that I was arriving though Amanda’s air conditioning unit had decided to spring a leak and when Amanda had arrived home from work her spare room was taking on the appearance of a swimming pool. 

Instead, she dropped me at a friend’s house, Ingmar and Karen + Jasper the dog, so that I would have a dry bed for the few days that I planned to stay in Muscat. 

My flight hadn’t arrived until nearly 11pm and so it was gone 1am by the time we had got to bed that night.  In the morning I had a few jobs that I needed to do that are the same whenever I have landed in a  new country – put bike together, go to supermarket to buy food, find bike shop to pick up a couple of bits, buy petrol, go to bank to get money etc.

Muscat is a city that is located on the coast and is very long and narrow, seemingly without an actual central point.  It was a good job that Ingmar was free the next day to drive me around as it would have been a long hike in near 40C degree heat to go to all of the places that I needed to get to.

The area that Ingmar and his wife Karen live is known as the ‘PDO’ compound’.  It is not a compound in the traditional sense of a gated community but more of a private headland that is owned by the main oil and gas company inOman – Petroleum Development Oman. Karen is a teacher at the primary school which caters solely to the children of PDO employees. 

Within the ‘compound’ there is even a golf course and as it is next to the sea it has it’s own yacht club.

The yacht club was our first stop of the day as Ingmar had arranged to meet some friends. While they talked shop I went for a dip in the crystal clear waters of the Arabian Sea.

One of the friends that Ingmar met up with was Freddy who was from Bogota, Colombia and, to show how small the world really is, he used to play football with the staff from the school that I will be starting work at in July.

It was now time to get on with getting the jobs done that I needed to.  The only problem was that none of my bank cards worked at the ATM’s.  Part of the issue was that there was not an option to take money out using a credit card but the other issue, which I found out later by phoning the bank, was that I had reached my cash withdrawal limit. 

It turns out that most credit cards use an algorithm to track how much cash you are withdrawing and on mine my 5 day limit was apparently 500 GBP before a temporary block was put on the card.

As I had restocked my USD ‘emergency’ cash fund before leaving Istanbul I had now reached this limit. I use credit cards as the cards I have do not charge withdrawal or transaction fees so are much cheaper to use overseas.  The only way that I could get cash out in Oman for the first week though was to use my debit cards which come with hefty fees.  (At least in Oman there was not a statutory 5 USD bank fee for using an ATM as there was in Argentina).

Now that I had Omani rial I could get the bits and pieces that I needed to get and Ingmar was fantastic driving me around for the morning.

The last stop on the shopping spree was the bike shop where I need to by some chain oil.  It comes in two main varieties – wet and dry lube. 

The ‘dry’ element refers to the actual lubricating substance that works on your chain, usually a waxy kind of deposit. A dry lube is applied as a liquid, before drying out to the leave the chain covered in the lubricating element. The difference with ‘wet’ lube is that it remains as a liquid on the chain.

As dry lube is a lighter lubricant it is less prone to attracting dirt and as I would be riding through a desert it’s better suited to riding through sand. The downside of a dry lube is that it is less durable and chains can be washed clean in heavy rain, not something I was overly worried about given the climate I was cycling through.

In the afternoon, after putting my bike back together, it was time to make sure that everything had survived the 5 flights that the bike had been on since packing it in cling film in Santiago, Chile. 

20 km from the main area of Muscat is Muttrah.  Although technically it is still part of Muscat you need to follow the coast east and climb over a couple of fairly steep hills to get there.  As Muttrah is the oldest part of the city it is worth the climb and is where the souk is located and the setting is pretty special.

The souk in Muttrah is probably most famous for selling frankincense and is one of the few souks in the world where it’s possible to buy gold, frankincense and myrrh under a single roof.

I bet that most of you have heard of frankincense but do you actually know what it is? (I didn’t).

Frankincense is the dried sap of Boswellia  and Commiphora trees which grow principally in Oman, Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia.  The bark of the tree is cut and a gummy sap oozes out.  The leaking resin is allowed to harden before being scraped off the trunk in tear-shaped droplets.

The sap then either dried and burned as incense or steamed to yield essential oils which are thought to have medicinal properties.

In ancient times frankincense was valued more than gold, and only those with great wealth possessed it. Today, Oman has a reputation for producing superior-quality frankincense trees that deliver the highest grade resin, and the trees in the Dhofar region of Oman are regarded as a gift from God.

If you wish to look into frankincense further I have been told that Juliet Highet is essential.  Her book –  Frankincense: Oman’s Gift to the World, Juliet Highet compares frankincense trees from other regions, concluding that “no other trees produce the same pure, exalted fragrance” as those found in Dhofar.

If I’m honest, I found the souk to be very commercial and today it seems to be set up selling ‘tat’ for the cruise ships which stop nearby rather than as a market for the locals. Still, as I had just come from Istanbul which has amazing souks then perhaps I am doing this one in Mattrah a disservice. (If you ever visit drop me a line to let me know what your thoughts were!!!)

After wandering around with the cruise ship passengers I went in search of a more local flavor and found the men sat in the main square. Again, as Oman follows the Muslim faith my interactions with locals will be very much with the men of the country.  As it was early evening they were busy reflecting on the day’s news and events.

The majority of the men were Omani and most of them spoke English to varying degrees, which was good as my Arabic, apart from hello, goodbye and thank you, was non-existent.

The locals couldn’t seem to grasp that I planned to cycle through Oman on a bike and like when I lived in Vietnam they thought that anybody who did exercise in the stifling heat was slightly mad.  After having a chat about my travels on a bike, and to find out what there was to see in Mattrah, I cycled off in search of an egg.

The egg was located around the headland from the souk and the bay that I followed to get there was very pretty with traditional Douws bobbing on the water (if you ignore the container ships in the background)

Fittingly, the ‘egg’ statue in Al Riyam Park is a giant incense (frankincense) burner 

It was now getting dark and I needed to get some food before cycling back to Ingmar’s house.  Most of the workers in Oman seem to be from India and Bangladesh and the food in the local restaurants and food stalls reflects this.  Dinner that night was chicken chick pea curry, daal and roti bread. A very very tasty introduction to ‘Omani’ food.

The next day my plan was to visit the other major ‘tourist’ site in Muscat – Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

This time I had to cycle through the main area of Muscat and the only main road that runs parallel to the coast is like a 4 lane motorway so I headed to the coast and followed footpaths and where these ran out goat tracks.

Located along the coastline is the ‘diplomatic quarter’ that houses all of the consulates and embassies and is patrolled by police on horseback.

The Grand Mosque was on the other side of the embassies and the police didn’t seem bothered by my bike and waved me through the car checkpoint.

Ingmar had said told me that once I was on the other side of the embassies that I should just cycle towards the biggest minarets that I could see (a minaret is a tall slender tower with a balcony from which a muezzin calls Muslims to prayer) and they would lead me to the Grand Mosque. 

It is surprising how many minarets there are in Muscat and the ones that I decided to head towards turned out to be the wrong ones. I asked one of the guards for directions and he said that the  Grand Mosque was still a couple of kilometers away.

I knew that last entry to the mosque was 11am and as I had not been watching the clock it was already after 10.30 am.  The guard said that the quickest way to get there was to head for the ‘motorway’ which I did.

I arrived 10 minutes before they closed the gates to tourists.

In many countries in the Persian Gulf shorts are only tolerated in cities when the person is taking part in sports, such as cycling, but Oman is a fairly liberal country in terms of dress sense and, thankfully given the temperatures, shorts are tolerated as day wear. However, to visit a mosque men’s legs and shoulders need to be fully covered, and for women they also must cover their heads and arms.

There is no fee to visit the mosque and locals can enter from the main car park, but tourists are asked to use one specific entrance.  I think that the reason for his is so that the guards on duty can check that people are dressed appropriately as they were turning away tourists who had flesh on show.

I must say that although the dress sense is liberal in Oman it is still a devout Islamic country and there were a fair few female tourists who didn’t seem to have grasped this concept and wore shorts that were very short indeed. Probably totally acceptable day wear in their own country but I thought slightly bad taste in the Persian Gulf. Plus, the guards made sure that they wouldn’t be visiting the mosque that day.

Once through the entrance gate I was greeted by manicured gardens full of flowers in bloom and lawns with the greenest grass that I have seen for a while.

The Mosque was completed in 2001 and is constructed from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone

The outside of the mosque is stunning and I will let the pictures speak for themselves

There are two main musallas (prayer halls) in the mosque – the smaller woman’s hall which can hold 750 worshipers

And the main musalla which can hold 6500 worshipers.  

The main prayer hall is square (74m  x 74m) but it was impossible to get it all in one photo

In the centre of the prayer hall there is a dome rising to a height of fifty metres above the floor.

To give you an idea of the scale of the building the beautiful gold chandelier which hangs from the central dome is 14m tall.

Oman is not as ‘flashy’ as it’s neightbours in the Gulf region and does not try to compete in the race for the tallest building or world’s largest shoping mall.  When the mosque was completed it did however hold the record for the worlds largest single weave hand woven carpet, which took 600 women over 4 years to make.

To save the carpet from being worn out by the hundreds ds of visitors who come each day you have to walk a set route that has been laid out along blue matting

Last entry to the grounds of the mosque for tourists was 11 am and the doors of the main prayer hall are shut at midday. You can stay in the grounds of the mosque if you want to and when I came out of the main hall at midday I had the place to myself.

After spending a fantastic couple of hours at the mosque it was time for some relaxation. Amanda who picked me up at the airport works at the British Embassy and as they have a swimming pool it seemed like a great place to get out of the midday heat.

 

Amanda finished work at 2.30pm and after loading my bike into the back of her car we drove to pick her son, Will, up from school and then went to get lunch at a Muscat institution – Kargeens Restaurant.

The outside dining area is set in a beautiful tree lined courtyard with a fountain at the centre

 

You couldn’t ask for a more idyllic setting for a late lunch

The green drink in the picture above is Lemon Mint which was so refreshing given that it was nearly 40C degrees outside. 

The food was fantastic and we finished the meal with Omani coffee, a very light coffee with cardomom, and was another Omani specialty.

After a great afternoon spent with Amanda and Will it was time to head back to Ingmar and Karen’s as I would be leaving the following morning and still hadn’t planned my route or looked at what there was to see on my ride east along the coast. 

My time in Muscat had been fantastic and I can’t thank Amanda, Ingmar and Karen enough for putting me up and showing me round.  

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Arrival in Oman
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