Oh Man, Oman!

Oman has got to be the sleepiest place i’ve ever been… well I only had a chance to check out the Muscat region – but it was still boring… really beautiful with white washed houses all less than four stories, and surrounded with mountains, trees and the ocean – but dead boring…

The most excitement I had is when I went into this one mosque in the middle of the main souk, where this guy started to get mad at me because I was wearing shorts (which were past my knees), but the whole time he was yapping at me, he was picking his nose and flicking on the carpet… gee, I wonder which one would be considered more disrespectful…

but other than that, there was absolutely no buzz.  Everywhere I went, it seemed like it was a ghost town.  I went to the old souk, and was like one of ten people walking around, the fish market was a bit more interesting, but still not the bustling craziness that I was expecting. When I went to the old town, i was the only guy sitting at the restaurant, and even when i went to the ‘typical’ Omani restaurant in Ruwi, I was also the only guy there… It was like everyone in the city heard about some pending disaster and took off… I ended up hanging out at the Grand Hyatt because they had a great beach – absolutely deserted until the evening when the local kids come out to play football. 

I’d probably go again sometime (the ticket was only 10 dirhams from Dubai which is about $4 dollars…) but I’d only go to completely veg out and do nothing…

On the way out of the city, I went to the Grand Mosque  – built in the last 10 years or so, it is apparently the largest mosque in the world, able to fit over 12000 people at once… and the main room is covered by a single Persian carpet (also the largest in the world).  Being one of five people walking about other than a school group, I felt the size of the place seemed to be designed to let you know how dead the city was…