Magic Arabia Tour - Day 1

Today was my first day on the highlights tour of Oman that I organised. I was collected at the hotel in Sohar by Ahmed, who will be my guide for the three days. He’s a very good looking Omani man and very pleasant company.

He drove me from Sohar down to Muscat. The original plan we devised as we left Sohar was to visit a castle outside Muscat then head to the hotel (this day on the tour was a transfer day, so no planned touring). However, as we chatted on the drive, we amended that to a visit to the Mutrah Souq and then on to the hotel. I’ll be able to visit another castle later on the tour, but not have the chance to visit the famous souq at any other time.

It was a long drive on huge freeways. The traffic was light until we reached Muscat, then we started to deal with classic choked freeways. The landscape and the highways/freeways carved through them continue to amaze me and still appear as if the roads are pasted onto the desert landscape, rather than built into it.

The Mutrah Souq is a very old souq embedded in the middle of a shopping district on the Mutrah corniche. It was very heavily populated today by literal boat loads of European tourists. (There were three huge cruise liners at dock when we were there; Ahmed was surprised as he thought the cruising season had finished.) The souq was very like other Arabian souqs and bazaars that I've been in. An unbelievable crush of stall holders selling a wide variety of spices, foods, cloths and trinkets, all crying for your attention and haggling over the (wildly inflated) prices. I didn't buy anything as I don't need anything. I will acquire some trinkets as souvenirs closer to the end of my visit to Oman and likely not from a souq.

Ahmed took me to a restaurant that he frequents for lunch where he convinced me to have the fish, which was very nice though cooked and served whole and butterflied and char-grilled with spices. It was lovely, though difficult to deal with avoiding the bones and combining the other elements of the meal (fried rice, raw onion and green salad).

The super-yacht moored at the Muttrah dock belongs to the Sultan

As we were walking to the restaurant, Ahmed pointed out a car with a 2-digit number plate. He commented that rich people pay exorbitant amounts to get these short-numbered plates (most plates I see in Muscat are 4 or 5 digits). As we returned to our Land Cruiser tour vehicle, I noticed that it had a 2-digit plate. I commented on that and Ahmed said, smiling, “I’m rich.” He’d earlier told me that his other car was a Rolls Royce (as we’d been overtaken by one speeding down the freeway).

After lunch, Ahmed drove me to the hotel I’m in tonight – the Kempinski – and I’m very impressed! It’s a palatial hotel in a very ritzy garden suburb district on the coast.

Walking around this evening it had a feel of walking around the residential area of Kingston Foreshore and the restaurant district in the middle of the district flet a little bit like walking down the main Manly shopping street (though smaller, and newer and a bit richer). I dined a Shakespeare & Co, which didn’t have any connection to the author, any of his plays, or England. It also didn’t sell alcohol. Oman is largely a dry state, though hotels and some bars sell alcohol. I retired to my hotel for an alcoholic aperitif. A small range of wines are on offer in the lounge (no Australian offerings!) and all very expensive (like $30 per glass expensive).

Street scene in the district that I’m staying

The view out to the plaza from Shakespeare & Co.