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April 21, 2018: A Tour of Dubai (UAE) |
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April 17, 2018: A Day in Goa, India |
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Return to the Index for 2018 |
We had two sea days between Goa and Muscat, and while we might have gotten here sooner, we of course wanted to dock early in the morning to give everyone a full day here. We did not book a shore excursion here (although John and John went on one while Zoran and Richard hired a taxi to take them around); we plan on just leaving the ship and walking through the waterfront city on our own- visiting the Grand Souk and just enjoying the brilliantly sunny day.
Docking in Muscat, Oman
We left Goa, India, about 7PM on April 17th, but did not enter the harbor at Muscat until the morning of the 20th. What took us so long to get here?
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Muscat is the capital and largest city of Oman, and the seat of the Governorate of Muscat; a "governorate" is to Oman pretty much as a state is to America. The metropolitan area covers some 1,400 square miles and has a population of about one and a quarter million people. Known since the early 1st century as an important trading port between the west and the east, Muscat was ruled by various indigenous tribes as well as foreign powers such as the Persians, the Portuguese Empire, the Iberian Union and the Ottoman Empire at various points in its history. But Muscat's status as a regional military power and important port town has, over the centuries, attracted tradesmen and settlers. Since the ascension of Qaboos bin Said as Sultan of Oman in 1970, Muscat has experienced rapid infrastructural development that has led to the growth of a vibrant economy and a multi-ethnic society.
I should clear up a bit of confusion before we actually dock, and that is exactly where we are docking. I originally thought, when Fred and I went up on deck to watch the docking procedure, that the smallish city of low, white buildings overshadowed by a hilltop fort was actually the city of Muscat. This, as it turned out, was incorrect, as this aerial view shows:
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The area in front of our ship is actually only a small part of Muscat City called Muttrah; it is essentially a suburb community. It owes its existence to two things. First, right next to the port is the Mutrah Fort, which is a major tourist attraction. But more important is the Port Sultan Qaboos, and all the tourist and shipping traffic that has been generated since its completion. Had we known that the main area of Muscat was a taxi ride away, we might have gone to see it, but there was plenty to do just walking around the area right by the port.
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These low, white buildings of Mutrah are, we were told in a lecture, typical of the area and of the main part of the city as well. This area of Mutrah runs from the corniche (promontory) at the extreme left of the picture, around and past the port to another promontory. I thought the harbor here was quite pretty; it is one of the cornerstones of Muscat's economy.
It was such a beautiful day that I thought I would try my hand at one of my extreme panoramas which I put together from multiple images. We were on a very slowly moving ship, so I hoped that the images would stitch together properly, and they did. Here, in the scrollable window below, is a panoramic view of the harbor at Mutrah and the Port Sultan Qaboos:
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So there was a lot to see as we were coming into our dock here at Port Sultan Qaboos, and some of the things we saw one can really only get a good view of from out here in the harbor. Let's look at a few:
 Mutrah Fort This 16th-century fort was erected by the Portuguese for military purposes- including as a prisoner detention center. The fort has three circular towers; the tallest is on the summit. |
 Closeup of Mutrah Fort Here is a closer view of the Mutrah Fort. Public access is restricted, although one can go up a road at the back and walk around the outside of the fort to admire the views. |
 The Masjid Al Rasool Mosque |
 Closeup of Masjid Al Rasool Mosque |
We edged into our dock here in Port Sultan Qaboos fairly slowly, so there was ample opportunity for us to take pictures before we went down to get some breakfast and get ready to meet Greg and Steven to go into town. Here are some additional good pictures that we took while we were getting tied up at our dock:
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Getting Ashore in Muscat and Walking to the Mutrah Souk
As we go ashore here in Muscat, I want to take a look at the area that we'll be covering in our day-long walk through Mutrah- the cruise port area for Muscat (and for Oman).
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When we arrived this morning, the Celebrity Constellation was already at its dock; we docked across the wide aisle at the outer dock (a bit longer to accommodate our ship). Since all visitors have to process through the entry/customs building, there were shuttles that took us from our ship to that building. Then there were shuttles to take us through the port area to the pedestrian gate for the cruise port.
From there, we walked along Al Bahri Road to the Mutrah Souk, visited the souk, had lunch, and then Fred and I continued on along the water side of Al Bahri Road all the way past Mutrah Fort to a point where we could get good views looking back at the town.
To organize today's pictures taken in Muscat, this first section will take us from the ship, through the entry building, out the pedestrian gate, and along Al Bahri Road to the Mutrah Souk. The following section will take you through the narrow streets and alleyways of the souk itself, and will end with our lunch at a restaurant right next to the souk's Al Bahri entrance. The section after that will cover our walk eastward along the water to the farthest point we reached. Finally, there will be a section for the pictures we took coming back in the other direction and returning to the ship.
Evidence of communal activity in the area around Muscat dates back to the 6th millennium BCE in Ras al-Hamra, where burial sites of fishermen have been found. The graves appear to be well formed and indicate the existence of burial rituals. South of Muscat, remnants of Harappan pottery indicate some level of contact with the Indus Valley Civilisation. Muscat's notability as a port was acknowledged as early as the 1st century CE by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who referred to it as Cryptus Portus (the Hidden Port), and by Pliny the Elder, who called it Amithoscuta.
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The inside of the hall had a large sand-colored relief running around the wall and, of course, a portrait of the Sultan. Here are some of Fred's pictures of the relief:
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The port fell to a Sassanid invasion in the 3rd century CE, under the rule of Shapur I, and conversion to Islam occurred during the 7th century. Muscat's importance as a trading port continued to grow in the centuries that followed, but local conflicts allowed the Abbasids of Baghdad to conquer Oman; they were not driven out until the 11th century. Back under local control, the people of coastal ports such as Muscat prospered from maritime trade and close alliances with the Indian subcontinent, at the cost of the alienation of the people of the interior of Oman.
Passing through the security area was pretty quick; it wasn't like getting on an airplane. Pretty soon we were outside the building waiting for the shuttle to the port's pedestrian entrance.
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Walking down towards the entrance to the Mutrah Souk, we first passed along the city street that begins at the mountains to the west and then turns into the sweeping, curved Al Bahri Road that runs along the waterfront to the east. You can see another view of this area from a little bit further down this street in this picture I took of Fred streetside. Incidentally, in that last picture you may have noticed that there was a Muslim prayer call tower in the background which, of course, is not at all unusual. What was interesting was the low building right in front of it. While I did not recall seeing a McDonalds franchise here in Muscat, they did have City Burger.
At the east end of the city street we were first following, right where Al Bahri Road begins to run along the harbor, there was a traffic circle with a pretty interesting fish fountain in the middle. We might have gotten a closer picture of the fountain, but the traffic in the circle was pretty much non-stop.
So now we'll be walking along the harborside promenade, and the look ahead was pretty amazing. I let my little camera put a panoramic view of the bay together:
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The walk down towards the entrance to the souk was extremely pleasant. Though it was quite warm, the scenery was pretty neat, and the city has done a good job on this promenade along the water.
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Both of us took pictures of interesting street scenes, and here are the best of them:
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We eventually found ourselves across the street from the entrance to the Mutrah Souk, and so we were going to cross the street and go in. Before we did, I took a picture from this vantage point of the Port of Sultan Qaboos. Then we crossed the street to the souk.
The Mutrah Souk
Muscat's economy, like that of Oman, is dominated by trade. The more traditional exports of the city include dates, mother of pearl, and fish. Many of the souks of Muttrah sell these items and traditional Omani artifacts. We have been in souks before, although this one was perhaps a bit larger (but still not the largest in Muscat). Being near the cruise ship port, you would expect that many of the tiny shops would sell souvenir-type items, although we saw many locals buying daily staples.
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The last time we were in a Middle-Eastern shopping area like this was when we visited the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul last year. That souk was relatively small, compared to this one, and consisted basically of two halls with shops on each side, with the halls arranged in a cross; it would not have been easy to get lost.
This souk was different. While the shops were also very, very small, the corridors were arranged haphazardly, and were actually a good deal narrower than in Istanbul. One could turn this way and that, and it would be quite easy to get turned around, as most of the corridors and shops were under large roofed sections.
Occasionally, we would come out into the open sunlight, as the little corridors and alleyways went outside for a while, past what seemed to be residences or other buildings, before diving back under a roofed area.
I say all this to note that it would be impossible for me to try to trace our route (even if that were of importance) on the aerial view. Unless I meticulously compared the pictures we took when in an open area to that aerial view, I could only approximate our walk. So I don't think I'll try. Route aside, though, the shops were intriguing not only for their diversity but for their varied clientele. Of course there were tourists, like us, but there were also locals in their traditional white caftans (men) or burqas (women). There were also locals who were not dressed traditionally- not counting the shopkeepers who were all men and dressed in casual western attire.
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The slideshow is at right. As always, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each slide to move from one to the next, and you can track your progress with the index numbers in the upper left of each slide.
There were a couple of pictures we took on our way through the souk that had little to do with the shopping aspect. At one point, I wanted to photograph one of the narrow alleyways off one of the shopping corridors, and happened to catch three women coming down into the souk. A while later, while we were waiting for Greg to complete a purchase, a superhero came up to have his picture taken, and I obliged:
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I mentioned earlier that the souk seemed to extend fairly randomly through the connected buildings in the area, but its extent was not unlimited. After walking some distance south, we came out of the souk and onto a pleasant (if warm) square.
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The day had warmed up considerably, although the humidity seemed low, which was unusual since we were right on the water. The sunlight was even more brilliant than the picture seems to show.
We walked back into the souk via another entrance (behind me in the picture above) and continued strolling through the shops. At one point, we did come out into another, smaller open area, this one containing a small mosque.
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I have to say that walking through the souk was very interesting. There were some tourists, but lots of locals as well, so it was an opportunity to get a flavor for what life is like here in Muscat. What I would really like to have seen, though, would have been a typical residence; shopping areas all tend to look the same.
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Leaving the souk by the entrance where we'd come in, we decided to stop for a bit of lunch, as there were a couple of fast food shops just east of the entrance to the souk. These were not traditional US fast food outlets (the only US chain that we saw here in Muscat was Kentucky Fried Chicken (which you might have seen in an earlier photograph). The one we stopped at was right next door to the souk entrance- the Fast Food 'N' Juice Centre. There weren't any tables free, so we shared one with a couple from the ship who were already getting served.
The food was pretty fast, that was for sure. This little cafe had a lot of Mediterranean dishes- a little Greek, some Turkish, and a lot of vegetables and pita-like bread to wrap things up in. French fries are big all over the world, and just about every dish came with some of them. The other thing the shop served were tall juice drinks. They looked like the fancy drinks you might associate with Hawaii- very colorful with fruit stuck in most of them- but they weren't alcoholic. There was just about every fruit juice you could possibly imagine, and you could order them blended together if you wanted. The couple at the table were just getting theirs, and they looked good, so we each got one as well, along with a little selection of dishes to share.
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Fred took one picture of me at the table, and below are some of the pictures I took during lunch:
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Greg thought that he and Steven had done enough walking for a while, and so they decided to just go a short distance around the neighborhood, visit the Gold Souk nearby, and then head back to the ship. Fred and I wanted to do a longer walk along the Corniche (the avenue and promenade that extended east past the fort). So we parted ways, and as we were walking out to the street, I took another picture of Fred with our lunch restaurant in the background. Then a voice called out to me; it turned out to be Susan and her family having their own lunch at the restaurant next to ours. We chatted for a while, and I took one picture of them. Susan is the woman in the pink blouse at the lower left in the picture at right; her husband has his back to the camera. To see the picture I took, just click on Susan and her husband.
Then Fred and I headed back across the street to the promenade walkway along the water, and headed east towards Mutrah Fort.
A Walk Along the Waterfront
From lunch, we headed west along the Corniche- initially on the city side of the avenue. Once we passed the Mutrah Fort, we went a bit further on, crossed Al Bahri Road, and then walked a bit further along the harbor side promenade.
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We took lots of pictures along our walk out to its farthest point, and we often took pictures of the same thing (like the Fort) at different times and from different angles. Rather than put these pictures chronologically, which would involve quite a few duplicates, or views that are so similar that they might as well be duplicates, I'm going to organize them into a few groups; for example, I'll bring all the views of the Mutrah Fort together.
There were even some pictures that we took of some of these sites on our way back to the ship, although pictures for that part of our afternoon are ostensibly in the next section. Again, to reduce duplication, if we photographed something on our return that we also photographed on the way east, I'll bring those pictures into the groups as well. The whole idea is for you to be able to look at one thing at a time, not necessarily concerning yourself with when, or in what order, the pictures were taken.
All that said, let's look at the first landmark- the Mutrah Fort.
The Muttrah Fort
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Finally, in 1650 a small but determined body of the Imam's troops attacked the port at night, forcing an eventual Portuguese surrender. Oman was not yet consolidated, however; the city of Muscat had strained relations with the interior, a strain which was not helped by repeated Persian incursions. By the late 18th century, however, the Al Bu Sa‘id dynasty was able to bring the two parts of Oman together, and that dynasty has ruled Oman ever since.
I don't know why the Muttrah Fort is not open to visitors while the two other forts, one in Muscat City and the other a bit southeast, are tourist attractions. Perhaps they think that with all the cruise ships stopping here now, there would simply be too many people- especially since no shore excursion is needed for a passenger to visit. As we have seen today, it is an easy walk to get here, even though it would be an uphill walk to get to the fort itself.
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But the fort was very photogenic, and there is still one more excellent view of the fort from our walk, this one taken at our closest approach and from right near the base of the hill. You can see that view here.
One gets an entirely different view when you approach the fort from the center of Mutrah; you are looking up the "spine" of the complex and you have the mountains in the background. Here are two of those views:
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We were snapping away at the Muttrah Fort, knowing that we couldn't get up to it and get inside (although had I known then that you could at least walk around the base of it and look out over Mutrah I would have wanted to go up anyway), and we ended up with maybe fifty pictures of it from various angles. You've already seen the best of those that get the entire fort in the view, but there are some others worth including here.
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Like I said, it would have been interesting (and a lot of fun) to get up inside the fort; I will have to see if I can find out why it is closed to the public (although the question is moot, at least for Fred and I, since we are not likely to be Oman again).
Harbor Views
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This view was taken from the intersection/traffic circle down below the Muttrah Fort where the Art Gallery is. It takes in the harbor and more of the corniche heading east:
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Finally, there is group of pictures that show different views of what you saw in the panoramic views above. Note the use of the concrete "jacks" that have been used to construct the breakwater and stabilize the shore. The first time I saw these was in 2004 in Hawaii, but they are quite common now.
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Views Along the Corniche
I want to begin with an amazing panorama that I put together out of eight separate images, all taken from a point near the traffic circle that lies below and to the east of the Fort and the Ghalya Museum of Modern Art. It covers some 330° from Muttrah Fort, across the suburb of Mutrah and the cruise ship port, across the harbor, and all the way around and back to the museum behind me. It would have been full circle, but the last picture didn't come out right. This huge image is in the scrollable window below:
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As I said earlier, Muscat has done a nice job on the promenade along the harbor. There is lots of interesting decoration, a number of sculptures, and benches both out in the open and underneath golden-domed kiosks. Fred did a good job of capturing some of this detail, and here are the best of his pictures:
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Returning to the Ship
The last part of our time ashore this afternoon was, of course, our return from the eastern end of the corniche to the Mariner of the Seas. We tried not to take the same path (walking at least on the other side of Al Bahri Road when we'd already walked along one side of it), just so we could get some different views.
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I also got an additional picture of the prayer tower of the mosque as we approached it walking back through Mutrah. We have been in mosques before, and weren't planning on going in this one, but I found, at the base of the stairs up to the mosque that, apparently, we wouldn't have been able to go in even if we'd wanted to, as this sign indicates. Just down from those stairs, I passed by this entrance and I wondered if it might be a private one for the current sultan.
(Actually, a bit later in the afternoon when we were back by the market, there was a prayer call, and a group of Muslim men lined up across the street by the mosque. I assume they were just overflow from the mosque or perhaps waiting to go in, although it looked like they were doing something else.)
We made another discovery on the way back. I mentioned earlier that I was under the impression that Kentucky Fried Chicken was the only fast food franchise here, but apparently McDonalds is here too- although we never saw one of their stores. At not unless McDonalds is masquerading as City Burger!
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On a hill overlooking the Mutrah corniche, Al Riyam park features lush gardens, a small children's amusement park (open every evening), a few coffee shops, a scattering of swing sets, and plenty of shaded areas to sit and picnic. Most notably, it is home to the Riyam Memorial, a gigantic incense burner that was built in honor of Oman's 20th National day. The burner lights up at night and is one of the most iconic structures in the capital.
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On the way back to the market just outside the port, we did find a few things of interest to photograph. The pictures are an eclectic bunch- some quirky, some not. Here they are if you want to have a look. (I noticed something in the sky in the seventh picture, but have no idea what it might have been.)
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Our walk back towards the pedestrian entrance to the cruise ship port was a very pleasant one. It had gotten just a bit cooler during the afternoon, but the sun was still high and bright.
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From the market, we returned to the ship, got a snack in the Lido, hit the gym, and then got ready for the ship's departure.
Leaving Muscat
The ship departed Muscat at about 7PM, moving slowly away from its dock- apparently ahead of the Celebrity Constellation. I took a series of pictures as we were moving out of the harbor, and I just want to include some of them here, to bring our visit to Muscat, Oman, to a close.
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Tonight it's a formal night in the dining room and a show in the theatre. Tomorrow we dock in Dubai, and I am looking forward to seeing its amazing architecture.
You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
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April 21, 2018: A Tour of Dubai (UAE) |
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April 17, 2018: A Day in Goa, India |
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Return to the Index for 2018 |
