Sultanate of Oman - Part I

Oman

I know I sound like a broken record, but the hospitality, generosity and warmth we have been met with has been overwhelming. ‘We’re not worthy’ is our motto now.

My cousin Cyrus, his wife, Shiraz, and 2 daughters, Zenia and Benafsha have been SO nice. Layla is having the best time here of all the places we’ve visited so far because she has 2 girls to play with most of the day. Their maid, Josephine cooks up GREAT Indian dishes... we would be gaining many more kilos if it wasn’t for the heat.

Anyway, Oman is a very interesting mix of Arab, African (Zanzibar) and Indian cultures. So I feel quite at home :). There are so many Indians here. In fact, Cyrus and family don’t even speak Arabic after 12 years of staying here. There are restaurants, shops and everything else under the sun Indian here.

Omanis are very down to earth and humble. They are (in general of course) pleasant and respectful to even the lowest of the low and all nationalities. I really like that about them.


Oman is a gorgeous country. Muscat, the capital, is a bunch of small neighborhoods in between desert mountains. The mountains go all the way to the sea and create incredible views and environs.

It is not yet very developed outside the big cities, so you need a 4WD to go to a lot of beautiful places. Oman is famous for its old forts (that protected the tribal kingdoms from pirates and other tribes in the desert), its Wadis (oases in the desert mountains), frankincense trees and its ancient history.

Ramadan

It being Ramadan has shaped our trip to Oman. Unfortunately we can’t do much during the day, since it is hot and drinking water and eating is not allowed in public. Everybody is lazing around until evening, but Cyrus and Shiraz, being Non-muslims are stuck with full shifts, so it has definitely effected our trip.


Nizwa and Jibreen Forts


Our first weekend there; Shiraz borrowed a 4WD for us all to go to a couple of forts in the desert mountains outside of Muscat. Our first stop was Nizwa, which is a small oasis town with a restored fort, and old market. It was beautiful and was a good intro to forts in Oman.

After that they took us to an abandoned old village where ruins were scattered around a small oasis in the desert. In most other countries, this would be a major tourist spot with a fee to go see. Luckily, Oman is still not yet discovered on a large scale.


From there we went to a fort in Jibreen. I felt like such a kid in that place!! Once again, not many tourists (in fact none that we saw, since it was Ramadan), you can wander anywhere and touch anything, and no ‘Do Not Touch’ signs, no velvet ropes…just an old fort for your enjoyment.

If I was 10 years old, I’d want to got there every weekend to play boys’ games there. They had hidden rooms, small holes big enough to stick a gun out and shoot at intruders, bullet holes in the walls, a tomb of a religious leader, secret passageways (we even went down some!) that were under certain rooms to hide and surprise enemies from and canons galore. What more could a young boy ask for???

Salalah

A few days later, Jammie, Layla and I hopped on a bus (12 hours long) and went to Salalah, which is the second biggest city in Oman and is very close to the Yemeni border (the other side of the country).

You leave the mountains of Muscat and start into flat country of sand and rock. Then you get to the oil fields in the desert and the oryx (animals) preserves. From there you continue through small sand dunes (that are the beginning of the ‘Ruba al Khali’ aka ‘the empty quarter’) and then desert fields of frankincense trees before getting to the lush forests and mountains that surround Salalah.

We had planned to rent a car and go see many things around Salalah. The town itself is small and quite. BUT I forgot my driver’s license, so we got to only see a few things. REAL bummer since there actually is a lot to see around Salalah.

So we got a taxi and he showed us around a bit. He took us to the old incense market (Salalah made its fortune in incense over many years), the beaches of Salalah, and then we took a drive into the forests of the mountains outside Salalah.

I happened to mention to the taxi driver that my Palestinian grandfather’s family was, hundreds of years ago, originally from Yemen. He asked the family name, and I said Hirezi. He smiled, he knew some Hirezis in Salalah. They were a tribe from the other side of the border in Yemen.

It was SO cool to hear this. If we had more time, I would have sought some out, but it being Ramadan, things were topsy-turvy.

I truly think my sibling and I should be given a UN passport. We are too diverse for one passport.

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