Air Travel

Yesterday we visited the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which is an impressive piece of architecture. The praying hall for men is very large and very beautiful. It is the only mosque in the land you can visit if you’re not a Muslim.
After this monumental visit we moved a bit more inland to Nakhal and Rustaq where we visited some of the many forts that are around in Oman, there should be over a 100 in Oman. Both forts are situated in an oasis and if you want a good view over the oasis you should climb the fort. Especially the one in Nakhal, because this one has artifacts of the people who used to inhabit these forts, the one in Rustaq is impressive just by the size of it and the many opportunities it gives you to take a wrong step and therefore a deep fall, so be careful here.
The Omani people are so very friendly, our guide talked to this one girl who was getting water and she told everything about herself. She is 23 was married at 16 and had four children, she was accompanied by her 8 year old brother and her 19 year old sister who just finished high school and wanted to do some more studying. Her marks weren’t good enough for University but she was looking for some other college. So it’s not that women have to get married right away produce some kids and be done with it, no in Oman over 50% of the students in University is female.
After only a short talk with out guide she invited us in her home, we declined as our group is 12 persons big and this would be to great an inconvenience, but still it shows how open and friendly the Omani people are, an other example was in a small village where we were standing and some woman came back from doing the dishes, our guide spoke to them and immediately they started a conversation with her as if they had known her for years. Also Omani men are very friendly, the only thing you have to know is respect, if you respect them in their customs they will respect you in yours. It’s a simple; well it would be if you spoke some Arabic :-).

Yesterday evening I needed a pick-me-up, because I still had received no word about my luggage, I heard a lot of people cheering in the garden of the hotel, so I went over. Ordered a beer and found out I crashed the employee’s party, but they invited me to stay and I had a blast with very friendly people who came from a lot of different countries, Sri Lanka, India, Austria, Sweden, Holland and even Oman. The Sultan tries very hard to keep the expatriates limited to only 25% of the population of his country.
After many more beers it was time for some sleep and today I had my first excursion, a city trip in Muscat, we visited the museum and the palace of Sultan Qaboos, which was home by the way, because his flag was in top of the palace. The last stop of the day was at the souk in Muttrah.
Luckily my luggage has arrived today so I could put on some clean clothes, which is advisable here, because you sweat a lot. Which off course you compensate by drinking a lot of water so you can do some more sweating and so on and so on.

Well I have arrived at Muscat, Oman. My Journey starts out great, my luggage has gone missing somewhere between Amsterdam, London and Muscat. So I’m sitting here in my very warm European clothes while outside it’s already a cool 32 degrees Celsius at nine in the morning. I just hope my suitcase arrives soon. The trip over from London to Muscat with Gulf airlines was very comfortable, good airline.
Nothing much to tell at the moment, I’m just going to have some breakfast and have a rest before I’m going to explore the city.