We took a flyer. And by that I mean we asked a hotel cab driver to take us to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque and when he offered to give us a city tour of all the stops we wanted at 10 rials an hour, we agreed. It sounded like a good idea… and it was for a while… and then it wasn’t… and then it was again. So does that count as in medias res? Or does this entry merely spoil the ending before telling the tale? I never was great at the techniques or styles of writing… sometimes it turns out pretty alright, and sometimes it’s an unmitigated disaster. Maybe that’s the teaser you need for this story — will the telling be ok or will it be crap? That I can’t answer ahead of time. Well, I can hazard a guess but that would be telling.
Khalid is our driver. He doesn’t speak great English so I’m not sure he’s much of a tour guide… but he is driving us everywhere and finding spots and such. And he seems to know what he’s doing.
The Grand Mosque in Oman was built in six years, opening in 2001. It’s a lovely sanctuary open to non-Muslims six days a week from 8 AM until 11 AM (it’s not open on their holy day of Friday). We got there around 9:30 and as we were finishing were swarmed by German and Russian tourists from visiting cruise ships. Reda had to rent a covering for 2.5 rials and I had to leave a refundable deposit of 10 rials for us to enter. The grounds and building are really beautiful and worthy of the numerous photos I clicked away on my iPhone.
The male prayer room features the second largest single piece of woven carpet in the world (there’s apparently a registry but the wikipedia link to such a thing takes one to an expired domain for “ArchitecturalClassics.com.” In any case, it took 5000 women (women, mind you… indicative of the country I’m in) who hand wove the 70 x 60 meters carpet, featuring 1,700,000,000 knots and weighing 21 tons (so says Wikipedia). It’s an impressive rug, no doubt.
The chandeliers hanging over it aren’t too shabby either…
Wandering the grounds, our tour guide introduced us to a friend of his — an Omani Track and Field Olympian who now works part time as a tour guide for visiting sports teams (he was accompanying the German Football team recently eliminated in some international soccer tournament being held locally). He also coaches the Army Running Team and was taking his runners to the Muscat Half Marathon tomorrow — we told him we were doing the full and he said he’d cheer us on and see us at the end.
We took a brief detour to chat with an Imam who engaged some folks in theological discussion. I was happy to snack on the dates and I gladly took their proffered pamphlets and freebie Quran — never hurts to understand someone else’s viewpoint, whether one agrees with it or not. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the discussion as, ya know, I was stuffing my face with dates, but I did overhear the Imam compare the body and soul to one’s iPhone — the body is hardware that can breakdown, but the soul can be backed up into the “cloud” or paradise and survive the breakdown of the hardware. I actually kinda loved that concept — I may have misunderstood what he was getting at but man did I love what was happening in that room at that particular moment.
After a few final shots of the Mosque, it was off to the next venue: the Oman Opera House. Celebrating its 5th anniversary, The Opera House is a mixture of various styles, including Morocco and Italy, and creates a distinctly Omani structure. The “tour” wasn’t all that — just a quick bit of word on the construction materials, which I tuned out but I did hear the words “teak” and “french inlaid gold paper.” After that, they let us into the main concert hall and let us snap photos for fifteen minutes. I never quite framed the perfect shot, but I took plenty of middling ones:
Khalid took us along the coast to get to Old Muscat and we stopped for a quick photo along the beach:
We had planned on going to the National Museum but Khalid insisted the Bait Al Zubair was a better choice. We took his word for it and wandered amongst the billed “home of heritage and art.” Amongst the displays were a series of painted goats, akin to the penguins or guitars or various other icons of a city that get decorated/painted by celebs or locals and placed around town for an art installation. As is often the case, some were cooler and more cerebral (read: weirder) than others. I of course was drawn to the weirder ones:
My favorite part of the museum visit was the cafe. And you’ll think it’s because I got a Diet Coke or as it’s known in this country Coke Light. And you’re partly right. When I asked for a coke light, the counterman took a beat and then presented me straight faced with this:
I appreciated the joke so much I insisted on getting a photo with the guy.
Here’s where things get a little wonky — our driver was nowhere to be found as we exited the museum. We found his cab, so that was good — our bags were still there and so worse case we could wait it out and get them. But he was just… gone. We wandered back and forth throughout the not huge building, inside and out, and couldn’t find him. Finally he came strolling by from who knows where. He didn’t seem surprised to see us, though he was oddly puzzled we wanted to go. That should’ve been a red flag but I assumed it was just a breakdown in language comprehension on both sides… so it was on to the National Museum.
But first we stopped at the Al Alam Palace. Reda and I had stopped by here on our first night but it was fun to snap a quick shot in the bright light of day. I even asked a fellow tourist to snap a shot of the three of us as I was enjoying the experience with Khalid.
Here’s the next red flag: I asked Khalid how old the palace was. He said, “Very old.” I asked how old. He said, “1977.” I clarified if he meant 1877 or 1777… “No, 1977.” If that’s old what does that make me? It was a sucker punch to be sure. (For the record, according to Wikipedia, the palace “has a history of over 200 years, built by Imam Sultan bin Ahmed the 7th direct grandfather of the current Sultan. The existing palace, which has a facade of gold and blue, was rebuilt as a royal residence in 1972.”) [Ye gods, I can’t believe I’m relying on wikipedia for facts… might as well be using Fox News!].
We then headed down the way to the National Museum. It was 5 rials a person to get in. Khalid asked how long we might be and I ballparked an hour… Reda asked the ticket seller how big the place was and he said it’s 14 galleries and most people take 2 hours or more. Khalid and I both made a face — he clearly understood “2 hours” and had the same reaction as me — “I don’t think I can do a museum for 2 hours in Arabic.” So we agreed to an hour and we’d call him if we finished sooner or needed more time. We had his number — all good, right? Sigh.
The museum itself was fine and maybe even better than that but I had kinda filled my museum quota and wasn’t much in the mood. But we ambled and strolled through, noticing little things like the Portuguese influence and base of operations from the 1700s, the various trade routes for centuries that helped alter the people and the place and history. We remarked on the universal need for humanity to decorate their weapons of war, such an integral part of life and such a sad commentary on us all — from the elaborate swords of Middle Ages Europe let’s say to the inlaid designs of Khanjer daggers in Oman to the markings even today of personalizing weapons of pain and death. There was something about it that made me sad while at the same time I appreciated the artistry. For me, the coolest thing was the dhow ships as I felt while they could be used for war, they were predominately used for trade and exploration and if I’m being all Sinbad, adventure. Some will argue one man’s adventure is another’s invasion but let me have my swashbucklers any day.
I wasn’t sure about the photography rules in the National Museum but eventually saw others snapping away. I shied away from the “traditional” shots and instead documented my trip with typical Kevin flare…
We finished the museum in about 45 minutes and phoned Khalid. He said he was on his way. Time ticked by. And this is where it all turned bad. The clock spun round. It passed the one hour mark for when we originally were supposed to be picked up… it passed an hour fifteen minutes. Reda called again and he said he was 1 minute away… well 5 minutes away. It was a long wait… and things only got worse from there.
Ten minutes later, he finally pulls up but there’s a guy in the front seat, a new passenger. Where was our stuff? Both Reda and I had left bags in the cab because this guy was our driver for the day and he said it was ok. What was happening? Who was this new guy? I freaked. Reda freaked. We went ugly American then… made all the stranger since Reda is Lithuanian and lives in Dubai. But we were not happy — and I think rightly so. Apparently this new guy was a friend of Khalid’s who needed a ride… but the guy said he was no friend of his… it was all very dodgy.
I checked my bag I had in the cab which contained my jacket and passport (they were still there) but it was “not-on” as some folks say, while others might say it was “on like Donkey Kong.” We just wanted to pay and get out of there… but Khalid was insistent he was sorry and would make things right. The new guy apparently was a regular visitor to Oman but needed to get back to the airport and called Khalid for a lift and wasn’t aware Khalid already had booked a city tour. He was apologetic too but not really. We said we just wanted to pay and leave and we’d get lunch and grab another taxi back to the hotel. Khalid and the guy said they could recommend a good restaurant and Khalid said he’d drop his new passenger and come back to pick us up whenever we wanted for free to get back to the hotel. That seemed like a decent resolution to an unfortunate situation.
So we went to lunch. And it was good. And Khalid showed up after dropping the guy at the airport and drove us back. So it all worked out in the end but it also all felt very… strange. I’m not conveying how weird the whole experience was. I’m actually still kinda processing it. But long story short, as I need to get my stuff sorted for the marathon tomorrow, we made it back to the hotel in one piece and with out stuff — so win, lose, win? Ultimately a win. But a weird one, like winning on a fumbled on side kick and a spaceship landing at the 50 yard line so somebody could statue of liberty a play into the endzone. It was weird.
To close out then, here’s some shots from that lunch…
The restaurant overlooked the marina… port to various ships both great and small… including the Sultan’s two yachts. He had an old one. Now he has a new one.
***
And now, after days of running about in taxis, 4x4s, and all means of transportation not requiring me to be on my two feet that often, it’s time to get ready for a 42.195K marathon. As you can see from the photos above, I’ve been eating way too much and it shows. I haven’t been running. One has to hope the inertia of prior runs will help carry me through as I’m suddenly feeling ill-prepared for the race.
Nice bib number though:
At 6 AM, I guess we’ll find out how the race will end… we know this post ended up being poorly written. Fingers crossed bad writing leads to good running. That’s not even remotely a thing. Sigh.