Today we will actually get out of the van today to take pictures on the ground at the palace. It’s a beautiful place, and the flag is up, so the Sultan is in residence – or at least here in town. The guide tells us the Sultan actually lives on the other side of town, and I think he said this palace is just for when guests visit. Regardless, it’s just as pretty from the ground as it is from the bus.
There are some great vistas of the forts from this angle too.
I had thought we were going to visit the forts, but either I was mistaken (which could be) or they itinerary has changed (which is also a strong possibility). No worries, we’re still enjoying what we’re seeing.
We all pile back into the van to go to the Bait al Zubair museum, which is literally across the street. It takes more time to park the van than it would have to walk to the place. Oh well, we’re here.
Pictures are only allowed outside, so we take a few of the ornate, rounded turret structure and the cool painted goats they have on display outside.
Then we spend about an hour wandering around inside, our guide explaining the map of Oman and the Sultan’s family tree, then on our own wandering through the different exhibits of traditional clothing, weapons, coins and stamps. It’s a really interesting place, but we’re done fairly quickly – quicker still because they are burning frankincense and walking through the lower level with the stuff smoking away, which is totally irritating to both of our respiratory tracts. We move as close to the entrance without getting out of the A;c as we possibly can while we wait for the rest of our group.
They finally assemble and we head out for our last stops of the day at the Muttrah Souk and the fish market. It is only days later that we actually look at the brochure we got when we entered the museum and find to our disappointment that we missed half of the place! There were tons of displays outside, and two entire buildings we missed. That was a bummer!
Completing our tour, we spend an hour at the Souk, which was neat to walk through, but nothing really caught our eye. I had originally thought we’d buy some frankincense, but after the museum experience, there’s no way we’re doing that. We did get a great picture of a little shop with tons and tons of the stuff stacked almost to the ceiling.
Other than that, we didn’t find anything interesting except for some Iranian candy – caramel with coconut and caramel with coffee – for only $3 USD. It came in a big hard plastic bin that was worth $3 USD alone. Figured we could snack on it and hand it out to the staff onboard.
We met our van group at the appointed time – Arizona complaining she was done 5 minutes after she arrived – and headed back to the ship. Our guide asked us if we wanted to go to the fish market, and and we were ready to strenuously argue for it this time, but fortunately everyone grudgingly agreed.
Turned out to be a great highlight of the day. Fishermen unloading fish right off their truck, tons of Kingfish and octopus and tuna laying out to purchase. Really cool experience.
We’re hoping our chef has been out here and bought some fresh fish for tonight’s menu!
And that concluded our tour – we drove another 200 yards up the street and were dropped at the front gate of the port. Not a bad day – and sure as heck better than expected. We hopped the first shuttle, met two of the fly on acts for the next 5 days – a singer/trumpeter and a Broadway singer – both from Britain. Looking forward to their shows as we make our way through pirate territory and up into the Red Sea.
No comments:
Post a Comment