Muscat, Oman

Today we are in the port of Muscat and were booked on a trip. An impressive city with considerable recent developments. There is no public transport, so many cars on the modern roads. Women are allowed to drive here and access to education and employment is equal for males and females, education is free.

We visited the Sultan Qaboos Mosque which was completed in 2001. It is jaw dropping awesome, absolutely beautiful. We then visited the Souk, I didn’t find the loose bead sellers (they are there, a friend saw them), but had a look at the many goods on sale. I’m not good at bartering and hate being hassled so didn’t buy anything.

We then saw round the Bait Al Zubair, a private museum which showed examples of the culture and heritage of the people, Also the outside of an infrequently used palace.


Shortly after we sailed, we were joined by a helicopter buzzing the ship, whilst a British Destroyer sneaked up on the other side. There was a short exercise whilst they passed round the ship and a couple of “inflatable dingy type of boats” zoomed about. Apologies to all sailors for my ignorance about technical terms. I have included a picture in extras. The quality is not good due to the failing light and the speed at which we were sailing and the others were moving.