Lazy Days - Muscat in Winter

There is something irredeemably laid-back about Muscat.  Perhaps this is why no great books or memorable stories have been set there.  It does not have the dark side associated with the North African trading ports.  Think Hedy Lamar and Charles Boyer brooding around the casbah in Algiers, or Bogie and Bergman steaming up the screen in Casablanca.  No, Muscat is more Cliff Richard and Lauri Peters in Summer Holiday with a little more style and a lot less singing.  Muscat lacks the brashness of Dubai, the superior airs of Abu Dhabi, but it is fast becoming a favoured tourist destination.  Albeit only for those post global economic crisis tourists who can still afford a pricey place to sip their low fat soy lattes.

The origin of the name Muscat is unclear, but generally it is accepted that it means anchorage. People fished along those rocky shores for 6,000 years before Muscat was given positive press in the first century AD by Pliny the Elder.  He was followed in the second century AD by Ptolemy, in his Geographia.  Or at least so some historians claim.  For the next 1800 years or so Muscat underwent the invasions, occupations and evictions that are to be expected of a site with two natural deep water harbours and protected from invasion from land by steep rock mountains – the highest in the Arabian peninsula.  Muscat also colonised parts of the east African coast (more of that in a later edition) and like all colonisers was eventually forced back to its base.

On July 23, 1970 peace descended on Muscat and Oman.  On that day Qaboos bin Said, son of the Sultan, staged a bloodless coup in the Salalah palace and, funded largely by oil revenues, set the scene for a stable and prosperous future for his people.
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Today visitors can join the locals on the weekend at upmarket coffee shops overlooking the Gulf of Oman.  They can browse the Omani Heritage Gallery for traditional handcrafts, explore the old city and the numerous forts that sit atop almost every hill around the city.  Or they can just loll on the private beach offered to its guests by the Crown Plaza Muscat.  


However the greatest attraction within the city of Muscat is Mutrah Souk.   A beautifully designed covered market on the Mutrah Corniche, Mutrah souk is where one goes to buy aromatic frankincense from Salalah, silver from Nizwa, and gold from any or all of the countries on and around the Peninsula. 


So if you are stopping over in any of the Arab cities on your way to somewhere else consider a side trip to Muscat.  It is a safe and friendly place with the usual Middle East traffic snarls.  But here, unlike in many of the other Gulf states, you will encounter local people living normal lives.  Your taxi driver, tour guide, hotel clerk, shop assistant will very likely be Omani and proud of their heritage and be happy to share information about their country and its culture with you.  

 But beware, those impressive Hajar mountains turn the city into a humid sink hole in summer.  Visit in winter. 




Observer
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