Exploring Muscat with Carla - Apr 2 to 13

For the past 2 weeks Janelle and I had another "nukabroad" visiting. Carla and Janelle work together back home and we were really happy that one of our friends from Calgary had made the trip out. This was her first time to the Middle East, and we were excited to share the experiences we've been trying to blog about. Since Janelle was working and I'm sans job (hopefully not for much longer...) I was the official tour guide for the week. I took Carla to most of the tourist spots, spent a good chunk of the day at the beach and took her grocery shopping to get a good feel for life over here. There were a few things we did that were new to both of us including going to the Grand Mosque.

Before we get to that, you may remember the flat tire from the desert camp. With the trip to Dubai coming up, I had to find the Ghala Subaru dealer to get the tire fixed and oil changed. Day 1 I tried to book a service online but did not hear anything back. Day 2 of trying to find the dealer did not work out, I thought I knew where to go after extensive research only to drive through the Ghala area with Carla for 30 minutes finding nothing (I felt bad hauling Carla along with me as she was on holidays and soon feel asleep). Day 3 I checked with Donna to make sure I knew where to go and set off in the morning to find the dealership feeling very confident that I had it nailed down this time. Sure enough it was the same spot that Carla and I were looking for only it was in behind the Isuzu dealership (which is owned by the same group) and has no signs (again par for the course here). Unfortunately with construction going on in the area I missed the service road exit and the right turn and was forced into a 30 minute loop to get back to a place that was 50 m from my car when I missed the turn. Finally finding the service door I went in, only to be told that the actual service bay was another 100 m down the road. At last I was at the right spot and was told that they had tried to call me from the original online form but our phone was disconnected. Regardless I arranged to drop the car off the next morning and left the tire with them to be fixed.

The next day was another challenge as we only have 1 car, so thus the problem with dropping it off and having to wait four hours for it to be done. Our solution was that Carla and I would drop the car off at 8 and then walk to the Grand Mosque, only about 2 blocks away. Dropping the car off they said it would be done at 5 but we needed it at 12 so they agreed and off we went walking. The walk was actually quite nice as the area around the mosque is very well landscaped and no stores. It's free to go into the Grand Mosque between 8-11 Wed through Sat if you are non-Muslim. The trip was well worth it as both the ladies prayer room and the mens are both amazing. Of course the men get to pray in the main prayer hall while the women are separated into a smaller area. The main room is home to the worlds biggest Persian rug which weighs of 10 tonnes and took 300 Iranian women 6 years to sew. There is also an amazing 14 tonne chandelier (that's all we gleamed evesdropping on a tour guide). After the mosque Carla and I cabbed it to the new Grand mall to kill some time waiting for the car to be finished. The mall building and common areas were very nice, the big problem with the Grand Mall right now is that there is nothing there. Only a few stores were open, hardly anything in the food court and more people cleaning than shopping. Another short cab ride back to Subaru where we picked up the finished car and our adventure was finished.

We also got an invite over to our friends Pete and Zan's place at the Wave for a true South African braai. Funny part of this story is before going Zan asked Janelle to pick up a "box" of wine as the liquor store at our club is very cheap. Janelle came home to grab Carla and I and sure enough had a box of about 8 bottles of wine. Great we thought, should be a fun night. Upon arriving at Pete and Zan's we realized they simply meant to buy boxed wine, not a box of it. The company was great as always with amazing food, watermelon & feta salad, chicken skewers and my favourite of the night were the toastie's complete with Mrs. Balls chutney! We even finished the night off with an Easter egg hunt thanks to Pete.

Another place that we hadn't been yet was to the relatively new Muscat Opera House. Janelle had bought tickets to see the Salzburg Orchestra. The Opera House looks stunning from the outside so we were all very excited to see the inside. The girls put on dresses and I threw on nice jeans, dress shirt (tucked in) and dress shoes. We got there only about 5 minutes before the start and were quickly ushered in as they wanted to close the doors. It was a good thing we were late and were being rushed to our seats as I found out there was dress code, no jeans. A couple of the Omani ushers kept pointing at my legs saying "No jeans" but I just kept moving and made it through. The music was amazing, the inside is as stunning as the outside and indeed I was the only man not wearing a suit.

The last interesting adventure we had with Carla was our beach bbq. This is a very popular and as we found extremely fun thing to do on the RAH club beach. The beach has permanent built-in bbq's, that have a light, running water, sink and prep counter. For our bbq we did chicken wings and a boxed wine (the right kind this time). The night flew by and we spent most of it playing beach soccer with the Omani family bbq'ing next to us. There were 4 Omani women (maybe 1 was a grandma), 12 kids and 4 maids. They had people everywhere. The women sat on the wadi mats relaxing and watching the kids play while the maids got the food ready and looked after all the kids, including the young ones (nice to have hired help!). We caused a fair bit of mischief giving the kids the toy water guns we had bought to play with. Initially they didn't know what to do but kids learn quickly and soon there were water fights going on all over the beach until the mom's had the guns returned. We were also amazed at the generosity of our neighbours as they brought over a large plate of sweets and of bbq chicken, prawns, skewers and stuffed crab as a thank-you for playing with the kids. With the usual great weather, good food, good wine and a bit of exercise chasing the soccer ball around we all got home completely satisfied. Thankfully Carla and I got to sleep-in as it was a late night, sorry Janelle.

Main prayer hall and the rug

Ladies Prayer Room

 

Women have to cover their head while at the Grand Mosque

Grand Mall, nothing but blank spaces and signs

Inside main opera hall

Opera lobby

Opera building at night

Burying our Omani friends in the sand

What a handsome chef