Salalah, Oman

On Tuesday, there was a knock on our stateroom door about mid-morning. When I opened the door, there was a Viking person there to deliver a room service tray. When I informed him that we hadn’t ordered room service, he said that it was a gift from Viking, a birthday gift. Included was a small chocolate cake and a bottle of champagne. What a nice surprise!

Happy birthday to me, from Viking!

Early Tuesday afternoon, we pulled into the port of Salalah in Oman. Today Joe and I took separate excursions. It is one of two days on the trip where we chose to do so, as we had different interests in what we wanted to see and do. So first, my take.

The port of Salalah is 15 minutes from the city of Salalah, so the tour today involved a short drive on the bus into the city - much better than the 4 hours of Luxor! Salalah is the second largest city in Oman (second to the capital of Muscat) and the largest seaport in the Arab peninsula. As we were driving through the city, I just kept looking around wide-eyed, hard to believe that I was actually here. In all my life, I never dreamed that I would visit the country of Oman. Heck, for half of my life I didn’t even know there was a country of Oman.

Salalah is known for its frankincense. Frankincense trees are native to the area and are abundant. In fact, Salalah is known as the perfume capital of Arabia. Salalah was a major stop on the trade route from the 4^th century BC to the 2^nd century AD. So the frankincense that was brought to Jesus as a gift when he was born likely came from Salalah. Another Biblical connection is that it is believed that Job’s tomb is located here. I didn’t really catch the explanation of why that is believed to be so.

In addition to the many frankincense trees, there are also coconut and banana trees that are native to the area. The only coconut trees in the country of Oman are in Salalah. Being in a tropical climate, there are also many beautiful palm trees lining the streets and adorning the palaces.

 

Our tour guide’s name was Ari. The first stop on the excursion was one of the Sultan’s Palaces. Oman is a sultanate and is therefore ruled by a Sultan. Apparently the Sultan has three palaces in Salalah, so that when he visits here, he can stay at any one of the three, because just one palace is not enough. We didn’t actually go into the palace, just stopped on the bus long enough to take some pictures.

 

Our second stop was at a beach located next to the palace. The beach was beautiful, very white sands, nice waves. However, there was no one on the beach, not a single person. This was curious since it was 2 or 3 in the afternoon on a beautiful sunny day. It was hot, around 85 degrees. But hey, isn’t that beach weather. Someone asked Ari about why there were no people there and he said people will come out after 5:00. Whether because it would be cooler or that is when they get off of work, he didn’t say. But apparently they don’t do the beach mid-day here.

From the beach, we drove to the Al-Baleed Archaeological site and the Museum of the Frankincense Land (no kidding, that was the name of the museum). There wasn’t much to the archaeological site, just a few ruins of old buildings that were remnants of a civilization that was here over 1000 years ago. The scenery was nice, though, as it was dotted with the ubiquitous frankincense trees.

 

Ari, under a Frankincense tree

The museum had displays of different types of ships that were used in the Salalah area over the years, and also a historical gallery with a little bit of the history of the area. In the history gallery, there was a picture of the current Sultan of Oman next to a picture of the former Sultan of Oman. Ari told us that the current sultan is a cousin of the former sultan. Someone asked Ari if the former sultan had no sons (and thus his cousin became sultan), and Ari answered by saying that the former sultan had no sons, and in trying to explain that he was not married, he said that “he had no wife to control”. Interesting choice of words.

 

Museum of the Frankincense Land

After the museum, we travelled to a fruit stand, where we were treated to coconut milk. I wasn’t too impressed. I guess I was expecting rich, sweet milk – not sure where that expectation even came from – and instead it was a bland, watered-down milk. However, it was a first for me to be drinking out of a coconut with a straw.

 

One of the men on the bus decided that we all needed to sample the local bananas, so he purchased some for the group. There are different kinds of bananas here, and this was a “small banana” (actual name) and it was very green, so I thought it wouldn’t be ripe. Yet it was perfectly ripe and the most delicious tasting banana ever. Getting fruit close to the source is definitely the way to go!

 

After the fruit stand, we were given a little time for shopping. A lot of the shops were closed, which was interesting. There’s just not a lot of people out and about during the day. The open shops sold perfumes, incense, cosmetics, shoes, cloths, etc. And almost all of the shops were burning frankincense, which you could smell immediately when you walked in. Yeah, it’s really big here.

 

Our last stop of the day was a mosque. We were supposed to get off the bus to take pictures of the mosque (we weren’t allowed inside), but after half the people got off the bus, they began getting back on again. The only thing I was able to gather from my seat in the back of the bus was that we weren’t allowed to get off and even take pictures of the outside. Not sure why. So we just drove around, took pictures from the bus, and then headed back to port.

 

While we were driving around the city of Salalah, I noticed a few things. Some of the men were dressed in long robes, but most of them wore the traditional western style regular shirt and jeans. Then I began to wonder about the women, so I looked out to see what the women were wearing. There were no women outside walking around. I kept looking, every time we came to a shopping center, to an open plaza, to restaurants, anywhere there were people walking around, but no women. The only people out and about walking around were men.

Here are some pictures from Joe's excursion.

A different beach than the one we visited

Camels were blocking the road at one point, so the bus pulled over to take photos of the camels. Someone asked the native tour guide, Hani, if he had ever ridden a camel. He said no. Joe overheard and mentioned that he had actually ridden a camel (in Australia). Interesting that the native of Oman had never ridden a camel but someone from W. Pennsylvania had.

Typical Omani shopkeeper

And lastly, Viking is very helpful with their tips. In the aforementioned Viking Daily newsletter, one of the things they tell you is how to say “Take me back to the ship” in the local language, in the event that you would get left behind in a Frankincense Museum or something. In Oman, the language is Arabic, so Viking printed this helpful bit of info in the Viking Daily:

Yeah, that would be very helpful.