Muscat

Sultan Qaboos bin Said (pronounced like the caboose of a train but put the emphasis on 'ca') has ruled Oman for over 47 years so a lot of buildings, roads and mosques carrying his name.

One of the yachts with our ship in the background.

As we are driving to the mosque our driver points to two 'cruise' ships in the harbor and tells us that those are the Sultan's yachts - one for him and one for his wives!!

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the 4th largest in Arabia with Mecca the largest. There are two prayer rooms, a small one for the women who usually pray at home but occasionally want to pray at the mosque and a large one for the men. The women's room will hold 650 and the men's will hold up to 6500. If needed prayers can be held on the plaza surrounding the mosque for an additional 12,000 men. There are five minarets to represent the five pillars of Islam - one God, prayer, charity, cleansing before prayer and a haj to Mecca. The Sultan paid for the mosque to be built and it took 6 years to complete it in 2001. The dome is mosaic tile, the chandelier is crystal and weighs 8 tons and the carpet on the floor is all one piece made by the hands of young Irani girls.

Our next stop was though a city gate to the bordering town of Mutrah where we shopped in the Souq or market place. We then went through another city gate to Old Muscat and explored a museum named Bait Al Zubair. Displays of clothing, jewelry, stamps and armaments filled one building. We walked past an ancient home made from palm tree fronds and into a more modern display of an Omani home.

From the ship as we are leaving the harbor.

Really big incense burner.