Oman: Birthday in the Switzerland of the Middle East

MUSCAT, Oman – At first glance, spending my birthday in the global tinderbox that is the Middle East during the Islamic fasting period wasn’t one of my more savvy traveling decisions. Maybe not as bad as spending a night in Bakersfield but bad enough.

Let’s see. Oman borders Yemen which has been at war for 10 years with Saudi Arabia, Oman’s other neighbor. Oman is less than 100 kilometers from Iran whose mullahs are turning the country’s clock back to 5th century Persia. And did we mention Gaza and Syria on the other side of Saudi Arabia?

Then you add no open restaurants from sunrise to sunset and you have the potential of a very cranky, hungry, stressed girlfriend.

But there we were on our first day in Muscat, Oman’s charming capital. We stood at the Mutrah Fort, a 16th century fortress sitting high on a hill looming over the Gulf of Oman. Looking down we saw the Mutrah Corniche, Oman’s seaside boardwalk that stretches three kilometers past bright blue mosques, hopping juice bars and spouting fountains. 

As the sun set, Omani families in various forms of robes and headscarves gathered by the sea with their tea, their food and their love as the muezzin’s mystical call to prayer poured out of the nearby mosque.

“I dreamt of this for 20 years,” Marina said, her smile nearly as broad as the tall, darkened, craggy Hajar Mountains in the background. “Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. This is my dream.”

We leave Rome for our birthdays. For mine I’ve been to Delhi, Lisbon, Sicily, Kyoto, Istanbul and Beirut among others. For this March 29 I chose Oman. It would be my 20th Islamic country and travelers told me it would be my favorite.

It doesn’t beat Indonesia. How do you beat those beaches and Bintang beer for $2 a bottle? But Oman is second.  

Admittedly, Oman is not for everyone. It has little nightlife. What limited alcohol is available only in high-end hotels and is larcenously expensive. Its public transportation is spotty. Its beaches are good but not great. 

But it also has beautiful architecture, great cuisine, a spectacular desert, clean streets, cheap prices, desert water holes, a mountain range that rubs against the sea and kind people, most of whom speak English.

Most important: It has a popular government that has managed to be friends with everyone. Welcome to Oman, the Switzerland of the Middle East.

Omanis smile crookedly when they hear that label. Oman has never officially declared itself “neutral.” But it’s a good handle to have these days, however contrived, especially in this region. Iran, one Omani told me, “always has our back.” 

And when Sultan Qaboos bin Said died in 2020 after 50 years in power, Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran’s sworn enemy, visited Oman for three days, praising Qaboos as “an incredible leader.” Oman hasn’t had a war or even a rebellion since 1976.

Therefore, Marina and I felt good coming to Oman for 10 days without worrying about dodging air strikes.

The arrival

When we cleared Customs at Muscat International, we noticed a long line at car rental agencies. Most people rent cars in Oman. This country of 5 million people on the southeast end of the Persian Gulf is huge. Its coastline is 2,000 miles long. Deserts and valleys make up more than 80 percent of the land. A four-wheel drive isn’t necessary but recommended.

I’ve driven all over the world but I prefer looking at scenery, not road signs and GPS. And have you ever tried to find parking in Beirut? We winged it with Oman’s public transportation system which is cheap, comfortable and … well, it’s cheap and comfortable. Efficiency is not a priority. It’s one or two buses per day between major destinations. You’re late? You’re screwed. Enjoy waiting eight hours at a dusty bus stop for the next one.

Muscat’s city bus service is one level above rumor. I punted local ambiance and booked the Radisson Blu, not because I’m a Radisson points whore but because I wanted a pool. Hey, it’s my birthday. Go pitch a tent. (Actually, I did. More on that Tuesday.)

However, the Radisson is in the middle of nowhere. It’s in a retail jungle halfway between the airport and the lively Corniche area. And Muscat is massive. The city of 1.7 million covers 1,400 square miles (3,500 square kilometers). That’s more than twice the size of Houston.

Our hotel staff had no clue about city buses. I downloaded an app that showed the nearest bus stop was not convenient. For four days in Muscat I got battered with €15 cab rides.

Ramadan

But we could not have come at a better time. During a fast? No, we weren’t dieting. But Islam’s annual one-month fast called Ramadan kept away a flood of tourists. They either didn’t want to skip lunch or confused Oman with a bombed-out village in Gaza. 

Our Radisson was nearly empty until it was fully booked Sunday, the last day of Ramadan. The five-star desert camp I’ll discuss Tuesday has room for 80 guests and had only 16. We ate breakfast alone for three days in the beach town of Sur.

Eating was not a problem. While every restaurant was closed until after sundown at about 6:15 p.m., hotels served breakfast to non-Muslims. For lunch, every night we went to a supermarket and bought local foods to get us through the next day. Cellophane-wrapped cheese baguettes. Fresh fruit. Pastries.

It was like having a Middle East picnic every day.

No alcohol? No problem. After the Radisson bar sodomized me with a 4.80 rial (€12) charge for a pint of that Dutch swill called Amstel, sobriety never felt so good. I went dry the last nine days.

Consequently, we practically had the country to ourselves. On our first night, we cabbed down spotless, well-paved roads past an endless string of palm trees to the Corniche. At the beginning stands the Mutrah Fort, built by the Portuguese in the 1580s when it controlled Oman’s coast to secure Indian Ocean trade routes.

The fort rises high on a cliff where we made a steep climb to get the view that took away Marina’s breath. The Gulf of Oman’s royal blue blended seamlessly with the sky. The road curved languidly around the Hajar foothills to our right.

Sitting in the sea just off shore, like one of the world’s highest-end cruise ships, was Al Said, the yacht Sultan Qaboos had built in 2007 for $600 million. It’s 508 feet long (155 meters) and at the time of its launch was the second-longest yacht in the world. In 2022, it was sold to the Royal Family of Qatar which I’m sure was more than happy to pick up the annual maintenance cost of $60 million.

We descended and escaped the barkers in the souq to walk along the Corniche. As the sun set behind the mountains, we passed the Mutran Mosque and its minaret of different shades of blue. Women in black hajibs sat in a gazebo around an elaborately decorated silver tea kettle, chatting and laughing.

At the end of the Corniche is Muscat’s huge fish market with a sprawling roof resembling a fish scale. Across the street we sat at a plastic table of a no-frills juice bar and I found my Methadone to alcohol. 

While Marina fed two hungry cats with chicken from a friendly shop owner, I drank a pineapple juice. Made with fresh pineapple pulled from the refrigerator and mixed with milk and ice, it was like an ice-cold pineapple milkshake for which I quickly built a dependency.

Fruit juice became my poison of choice for which I am currently seeking treatment.

The sites

What sets Muscat apart from other Islamic capitals is the architecture. Everything seems sparkling new without selling out to Western tastes and lining the streets with record-breaking skyscrapers as in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. 

Before 1970, Oman had only three schools, two hospitals and only 10 kilometers of paved road. Sultan Qaboos vowed he’d build Oman with one eye on the future and one on tradition.

Oman does not allow any buildings over eight stories. In Dubai, 7-Elevens are eight stories. What you get are tasteful whitewashed buildings and sandstone mosques that glisten in the sun. Muscat is a city of sand castles.

Oman’s prize architectural jewel is the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. Built in 2000 to mark Qaboos’ 30-year reign, it’s made of 300,000 tons of imported Indian sandstone. The main minaret stands 300 feet (high (minarets are excused from the height max) and flanked by four minarets of 150 feet.

We entered with only about 10 other people. I remember in Abu Dhabi waiting in line for 45 minutes and filling out an ID registration form and going through security before entering the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. 

After passing through a modest prayer hall reserved for women, we came to the main prayer hall. Below huge crystal chandeliers was the second largest hand-loomed carpet in the world. The blue carpet with various shades of beige stretched 70 x 60 meters and took 600 women four years to weave. 

In the middle of the massive, silent, holy room knelt a middle-aged bald man praying, facing north toward Mecca.

Another taxi ride took us to Old Muscat. We entered an open gate to a neighborhood squeezed between the sea and jagged foothills. We spent a couple hours exploring the tastefully minimalist National Museum and its collection of elaborate jewelry, some with Koran verses and a third century medical transcript translated into Arabic.

Omanis are big into subtleties. Nothing illustrates that more than the Sultan’s Palace. Most homes of Islamic leaders almost require their own postal code. I saw the Sultan of Brunei’s $3 billion crib, the world’s largest, covering 2.1 million square feet (200,000 square meters) with 1,788 rooms.

The Oman sultan’s palace is nice but nothing ostentatious, like something you’d see in the Hollywood Hills. It has a pretty blue and yellow motif and an entrance framed by two cannons. It’s less than 100 meters from regular Omani apartments.

This is one reason why the sultans are wildly popular here. When Sultan Qaboos took over in 1970, he traveled the country meeting locals and hearing their concerns. So relieved from his father’s yoke, they greeted him with flag-waving camels and gifts.

He never had children and when he died in 2020, he handed his reign to his nephew. The Oxford-educated Sultan Haitham bin Trariq made education free in an attempt to build a strong local workforce. Women make up half the enrollment in universities.

Without the huge oil reserves of its neighbors, he made tourism the base of development. It has worked. According to last week’s Times of Oman, the tourism sector is on pace to create 500,000 jobs by 2040. By 2030, tourism will contribute 3 billion rial (€7.5 billion), adding 3.5 percent to the country’s GNP. 

At the same time, Oman is exporting natural gas, methanol and aluminum. It’s all part of the Vision 2040, Oman’s program to broaden its economic diversification. Pensioners get money every month. All medical treatment is free.

Unemployment among the youth remains a problem but I’ve been in few countries anywhere in the world where the leader is more popular.

“(Qaboos) spent his life building the country,” said Sulaiman Al Nabhnai, 50, our cab driver we got to know in Muscat. “So the people love him so much. He chose this new sultan. We’re still with him. We support him as much as we can. This guy is very smart. He’s a businessman. So he’s doing good.”

Sur

After two days in the five-star Desert Nights, we took a bus 90 minutes to Sur. While we needed a local bedouin to help us find the bus stop, which was different from what the bus company told us, the ride cost all of 3.60 rial (about €9) for two tickets. The bus had only two other passengers. 

It was a nice ride through a moonscape of desert with large, craggy mountains and bushes sprouting from the ground like so many whisk brooms.

Sur sprawls along the coast with a long Corniche lined with gazebos and benches facing the sea. This was one of the top shipbuilding centers in the Middle East. In the early 1900s, ships left Sur for as far as China and New York. They still make dhows, the majestic wooden boats with the long tail and sails, in a factory that we visited by the Corniche.

We checked into our Sur Grand Hotel, a comfortable four-star hotel with a beautiful pool just 100 meters from a simple, functioning beach. The Grand had all of 16 guests in 90 rooms. We were alone every day at the pool. By Sunday the hotel was full.

Owner Salim Aluraimi greeted us as we checked in and later told me he’s planning another hotel on the sea. I asked him about balancing tourism with keeping tradition.

“Tourism, they like keeping the tradition,” he said in perfect English. “Some of them like to see something different from, like, Dubai. They believe that Oman is looking better. Some of them say it’s natural and should not be disturbed by new development.”

Next door to the hotel was one of our trip’s highlights. Manart Sur is a tiny, unassuming restaurant with a long narrow dining room where you can sit on the floor with a bevy of pillows, Middle East style. Its menu is only in Arabic. Our mixed grill for two, for all of 7.70 rial (€18), was a huge tray filled with perfectly grilled, succulent lamb, beef, chicken and pork over pita bread with a side of hummus. 

Ramadan ends

When we returned to Muscat Saturday, our hotel was filled with Indians, Iranians and Europeans. When Ramadan ended Monday, Muscat had a three-day holiday. Sulaiman, our cabbie, was sorry to hear we were leaving that day. He wanted to invite us to his house to celebrate with his wife and four children.

Like so many we met, Sulaiman seemed gloriously happy.

“To be honest, I used to travel,” he told us. “I’m a commercial sales manager. They used to send me outside. Sometimes to Europe. Sometimes to Africa. After three days I miss this place.”

After two days, so do we.

If you’re thinking of coming …

How to get here: Sixty-six cities in 32 countries fly direct to Muscat. I paid €720 for two round-trip tickets from Rome, including free luggage, on Oman Air.

Where to stay: Radisson Blu, PC 133, Sultan Qaboos Street, Muscat, 968-24-487-777, https://www.radissonhotels.com/en-us/hotels/radisson-blu-muscat?cid=a%3Ase+b%3Agmb+c%3Aemea+i%3Alocal+e%3Ardb+d%3Amea+h%3AOMMCT2. Four-star hotel in middle of city has a beautiful pool and an excellent but relatively expensive buffet and bar. It’s in a bad location with virtually no Omani dining options near it. I paid €165 for our first two nights.

Where to eat: Bait Al Luban, Haral A-Shamal St. on the Corniche, 968-2471-1842, http://www.baitalluban.com. Beautiful restaurant with a balcony view of the Corniche and sea. Serves all the classic Omani dishes with heavy emphasis on cardamon, saffron and turmeric. I had the traditional dish of shuwa, meat marinated in date juice and spices, wrapped in a banana leaf and buried in an underground oven for at least 12 hours. I paid 20 rial (€50) for two. Highly popular with locals, reservations are a must.

Time to go: Winter is best. Temperatures from December to February range from 64-80. In late March we had temperatures from mid-70s to mid-90s but humidity was only 20 percent. I don’t ever remember sweating. Avoid May and June when it averages a high of 103, and it has reached 120 in July.

For more information: Visit Oman, https://visitoman.om/en.