We Love to Travel!: Strait of Hormuz and Salala, Oman

April 27, Saturday. We are at sea today. Lazy time, love it. At the moment we have a tiny bit of excitement as we are under "code yellow papa". As a result of our required first-day emergency drills, we know that means unidentified vessels have been spotted, and indeed, the captain has confirmed that there are two moving at high speed. There are other, brighter codes that have to do with evasive measures and moving us to safer positions if we might be fired on or boarded. Pirates! I found it comforting to know there were procedures in place as on this trip we sail in some dangerous waters. The Strait of Hormuz, where we are now, carries most of the world’s oil, making ships an enticing target here, and in a few days we will sail between Somalia and Yemen where pirates are known to attack smaller vessels. Assurances that cruise ships are too tall and too fast to be the kind of targets pirates like added to my sense this scenario was so unlikely as to be mostly funny. Well, now the captain says they are probably fishing boats and he will update us soon, but the notion of pirates seems less laughable. And so we wait.

An hour or more later we received word that the errant boats were no real threat after all, and we were back to normal on board. Meanwhile, one of our fellow passengers told us she had been in the lounge on the bow and saw four small boats, two that sped across our bow and stopped and then two more that joined them. She thought they might have seen a school of fish and communicated with each other, but our captain later indicated they may have been messing with us for fun. Her husband was on deck and saw that the fire hoses had been deployed all around the promenade deck, and had actually been turned on and were aimed by crew members down into the sea, ready instantly to be turned onto approaching unfriendly vessels. The US and Britain, and probably the UN, have a large presence here with destroyers, air defense, radar, etc all ready for instant deployment, but apparently we were taking no chances. Yemen and Somalia are nearby, but the countries we have visited are all allies of the West and friendly to us.

April 28, Sunday. Our last port for awhile is Salala, Oman. The usual tour, this time with a very tall, dark, and regal looking native of this small city.

Our Omani guide towers over a group member of normal height

His English is so heavily accented that we have a hard time understanding him. He is not as silent as our Moroccan guide in Doha, but neither is he truly informative. I don't know if a brilliant guide would have made a difference, but Salala seems one port too many. Nevertheless, there were a couple of reasons I am glad we came.

The highlight of our tour was a visit to the Grand Mosque built here by Sultan Qaboos of Oman because Salala is his birthplace. Since I missed to other big new mosque in Abu Dhabi, I was happy to be able to go inside this one.

The Grand Mosque of Salala

Our guide dwarfs the man next to him, but not the entrance.
Note the beautiful calligraphy over the door

Looking into the inner courtyard where overflow crowds may worship

It was new, beautiful, and completely open inside, as apparently are all mosques. That openness was a surprise to me. Yes, I've seen pictures, but it really didn't register on me that the space itself would be an important part of the experience. No pews, no altar, just a beautiful space with excellent light. There were a good many of us inside, though nothing like the typical numbers of worshippers the mosque usually sees when it is closed to tourists for worship. Overhead, the dome soars above a huge glass and gold chandelier, and windows add even more light as do the smaller chandeliers all along the sides. The soaring, light-filled space dwarfs the humans inside. I suspect this sense of scale coupled with the brilliant light from above is very much a part of the experience for the faithful.

The huge open space of the inner mosque

One of the chandeliers

Closer, and with the windows

The qibla, indicating the direction of Mecca

We were asked to stay on a blue canvas runner, but the mosque boasts the second-largest carpet in the world (after the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi), intricately patterned with pastel designs. Worshippers must wash feet, legs, hands, arms, faces, and necks before entering any mosque, so they are allowed to walk and pray anywhere without fear of soiling the carpet.

Here we are on our blue runner

Meanwhile, this was the first and only time I needed to be as covered as I had thought would be required for most of the trip. Legs covered to the ankles, arms to the wrists, shoulders to the neck, and all hair hidden by a scarf. The same for men without the head covering. Not as weird as I expected.

Here I am, baggily and inexpertly covered, except for feet and hands.

Our next stop was at a coconut farm. We were promised a drink of coconut water, but that was not forthcoming. Unlike coconut milk, which comes from ripe brown coconuts, coconut water is extracted from green coconuts and is supposed to be watery and very refreshing. I think they wanted us to see that Salala is a garden spot of Oman, and yes, it was far greener than other ports have been.

Green!

The coconut and banana farm

Green coconuts

Back on the bus for a visit to the Frankincense Museum. This is one of only three places in the world where the frankincense tree grows (the others are Somalia and Yemen), so it was very much on display here. The museum itself was interesting and well done but had nothing to do with the incense trees other than to have several growing outside.

The Frankincense Museum

A Frankincense tree

No photos inside, but this was OK

This is actually the Al Baleed archeological site and a very good introduction to the long history of this region.

Some of the ruins found here dating back to at least 1500AD

More ruins

And more

Click on photo to be able to read more about this site

Examples of historic local boats

Back on the bus, we passed a beautiful beach area that is currently either empty or filled with mostly vacant older buildings that will soon be town down. They plan to develop this for the tourist trade with resort hotels and all that goes with them. I think I recall that a consortium from the Emirates is getting ready to start this project.

On to, you can guess it, the souk. This one was open to the sun, and because this was our southernmost port and not smoggy, extremely hot. A small door led some of us to the Presidential Palace, which is just barely outside the shopping area. We didn't stay long. A creepy old man started shouting at us, waving his arms, and approaching too near for comfort. Concluding he was crazy because he was clearly not a guard, we left.