BEIJING TO LONDON CRUISE- 78 DAYS : SALALAH, OMAN

Sunday, April 28th

Salalah is the capital of the southern Omani province of Dhofar and has a population of 250,000. It is the second largest city in Oman. It's port is the largest on the Arabian peninsula and is an important transshipment hub for container shipping connecting Africa, the Mideast, and Asia. Salalah is also known as "the perfume capital of Arabia". It is also a popular tourist destination because of its nearby mountains and abundant stands of frankincense trees. They raise cattle and have coconut plantations. There are also some nice beaches and scuba diving is good here.
Our 4 hour tour was not so good. Initially it was a cloudy, rainy looking day but the clouds disappeared and we had crystal blue skies the rest of the day. Really the first day we have not had any haze. Hopefully my photos will be better. It was VERY hot though. Most of our touring was in the older end of the city. The road were again relatively new and nice. Our guide said not much was here prior to 1970 but the Sultan started developing the economy here after that. He said that they had strict laws. For example if you litter the road sides, you will have a mandatory 3 hour jail stay and must pay a big fine before they will let you out. We did not see any other tourists but did drive by a big walled in "tourist compound" with lots of villas and probably some nice beaches and restaurants. The big "claim to fame" here was the frankincense trees. Salalah is the only place in Oman where the trees will grow. They harvest the sap and through a few drying processes it becomes small, hard, and rock like. It is then sold to mosques all over the world to be burnt during prayer time.

Pier we will dock at

Today's tour

Signs on bus next to ours: No French fries, No Smoking, and No Ice Cream!

Exiting the industrial port this morning. Low clouds but they burnt off rapidly.

About every circle turn about had a monument.

About the tallest building we saw today.

Small water falls in circle

According to our tour guide Oman was nothing but a very desolate and poor country until 1970. Within last 15 years Salalah has been transformed into a more modern city. Lots of construction now.

Salalah's Grand Mosque. Not nearly as "grand" as ones in UAE.

Left our shoes on the front steps

Inner court yard

Columns around the court yard. Seems all grand mosques are built about the same.

Where they wash before praying

Our guide

Grand prayer room. We were suppose to stay on the blue pathways over the carpet but I strayed off it for a photo and was told to get back on the blue path. OOPS!

Beautiful carpet. By the way all the huge carpets in these mosques are one piece--no seams!

One of the doors

Beautiful chandelier--Mosques was not very colorful.

In the center of this wall is same thing (they have a name for it but not sure what) that is in every mosques and indicates which direction Mecca is. They have to pray facing Mecca. Mecca in Saudi Arabia is center of the Islamic religion and largest of all mosques is located here. All Muslims have to make a "haj" once in their lifetime if they are physically able and can afford the trip. A haj is a trip to Mecca.

Front door to exit

Coconut trees

Banana trees

We made a stop so as to have some coconut water. It was TERRIBLE. Needed to be cold and with some rum!!

Some vegetable gardens with the banana trees

Small coconut plantation

This was a very nice little museum. Part showed old sailing boats and part was history of Oman.

This is a frankincense tree. They can only grow in this area of Oman. Back in very old days frankincense was more valuable than gold. It is harvested from the tree sap and dried. It then looks like small stones and is used to be burnt in mosques and homes.

Old ruins

This is frankincense when ready to be sold and then burnt like in photo below. I think it smells awful.

This is the Souq (market) we went to. All these shops sell same thing: frankincense. We had an hour to kill here and that was about 55 minutes too much.

There were also lots of tailor shops and local clothing shops.

Frankincense and perfume shop

Beach but no one uses it during day. Our guide said it was great place to watch the sun set in evenings.

Government has bought out all the owners and will build a big resort along the beach.

Main gate to the Sultan's Palace. He has 3 palaces. The ceremonial one you saw photos of yesterday in Muscat. He has two he lives in one in Muscat, the capital, and one here as he is from Salalah. He sometimes spends 8 months of the year so built a big housing compound complete with private mall and hospital for all his staff and their families.