Corniche at Muscat, Oman
I’m running out of ideas for posting! Since it’s double festival season again, Muslim Eid al-Adha / Aidil-Adha and Hindu Durga Puja, I’ll post things of what we did at this time last year.
Last year was good, Eid fell in the middle of the week, so with the weekends added, we had a full 5 day break. This year we had a total of 3! And with the baby due anytime, we just stuck around the house, ate, slept and put on some weight.
We started our first day of the 5 day break last year with a small traditional ritual for Durga Puja (it happened to fall on the main day of Durga Puja). (Durga Puja is Anu’s family’s biggest festival of the year. It is also the biggest festival in Bengali Hindu areas and is basically a major festival in East India, North East India and Nepal). This is what you have to do, Gorkhali style: -
Blessing the children of the house, with incense, uncooked rice, banana paste, etc. You have to paste uncooked rice on the forehead of the kids and pass them some money. We did a short cut and just threw some rice on Justin. It’s the gesture that counts, right?
Then we started our journey to Oman, via Hatta. We reached the Omani border post (Wajaja) at about 12.30pm. We exited the immigration complex at 8.30pm. Yes, it took 8 hours! The immigration process is very complicated. It involves half an hour of looking for a parking, 15 minutes of figuring out what’s happening inside the marketplace of a complex, 7 hours and 10 minutes of hanging around, chit-chatting with strangers, and queuing up to reach the immigration counters, and 5 minutes of paying and getting the visas stamped on your passports. (I’m recycling some material here! See previous post.) If you have a group with you, which everybody has (it’s an average of 5 passports per person queuing up), you can take turns queuing up, or your friend can help you grab a coffee, a pizza, some KFC, or something while you chat up complete strangers to break the boredom. You can also watch the kids up to their antics, playing, shouting, sleeping, giggling, crying, running around and bumping into people, throwing tantrums. What a wonderful place!
Lessons learned: - If you want this experience, do visit during an extended holiday weekend. If you hate waiting, best visit at 3am (they open 24 hours!), or don’t come during a holiday in the region.
We reached our hotel in Muscat past midnight.
Scenes from Muscat, where we spent our Eid 2013 in: -
Mutrah, the congested part of Muscat, with narrow roads hemmed in by rocky hillocks, shops and houses.
Mutrah Souk
Along the Corniche, near Mutrah, Muscat, Oman
Old Muscat, with Fort Mirani in the background
A view of the bay at Old Muscat, from the front of Fort Mirani
Sultan Qaboos Mosque, at a newer part of Muscat
The newer parts of Muscat, from the front of the Sultan Qaboos Mosque. That black Toyota Yaris on the right was our car for the trip!
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