Salalah, Oman

We’re in Asia now! We arrived in Salalah, Oman this morning. We’ve never been to Oman but decided not to take an excursion because it’s Eid and most everything is closed. We took the shuttle bus to the port gates where taxis were lined up and hired a driver to show us around along with another couple from the ship who we didn’t know. It worked out well.

Oman is a Sultantate and the oldest independent state in the Arab world. It’s at the mouth of the Gulf of the Arabian Sea and has a population of about 4.5 million. It’s known as the land of frankincense. Salalah is the third largest city and has a population of about 200,000.

Our driver was quite fluent in English and was happy to be spontaneous if we saw something of interest and wanted him to pull over. He took us to a Sultan Qaboos mosque (there are a number), the gates of two of the Sultan’s palaces (you can’t go in), the beach, a market, a man-made saltwater lake, a camel farm and a mall. We got a good sense of the city despite it being a holiday.Read more