Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Sonya

Since we first arrived in the region, Oman had been on our list of places to visit. Only an hour or so flight away from Doha, we’d heard stories about the natural beauty of the country – it boasts amazing desert landscape, lush green wadis, and of course the majestic Hajar mountain ranges.

We planned our visit during the Eid Al Adha festivities, which had provided me with three days off. So along with the weekend, that gave us five days for exploring Oman.

Our night time flight into the country’s capital Muscat was smooth, we pleasantly found out that being a resident of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country, it only had to pay 5 Omani Riyal (OMR) for our visa, equivalent to about 15 USD, as opposed to 20 OMR. A taxi from the airport to our hotel on the Muttrah Corniche was 8 OMR. We were lucky to have gotten a room facing the corniche – allowing us full view of the boats in the harbour, and the bustling activities on the riverside road.

The following day we decided to explore the Muttrah Corniche, with the thought of perhaps visiting the Muscat Fort and then heading to Old Muscat. We stopped for brekky at a local cafe for some kebabs. A further walk along to the fort and we noticed it was not open for entry. We walked a bit further along the corniche but figured it was a bit too hot to walk the full 8 km to Old Muscat. Instead we caught a cab (the driver was a friendly Omani who refused to accept a fare for the short ride – but we paid him anyway!) and explored the outside of Sultan Qaboos’ Palace (Al Alam Palace), the Mirani Fort and the Al Jalali Fort. The current Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who overthrew his father in 1970 during a bloodless coup, is well adored in Oman it seems. He is known to have modernised the country, during an era referred to as the Renaissance. There are posters of him everywhere. Old Muscat was pretty quiet, with only a few tourists wandering around the sites.

By the time we’d finished with Old Muscat it was only midday. I suggested we go to one of the dive centres for a snorkelling trip (The Gulf of Oman is also famous for its exquisite marine life) and called the Oman Diving Centre located about 20 minutes from Muscat in Qantab. The centre has boats that depart every afternoon on snorkelling trips, based on weather and visibility. We took a cab to the centre and had a swim before the boat departed. The boat trip was basically a crew of young Spaniards who were working in Dubai, and us. The boat took us to a reef about 20 minutes away from the dive centre and we anchored there and jumped into the water – amazing coral and fish, giving us a relaxing afternoon of snorkelling.

Oman Diving Center snorkelling trip

Doha Tribeca Film Festival 2011, Qatar

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Sonya

This year’s DTFF featured the premiere of ‘Black Gold’ a film featuring Freida Pinto (Miral, Slumdog Millionnaire), Antonio Banderas and was partially filmed in the deserts of Mesaieed in Qatar. Unfortunately, tickets sold out as soon as they were on the market however we did manage to catch two films yesterday at Katara Cultural Village.

We purchased tickets online for Comic Con – A Fan’s Hope – not because either of us are particularly huge comic book fans, but it was directed by Morgan Spurlock (director of Super Size Me, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold) who would be present at the screening and post screening he would be on a panel talking about his documentary style films. We had seen a few of his films and was curious to what he had to say. Unlike the supposedly thousands of fans who had turned up a few days earlier to catch a glimpse of Freida and Antonio… Morgan’s red carpet entrance was modest with a couple of journalists from the media interviewing him. Whilst we waited in line for Comic Con – we could hear his responses “I went to the Islamic Museum yesterday, it was great…”.
The panel session afterwards was quite interesting too. Morgan, two of his producers and, Holly, one of the characters from the film were present and interviewed by one of the Tribeca directors.

After Comic Con we walked over to the main strip in Katara. It was setup similar to last year, with lots of kites and coloured lighting. Hungry, we picked up two falafels and waited in line for our next film – An Egyptian Citizen which was screening at the massive open air theatre. Prior to the commencement of the film, there was a circus show – pretty much exactly the same acts as last year! The film itself was entertaining – filmed in 1991, set in 1973 during the October War it featured adored Egyptian filmstar Omar Sharif.

Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, Qatar

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Travis

A few weeks ago we decided to visit the private museum of Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani, I made the booking on Thursday and we were all set for a Saturday visit.

Driving up to the museum we were presented with a beautiful fort-style building with towers at each corner. On entrance we signed the guest book and proceeded to the main and largest hall, full or various weapon and armour artefacts. It was a very interesting collection of guns, knives, daggers and plate armour. From the first hall, you could see that Sheikh loved collecting things.

Making a left turn was an eclectic collection of Islamic and Qatari items sprawled on the walls and shelfs with minimal labels. Further on was the Sheikh’s collection of paintings, some of people and many abstract. The last section had a small collection of vintage cars.

On the other side of the museum building were a number of smaller rooms with artefacts belonging to a common theme, rooms included;

Fabrics and Jewellery

An interesting room, consisting of embroidered fabric with Islamic designs and traditional jewellery. What I thought interesting was the large collection of drawings of females, scattered around the room, some quite erotic.

Literature and Manuscripts

A room consisting of very old Arabic writings and books. There were some interesting old maps.

Fossils

One of my favourite rooms, here we found 400 million year old Trilobite fossils from Morocco, plus a large number other plant and animal fossils, including dinosaur bones.

Cars and Trucks

Leaving the main building we drove to a separate building which housed a huge amount of vintage cars and trucks, as well as a Piper PA-34 Seneca twin-engine plane. In some of the side rooms was a religion display, which had Islam, Christianity and even Judaism items in individual rooms. The last room had a collection of scientific equipment and bottles which I think was trying to portray Atheism.

Overall it was a fun visit.

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Sonya

We arrived on the island of Abu Dhabi around dusk. The city seemed a lot smaller than Dubai but huge in comparison to Doha. However, like Doha, there is a lot of construction going on.

In the evening we had dinner at popular restaurant – Lebanese Flower. We were starving after a day on the road and it was quite comforting and delicious, we had lentil soup, falafel, fattoush and grilled lamb and chicken. After dinner we took a walk by the Emirates Palace which is beautifully lit up at night.

The following day we decided to follow the ‘Big Bus Tours’ and do a round trip of the city.

Marina Mall
Sheikh Zayed Mosque
Eastern Corniche
Abu Dhabi Mall
Carpet Souk
Iranian Market
Abu Dhabi Corniche
Al Hosn Fort and Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation
Markaziyah Park and Gardens
Public Beach
Heritage Centre

We started first at the eastern part of the corniche – there are marshes here off the main island, and plenty of flamingos enjoying the wetlands.

We then drove past Abu Dhabi Mall, towards the port/fishing area where we had hoped to stop and have look at the Iranian markets. It was just a street lined with stores selling Iranian pottery, knick knacks such as plasticware…and not much else. So, we drove past and continued on.

We decided to stop off at the Emirates Culture and Heritage village and have a look around. From here you could see the full view of the city skyline and surrounding it were beautiful white beaches which crystal clear water. Next to the Cultural centre was the famous Abu Dhabi flag pole – the highest in the world at
122m.

Nearby is the Marina Mall and Sky Tower. We headed to the top of the Sky Tower – to a coffee house where we took a break, had some coffee and icecream and enjoyed the views of Abu Dhabi.

After that we headed to the Emirates Palace and this time went inside to have a look see. Full of fanciful restaurants and a five star hotel.. it wasn’t as impressive inside (so I thought anyway). However, a highlight was the gold bar ATM (for withdrawing gold bars as opposed to cash!).

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Lastly, we did a stop at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. I had to put on an abaya here, as women are not allowed to be photographed without one on. The mosque itself is huge (it can accommodate 40,000 worshippers) and extremely beautiful with lots of pillars and intricate Islamic art.