The Adventures of Carolyn and Rodger in Oman

A Visit to the Bait Muzna Gallery

2009-04-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

After a stay-at-home Friday, doing laundry, reading and relaxing,

and several hours of photographing around the farm,

Idriis picked us up at 9:30 Saturday morning to visit the Bait Muzna Gallery, Susan Al Said's art gallery in Muscat, where we had arranged to meet her. She shows a wide range of modern, largely Middle Eastern artists, and we found the work interesting and mostly to our liking.

This is a portrait I did of Susan at the gallery. When she first met her husband 25 years ago, she was an American fashion model working in Paris, and as you can see, she has lost little if any of her fashion model looks in the intervening years.

The gallery occupies a house that has been in her husband's family for decades, with an interior courtyard...

... and several rooms full of art (including a number of beautiful antique wooden chests). We looked at everything and bought a few unique and (we thought) elegant souviners to take home with us. Later we went to lunch with Mohammed and Meera at their home, where we met several more members of their family.

We were particularly happy that Mohammed's younger son, Ali was there. We hadn't seen him since his father's graduation from Harvard in 2004.

Then it was back to the farm...

...and a quiet afternoon and evening "at home."

A Most Unusual Christmas

2009-03-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

Christmas day we went to Nizwa, the ancient capital of the country. Nizwa is about one and a half hours into the mountains to the west of Muscat. These mountains are extremely unusual in that they were thrust up from the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago when two tectonic plates collided, and the oceanic plate thrust up over the continental plate.

They are barren and forbidding, yet fascinating in shape, and brutally steep. In many places they come right down to the edge of the town.

For this day trip our escorts were Mohammed’s son Ahmed, and his nephew Ali. Above, Carolyn, Ahmed, and Ali (with Rodger taking the photo) lunch at a traditional Omani Restaurant, sitting outside at a table. Inside were small private rooms where diners ate sitting on cushions on the floor. We lacked the necessary flexibility to dine in that traditional manner.

We are so fortunate to have as guides these members of Mohammed's family who are interesting and fun to be with, and who speak Arabic and English. Ahmed is currently a college student in Toronto, and Ali is a colonel in the national police.

Nizwa is located at an oasis in a wadi (a dried up river bed) between these mountain ridges.

One of the main attractions of Nizwa is its ancient fort. Forts abound in Oman, and the fort at Nizwa is one of the most famous. We went inside through a carved wooden door between two cannons, and bought tickets from a walleyed man sitting above us.

On the wall above himwas the inevitable portrait of His Majesty the Sultan.

Inside the fort was, by turns, very close...

...and surprisingly spacious.

There was a small but interesting gift shop where Ahmed and Ali bought us souviners.

There was also a snack shop where we had something cold to drink, and where Carolyn took this shot out the window of Ali (on the right) talking with another visitor.

We climbed several flights of steep interior stairs to reach the top of the fort. These stairways were strewn with various ingenious booby traps to ensnare invaders, such things as a series of seven trap doors in the floor of the winding staircase which, when stepped upon, caused warriors to fall into a deep pit – thus the origin of the word pitfall.

There are narrow slits in the top of the battlements through which boiling date juice was poured on unsuspecting invaders below, or water to put out enemy fires. Over time changes were made to accommodate cannons and other firearms.

High atop Nizwa Fort Ahmed points out a spot of dust on my camera sensor.

On the way back to Muscat all traffic was stopped at a checkpoint along the highway because of an upcoming summit of the Arabian Peninsula heads of state, of which Oman was the host country. With policeman Ali driving, we had no problem sailing right through.

The day before, Christmas Eve, we'd gotten a call from Mohammed telling us that a driver would pick us up at 6:00 pm Christmas evening and take us to dinner with members of the Omani Royal Family. Idriis arrived on scheduled, and drove us to the palatial home of a nephew of the Sultan, Kais Al Said and his American wife, Susan. Their home was well up a hill behind the Grand Mosque, and provided a panoramic view of the city spread out below.

Hesitant to ask permission to photograph, Rodger left his LX3 in its bag (so there are no photos for this section of the post).

Besides the two of us, there were four other guests, all friends of the family: a German artist who spends half of each year in Oman, an Indian couple involved in importing cars into Oman from all over the world (him) and in a psychiatric practice (her). After dinner had begun, another guest arrived, a physical therapist who treats his highness for partial paralysis due to a stroke he had several years ago. Also there were two of their children, an older son home from college in England and a younger son home from boarding school in Vermont with three of his European classmates.

When we addressed our hostess as “Your Highness," she immediately told us, “Call me Susan.” In addition to caring for a disabled husband, raising three children (a daughter works in an art gallery in LA), and running a royal household, this high energy lady also owns an art business in downtown Muscat, the Bait Muzna Gallery, where she sells art all over the Middle East.

Dinner was a traditional English Christmas dinner at a long, festively decorated table that comfortably seated the fourteen of us, with waiters hovering, anticipating our every need. There was a Christmas tree and Christmas Carols playing softly on the sound system in the background. Particularly good were the roasted turkey, the garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, and the honeyed parsnips. And we had very fine red and white wines, which we would not have expected in a Muslim country. There was an extensive desert table (which Rodger managed to almost entirely avoid).

After a magical and wholly unexpected Christmas evening arranged for us by our friend Mohammed, we said our goodbyes, having made arrangements to meet Susan at the gallery the following day.

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said

2009-01-29T04:51:00.000-08:00

His Majesty, Sultan Qaboos bin Said (Official Portrait)

Today's post is about one man and the country he built over the past 38 years.

The modern Sultinate of Oman was born in 1970 when the current Sultan, Qaboos bin Said, came to power . At 30 years of age, he overthrew his father, a backward-looking despot, sending him into exile in London for the remainder of his life. When Qaboos bin Saud became Sultan, Oman was little more than a medieval state.

A few statistics:

• Life expectancy in 1970 was 47, while today it is 74.

• Oman had only one hospital in 1970 and now there are 58, plus 897 clinics and dispensaries.

• There were three schools in the whole country in 1970 and now there are 1178, plus several universities. Education is co-educational, with increasing numbers of women as well as men opting for careers in the professions and high tech.

• Today 86% of the country is supplied with electricity and with water, which is mostly piped in, although in the most remote villages water is supplied through truck delivery.

• From only 6 miles of paved road in 1970, a network of highways now links all the major cities and towns within Oman and its neighboring countries, and graded roads reach deep into the interior, linking the smallest villages.

Of course we did not meet or see the Sultan during our trip, but we saw his hand everywhere we went. We saw it especially in the highways stretching across the country, with new sections under construction almost everywhere we went.

The above and next three photos are of As Sultan Qaboos Street, a 4-lane highway that runs through Muscat and out past the airport. The highway is bordered on both sides for much of it's length by esplanades planted with grass, brightly colored flowers, and trees. All are irrigated by water derived from desalination plants.

Not only are these highways beautifully engineered and constructed, but much thought and no little expense was devoted to making them aesthetically pleasing as well, as with this retaining wall for an overpass.

This decorative structure, part of the same overpass as above, was patterned after an historic Omani fort.

Highway construction is not confined to Muscat and the other larger cities. This highway to the ancient Omani capital of Niswa runs along the wadis, or valleys between ranges of mountains.

This rugged stretch of highway leads to the beautiful Shangra La Resort, several miles south of Muscat on the coast.

A highways cuts through hills outside Salalah in the south.

There are well engineered paved roads even to small fishing villages such as Haramil.

We saw the Sultan's hand in the many government-built schools across the country, even in a tiny roadside village like Sarfait, dominated by its beautiful modern school.

We saw his artistic touch in sculptures decorating nearly every roundabout like this one near the University close to Mohammed's farm,

and perhaps his whimsy in this roundabout incense burner in Ruwi,

or this pile of dolphins on the promenade along the Corniche, a harborside street in Mutwah, a popular tourist section of Muscat.

This is the Sultan's yacht in Muscat Harbor, as seen from the Corniche. We were told that he has it because he doesn't like to fly.

An Opera House is under construction in Muscat. Maybe it will be done the next time we are there.

Pictures of the Sultan are everywhere: on the sides of public buildings,

on the roofs of stores,

behind the reservation desks of hotels such as the one where we stayed in Sur,

in a display in the Fort at Niswa,

and even along the highway, as with this display celebrating a meeting of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council, which took place during our stay.

I think that His Majesty Qaboos bin Said is a genius. I can think of no one in our time who has had such a profound impact on the actual physical development his country. He single handedly brought Oman into the modern age while scrupulously preserving his country's rich heritage, culture, and traditions. Furthermore he has done it with a powerful aesthetic sensibility; former U. S. Ambassador to Oman, Frances D. Cook told me that she considers him a Michangelo. He has chosen wisely which aspects of modernism to allow, and which to discourage. (I wish he had kept American fast food franchises out of his country, but that is about the only thing I can fault him for.)

One last statistic: in the Sultinate of Oman, His Majesty Qaboos bin Said is universally loved, which in the final analysis, says it all. rpk

The Grand Mosque and the Sultan's Palace 12/24

2009-01-26T04:09:00.000-08:00

The day before Christmas. We were picked up by Mohammed's driver Idriis for a day of exploring Muscat and Mutrah. Once separate and fortified ancient communities, they are now part of greater Muscat.

Above is the modern gate between Muscat and Mutrah.

A strange structure in the form of a gigantic incense burner near the Corniche, a street curving along the harbor in Mutrah.

First we went to visit Sultan Qaboos's Grand Mosque. It is the largest in Oman, and is, in effect, the official mosque of the country.

I had to cover up completely, to my ankles and wrists, and wear a headscarf that threatened to fall off at any moment (scarves designed for western wear are just not large enough to be held securely in place).

The beauty and scale of the mosque is impossible to describe. From the outside there are four minarets at the four corners of a large enclosure with many archways. It is not unlike the Taj Mahal in it's effect.

Here is the Grand Mosque from the entry way.

Above the main hall is a huge dome, with an intricate lattice pattern, which is strikingly beautiful when illuminated at night. That's Idriis, our driver and tour guide, standing wit me in the foreground.

Inside, on the floor of the main hall, is the largest one-piece Persian carpet in the world (the blue cloth is rolled out during visiting hours).

A huge chandelier is suspended in the center of the dome. Gilded designs and calligraphy cover every wall.

Multiple nooks on every side hold copies of the Koran to be used during worship. Men and women pray in separate rooms off the main hall, and must wash both hands and feet before entering.

Sultan Qaboos's palace was similarly spectacular, although we couldn't go inside of course.

It was on the scale of Buckingham Palace, with a huge area out front for the pomp and circumstance that accompanies royalty. In the center is the palace itself, which was seen at night in an earlier post.

The palace is surrounded on three sides by mountains, on which are a series of five 16th and 17th century forts and watch towers. Above is Fort Mirani, now home to His Majesty's Royal Guards.

A series of three watch towers on a mountain overlooking the palace grounds.

One of two forts guarding the entrance to the harbor.

Next we went to lunch at the Automatic Restaurant, in Muscat, pictured on the left, above. I imagined little doors with dishes inside, like the old Automats still in New York as late as the early '70s, but alas, it was not to be. Instead we found ourselves in a good Lebanese Restaurant where we had an excellent lunch and take-out for dinner home at the farm.

Down on the Farm

2009-01-19T03:21:00.000-08:00

Mohammed's farm, on the outskirts of Muscat, was home base for us during our three weeks in Oman. Now if you are imagining a Vermont, Iowa or Kansas farm, remember that Oman is largely desert, so a farm has to be created on the arid rocky landscape. This means that every fruit tree, row of crops and flower bed has to be planted in imported topsoil and individually watered through a system of hoses from a well that was dug 50 meters down to reach water.

A date palm planted in its own pit filled with top soil and watered by its own small hose.

The farm covers about 8-10 acres and is enclosed by a high wall. The shot above is a view from the roof of the farm house down the lane to the front gate.

The house is quite large with five bedrooms (each with its own bath), a central dining area, a TV room,

a laundry room, maid's room, and a large kitchen. All the rooms have 12 foot ceilings and air conditioning to combat the brutal summer heat which reaches 120 degrees.

A farm manager with his family and four farm workers live on the property.

Above is Hari, the farm manager, his wife, and their two children.

One of the farm workers picking squash early in the morning.

The crops include dates (date palms seen here through the kitchen window), mangoes, papayas, and vegetables such as squash, corn, white radishes, alfalfa for animal feed,

and cucumbers which are grown in three long greenhouses.

Livestock include 120 goats for milk and meat,

three Arabian horses, a gelding, a mare, and an 8 month old filly (Carolyn is petting the mare, and the filly is in the background),

and about 18 Arabian gazelles. These small gazelles are both curious and very shy, and beautiful to watch as they leap back and forth in their large enclosure.

The farm's perimeter road is about 1 mile around which provided a great walk for exercise (and entertainment from the animals) in the morning and evening. cck

The Long, Long Flight to Oman

2009-01-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

So far we have crammed a lot into our first four days! It is hard to know where to begin - such big changes in climate, culture, and language.

The first adventure was getting here. What was promised as a 17 hour flight - Oman is 9 hours ahead of Boston - turned out to be 24 hours because of weather-related delays in Boston and one sick passenger who had to be deplaned, delaying our departure four and a half hours (the extra time spent seated on the plane).

Above is a shot Rodger took of our first sunrise somewhere over the Atlantic enroute to Amsterdam.

Missing out connecting flight in Amsterdam meant re-routing through Dubai to Muscat. Our arrival at the farm was 5AM local time without our luggage! Nonetheless, we met some very interesting people enroute from India, Kenya and Iraq. They are all very excited about our new president, Barack Obama.

Rodger brought along 100 4x6 inch prints of his famous photograph of Barack Obama, which were enthusiastically received everywhere we went. Many of those we met seemed to feel that Obama was their president as well as ours.

After a few hours sleep we went to Mohammed's home for lunch with several members of his family. Omanis, like the people of most Arab countries, greatly value the extended family. We felt very privileged to be welcomed so warmly. We ate a delicious meal on the lawn of Mohammed's palatial home. All of the food was exceptionally fresh, both fruit and meats are harvested form the farm - mangoes, cucumbers, dates, goat, chicken and eggs. All except us ate with their hands in traditional fashion.

After lunch we went back to the farm where our luggage was waiting. Finally we could change our clothes and brush our teeth! We had a Chinese dinner and a night tour of Muscat and Mutrah with Mohammed's son, Ahmed and his nephew, Ali.

A night shot of the central structure of the extensive Sultan's Palace, in Muscat.

In the end it all made for a very long day - two days really. But we were finally in Oman, and about to begin three weeks of exploration and high adventure. cck

Rumors Of Our Demise Are Highly Exaggerated

2009-01-14T03:42:00.000-08:00

To our loyal Blog Followers:

Happy New Year!

Our sincere apologies for the blog silence of the last three weeks. We were not swallowed up by the desert sands, just confronted with technical problems we couldn't overcome (and it didn't help that there was a cable break somewhere in the Mediterranean).

We are back now from a spectacular three weeks of experiences that far exceeded our expectations. We have our first week in Oman ready for you, so we will post our entries in the next day or two in the order they were written. cck, rpk

Mohammed's farmhouse, our home base for three weeks.

Tomorrow We Leave

2008-12-20T07:33:00.000-08:00

Evening before last Carolyn and I had dinner in Harvard Square with my god daughter, Marianne Cook. Marianne is a remarkable young woman, self-assured and highly accomplished for one so young. Upon graduating from Harvard in 2002, she went to Oman for a year to work as a counselor in a school for English-speaking children. We had a leisurely dinner, looked through her Oman scrapbook and a yearbook of the school where she worked, and got to meet her boyfriend, Matt.

We leave tomorrow! Our flight, on KLM (Royal Dutch Airline), is scheduled to depart at 7:15 PM, barring snow delays. We are ready to go; we could leave today if we had to. Carolyn's sister, Diana, is taking us to Alewife Station, at the end of the Red Line of the Boston Subway system. From there it's an easy ride with only one change, to the new Silver Line, which will deposit us right at the entrance of our airline terminal. We fly from Boston to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Kuwait City, and Kuwait City to Muscat, the capitol of Oman. We are well prepared for our eighteen hours of traveling with books and iPods and comfortable clothing. rpk

One week to go!

2008-12-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Just one more week and we'll be on our way to Oman.

The temperature at this time of year ranges from 60 to 72 degrees, a welcome break from the doldrums of a New England winter. Christmas seems strangely remote, but we'll have lots to share when we return. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! cck

How We'll Get The Photos You Want To See

2008-12-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

Those of you who are experienced photographers may find this post a bore, but I'm writing it for all our amateur and non-photographer friends, with hopes that they might find it useful. Also, to be completely honest, it is an exercise in learning to add photographs to text.

We are well equipped with camera gear for this trip. Carolyn will be taking her trusty Canon A710 IS, a compact, flexible point and shoot that she has been using for a couple of years, with excellent results. We're taking Carolyn's sister, Diana's laptop with us (thanks Diana and Mark!), and will use whatever internet connections we can find to upload our posts.

I will be taking my Nikon D40X, the smallest DSLR body Nikon makes. During the trip I'll shoot RAW plus jpeg, saving the RAW files to process at home, and using the jpegs for posting images to the blog from Oman. I chose this "amateur" camera body because it has all the features I'll ever need, plus the smaller weight and size that makes it a lot easier to lug around. I almost never get a bad exposure from this camera - or for that matter, any of my digital cameras - and on those rare occasions when I do get a bad exposure, I can see it immediately, and do it over. With film, I had to wait until the film was processed, usually not until after I'd returned home. Boy, do I ever love this digital age!

The only lens I am taking for the D40X is my Nikon 18-200mm VR (35mm equivalent 27-300mm). This one of Nikon's best lenses, with a range from serious wide angle to fairly long telephoto, with Vibration Reduction thrown in. With no changing lenses, it's sort of like having an extremely high quality (if not very compact) point-and-shoot. The lens itself, while quite compact, particularly for it's range, did tend to overwhelm the tiny D40X body until I got used to the combo, and now it feels absolutely natural in my hands.

When not carrying the Nikon, I will use my Panasonic LX3. Boy, do I love this camera! With a 24-60 (35mm equivalent) f2-2.8mm Leitz Summicron lens, RAW capability, and almost panorama format capability, it is one of the best serious point-and-shoot cameras on the market. It is small and lightweight - almost tiny - and I can carry it in an inconspicuous purse-like shoulder bag. I just recently upgraded to this camera from it's predecessor, the LX2 (which I will have along as a back-up). Here's what I said about the LX2 on my web site; it all applies equally and more to the LX3:

"In June 2007 I began using a Panasonic Lumix LX2 digital camera. Without going into a sales pitch (which I would be happy to do at a moment's notice), let me just say that it fits my hand - and my eye - like it was made for them. I love the 16:9 - almost panoramic - aspect ratio. My wife says I'm like a kid with a new bike. This informal portfolio, which I update regularly, is a measure of my satisfaction with this little jewel of a camera." (See the portfolio, Taking The Long View, on my web site, rpkphoto.smugmug.com).

Along with these cameras we will be taking SD and SDHC cards totaling nearly 50 GB, a card reader for uploading to the laptop, extra rechargeable and disposable batteries and chargers, a polarizing filter for the Nikon, a monopod that will also serve as a walking stick, and my trusty Nikon SB800 flash.

We hope that you will like the photographs that we'll be taking. rpk

Carolyn's Post

2008-12-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

Just ten days and we're up and away! I thought it might be helpful to post a map of Oman (as you can see, it's at the very end of the Persian Gulf). Click on the map to see it larger.

I've been having fun reading several books about the Middle East - most recently Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, which is currently on the New York Times best seller's list. Its a wonderful story, and amazing what this one man has accomplished bringing education, especially for girls, to remote areas of Pakistan.

We will be staying in our host's farmhouse just outside the capital city of Muscat as a home base, with side trips to the surrounding area and then farther afield to Sur and Salalah. cck

Welcome To Our Blog

2008-12-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

Ten days to go. Both Carolyn and I have lists, and lists of lists of everything that must be done, or acquired, or cleaned, or packed before we go. Inoculations: check. Camera gear and plenty of SD cards: check. Passports (we even got new leather passport covers for the trip): check. We still have to email everyone who's interested, giving them the address of the blog.

This blog is a brand new experiment and experience for us, so there well may be any number of false starts and mistakes as we go along (perhaps you can treat them as small bonuses). We just hope that we can do a good enough job that you can all share a little bit in our once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Carolyn will be signing her entries "cck" and I'll be signing "rpk" at the end of mine. rpk