Blogs from Middle East - page 5

We met our guide Hashim and set off for the Sultan Qaboos Mosque, which for a long time was the largest mosque in the world before a larger one was built in Abu Dhabi. Hashim helped Sara wrap her headscarf in the prescribed manner, and we marvelled at the number of women having to rent long abbayas and headscarves because they’d turned up in strappy T shirts and miniskirts with nothing to cover their bare flesh. Some pointlessly got stroppy with the polite but firm female religious guardians. Many mosques are large but not visually very interesting, but this one is stunning. It’s set in extensive grounds with Islamic gardens featuring water channels, and has not one but five minarets to reflect the five guiding principles of Islam. The outside is polished sandstone and the inside ... read more

We took a leisurely trip on a dhow today, visiting the fjords on the Musandam coast. It felt a bit choppy as we set off but calmed down once in the shelter of the fjord, and even Sara did not feel sea sick. The mountains drop straight to the water’s edge, with very few areas that have any beach or flat space. The fjords were formed when the water level dropped, so on some of the cliffs you can still see the effects of water erosion from when there was sea at a much higher level. As we left Khasab port, a number of yellow speedboats, each with two or three people on board all heavily swathed, shot past towards the port. This is the small scale trade carried out by Iranians who cross in the ... read more

Winter sun and rugged natural beauty was what drew us to Oman. There’s plenty of the latter but the Thomas travel curse has struck again and we arrived to find we’d brought rain to the desert. ‘This never happens’ said the Omani customs official as he grinned apologetically. We flew in to Dubai, and had a very quick transit through the airport. We’ve never been through immigration so fast, and our cases were first onto the carousel. Our driver picked us up for the drive to the Musandam peninsula in Oman. Before long we were on a six lane highway through the desert, with very little to see. After almost no sleep on the plane, we closed our eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep. Eventually the dunes gave way to an industrial zone full of cement ... read more

An early start today as I wanted to get out and beat the queues, if they existed. I am still not used to venturing out in the dark in the mornings. It felt like the middle of the night and watching people do their daily commute in the dark made me relieved that I wasn’t. First stop was the nearest Starbucks for coffee. The cafe was home to a cat, which seemed to have the run of the place. It has really impressed me, all the animals that are on the loose in the city, that they are well cared for and just do their own thing side by side with us humans and neither bother each other. It says good things about the citizens of Istanbul. Once the coffee was consumed, I walked down the ... read more

What's with Cyprus and all the cats? One thing I noticed in Cyprus was that there are a lot of cats everywhere. I noticed it already the first day when I arrived in Larnaca. As soon as I got off the airport bus I saw cats basking in the sun. It was not only in Larnaca there were lots of cats. No matter where I went in Cyprus, such as in Agios Neophytos Monastery, there were often a cat or two hanging around. I have no explanation why there are lots of cats in Cyprus, I can only point out that there are. By the way, further down there is a story about another monastery where there are cats. Don't miss that one. It's the highlight of this blog entry. In the previous blog entry I ... read more