World Cruise - Day 95 - Apr 16 - Salalah, Oman

Sunrise was late again this morning due to the low lying clouds:

I also took this pic later as the sun got up into the clouds:

I like how the rays of the sun are visible and how the sun shines on the water in the one particular spot.

Krissie and I were talking about the repeat songs we’ve heard in the shows.  The #1 song we’ve heard onboard is Delilah by Tom Jones (five times by five different performers).  #2 is Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond (four times by four different performers).  I guess it’s because both songs have an element of audience participation singing the refrains?  I bet you would never guess the #1 Beatles song onboard?  Keep in mind that we’ve had a Beatles tribute as well as several performers who included the Beatles in their mix.  You might guess Yesterday, since it’s the most covered song in history, but that’s only been played twice.  The Beatles song that’s been played three times is When I’m 64.  Not exactly a Beatles smash hit, but I guess the performers probably think it is age appropriate for those onboard.  Yet 64 is actually young for the age group onboard (most are older than that) and the song makes 64 sound ancient (“…will you still feed me, will you still need me, when I’m 64…”).  We’ve also had several jokes repeated, some as many as four times (the woman stuck on the toilet, “I can save her, but the rabbi is a goner…”).  After 95 days, things tend to repeat themselves.  They should check if the song/joke has been used in the last 46 days.  If not, good to go.

Salalah, Oman is the second largest city in Oman after Muscat, the capital city.  Total population is about 200,000 people.  It is more conservative than either Bahrain or Dubai, which we visited in the past week.  It is famous for its frankincense trees, which only grow in a few areas in the world, including this area.  Salalah is known as the perfume capital of Arabia due to the use of frankincense in expensive perfumes (including the most expensive perfume in the world, which comes from Salalah).

Here is a pic of a container ship being offloaded as we came into the port:

The local taxis are notorious for charging high prices to the tourists.  Someone on the world cruise in a previous year noted that the price had changed from $20 to get into downtown to $100 by late in the morning.  They were worried that they would be charged even more to get back, so they simply didn’t go into the port.

Sure enough, when we tried to negotiate with the taxis at the ship, they all wanted to sell 3- and 4-hour tours for $120 to $150.  The ship provides a free shuttle to the port gate, but it was more of the same there with the 15 or so taxis lined up.  This is a sign that was just inside the gate (I had to walk back through security to take this pic):

The prices are quoted in Omani Rials, which are about 2.8 = $1.  So, for example, the taxi rate to downtown for two people should be no more than $22 and no more than $28 for 4 people.  But they were starting with rates of $50 and would not come down below $40.  Finally someone got them to agree to $30, but when they got into the taxi, they immediately increased it to $40 again.  And most of them only wanted to do a 3-hour or 4-hour tour.  That wouldn’t work for us, since we are in port for 9 hours and we didn’t want a taxi tour and back to the ship.  We just wanted a taxi ride into the city.  Port is only 6 miles from downtown and they have a certified monopoly on the transport.  Or so they thought.

So a bunch of us took the ship’s shuttle back to the ship, tried (in vain) to negotiate with the taxi drivers there, since they were all holding out for tours.  So what to do.  Some people were disgusted with what they considered to be the extortion tactics of the taxi drivers and went back on the ship.  Krissie suggested that we try to connect with one of the shuttles going out from the Indian Navy ship right next to ours, since they appeared to be shuttling their sailors into town.  Good idea.  I approached one of their guards at the shuttles to ask if we might be able to get 10 or so people onto one of their shuttles into town.  He said I would have to ask the officer of the watch and pointed back at their ship.  I asked if it was OK to go onboard and he said I would have to ask as I approached the ship.  So I went to the base of their gangplank and asked the person at the top of the plank: “Permission to come onboard?”  He waved me on, so on I went.  I couldn’t imagine this happening with a US Navy ship.  I asked him who the officer of the watch would be and he pointed to a gentleman on the other side of the ship.  The sailors onboard were doing their morning calisthenics on the deck, so I walked around them (again, on a US Navy ship, I would guess that if I had gotten that far, I would be escorted, not allowed to walk freely across the deck) to the officer of the watch.  His name was Abrik and I explained our situation and asked if we might be able to pay them to transport a group of 10 into town.  Dan got a picture of me talking to Abrik on the deck of the ship:

Abrik said that his first priority was to his men, but he would try to get us on the last shuttle, if it had room.  I went back to our group (most of whom were amazed that I actually boarded the Indian Navy ship) to explain the situation.  We waited a few minutes until it appeared that they were loading their last shuttle, then I reapproached their ship, asked permission to come aboard and asked Abrik whether it would work out.  He said it looked good, but he just needed to make one call to confirm.  I walked off the ship and a few minutes later, one of the lower officers came over to me and said that Abrik sent his most sincere apologies, but they would not be able to transport us.  He had called the Indian Embassy in Oman and they instructed him not to give us transport.  Makes sense.  I don’t want to start an international incident over it.  Nice try, though.

So we’re back to not knowing how to get into town, but decided to get back on the ship’s shuttle that would go out to the port gate.  On the shuttle, one of the ship’s crew members suggested that we offer a $50 bribe to the shuttle driver to take us to the Hilton Hotel (just outside of town), where we could either stay to hang out for the day or negotiate fair taxi rates from there.  It worked out to $3/person, so we all agreed and it worked!  We all got to the Hilton, which has the added side benefit of being able to change our dollars into Omani Rials.  The taxi from there would take us into downtown for 5 rials (about $14) for four people.  We took a taxi with Terry and Jackie Eckstein.  The taxi driver’s name was Said (pronounced “Sigh eed”).  He said he had two wives, but he was looking to add a third one.  As he’s saying this, he’s looking in his rear view mirror at Krissie.  Said said (sorry for the double, but that’s actually proper English) that the way to keep the wives happy is to spend one day with wife #1 and the next day with wife #2.  Then just keep rotating.

Said dropped us off at the perfume souk (market) where we went into a shop that was being frequented by locals.  We bought some frankincense in bulk (in the steel container lower right in the pic below), which he measured out with weights and balances.  Total cost was 4 rials (about $11) per kilo.  Terry and Jackie got a half kilo (a little over a pound) and we got ¼ kilo.

They also sold an oil that looked like motor oil (and note that he is putting it into a gas container), but apparently they use it for the skin and the hair:

Then this guy came into the shop.  I was admiring his dagger in his belt, so he took it out and showed it to me.  Then took it out of the sheath.  He wanted me to touch it to feel how sharp it was.  Yikes!  But I did it.  Then he wanted to show me his leather flask (over his left shoulder).  He offered to sell me his dagger for 400 rials (about $1,120) and then offered to sell me his flask for 150 rials (about $420).  I was just happy to get away with this picture:

Krissie bought some perfumes, oils, creams and incense, all specialties of the area.  Note that he is lighting a piece of charcoal to show us the aroma of his best frankincense:

Here is the frankincense burning:

Apparently frankincense comes from the sap of the frankincense tree and varies in color, as you can see above.  The whitest resin he put in his mouth and said could be chewed just like a gum.  The darker resin can be burned, as you see with the piece burning above.

Krissie was interested in the oil for your skin, but it was rather pricey (25 rials for a large vial and 5 rials for a small vial), so then she said no, maybe she should just buy some cream.  “How much is this cream?”  “For you, I have a special price.  Today it is free for you, as a gift of the people of Salalah.”  Then he put it into a bag and gave it to her.  So Krissie felt guilty that she had just gotten something for nothing and paid 5 rials (his asking price) for the small vial of oil.  Interesting negotiating technique.  She wouldn’t negotiate on the price, since he had just given her something for free.  Then he gave me some of the above frankincense (his finest of the four grades), sealed the bag and said it was also free.  I got out of there before he could sell me something else.

I took this photo of the shop across the street, the lady is almost not visible, only a strip of her face barely visible from under her burka.

We ate at a local Arab restaurant, having byrani rice (spelled differently here), chicken salad and fresh squeezed juices (Krissie’s ginger juice was especially wonderful).  At the end of the meal, I had mentally totaled up how much it should be and knew it would be around 8 rials (about $22) for the four of us.  I asked the waiter for the check and he wrote “40” on his hand.  However, the 4 looked like a “y” or possibly a “1”, so I asked him if it was 10 (thinking it might be that many rials with tax and tip)?  He said no, 40 dollars.  Now I’m thinking really bad conversion rate (the local shops usually did 3x to get a total), so I asked him how much in rials.  He writes “13” on his hand.  I went to get the menu, then started showing him what we ordered.  I eventually had to write it all down and then use their calculator to come up with the actual total: 7.35 rials (about $20.50).  I paid him in rials, no tip for him.  First time I have ever had to negotiate the price of a meal with marked prices on a menu.

I took this pic of Terry and Jackie to get the guys in the background behind them.  Very local hangout:

This is the grill where they cooked our chicken:

We then walked out to the beach to get a view of the Sultan’s palace.  We could only view it at an angle because of this guy:

He said we could walk out straight to the beach, just couldn’t turn right.  Actually, he didn’t say anything, at least not in English, just motioned to me with his gun.  Yes sir.  Here is a view of the sultan’s palace complex:

The blue dome is a distinctive feature of the palace, part of his personal mosque:

This gives a closer view of the part of the palace extending from the mosque to the ocean:

The Corniche is the long beach area extending in the other direction in Salalah.  No one out on the beach:

As we circled back through town, there were vendors selling coconuts and other fruits at outdoor stands:

We took a taxi back to the Hilton.  This taxi driver was Said (a different Said, so he’s Said #2).  He was looking at my watch and asked me how much it cost.  I told him and said he could buy it on Amazon.com.  He asked me if I liked his watch.  I said yes, it was a very nice looking watch.  So he asked me if I wanted to trade watches.  I politely declined.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Hilton, where I walked out and got my toes (and feet and lower legs) wet in the Gulf of Aden.(part of the Arabian Sea):

Krissie and I got a pic in a relaxing area at the Hilton:

Then it was back onboard the ship and time for our sailaway.  Here is the sunset just after we left the port:

Happy tax day to everyone in the US.  Or is it tomorrow?  You might wonder how everyone onboard does their taxes, since we left on Jan 12, too early to have all of the forms needed to file taxes.  Most people (including us) simply filed for an automatic extension and will complete our taxes when we return home.  However, some people onboard completed their taxes online using TurboTax and other online tax software.

The entertainment onboard tonight was Count Dimas, “direct from Transylvania,” piano player extraordinaire:

After the show, there was an Arabian Nights deck party up on the pool deck.  I have lots of pics (and stories) from that deck party, that will have to wait for tomorrow’s blog entry, going to bed, it’s late.

Tomorrow is sea day #1 of 4 on our way to Aqaba, Jordan.