This is a very large sea port, shipping limestone, oil and containers. My impression of Oman geographically in this area is mountainous desert, heat and humidity at this time of year. But, in contrast to India, it is very clean with no trash. Maybe it is clean due to the monarchy. From Wikipedia:
Politics of Oman takes place in a framework of an absolute monarchy whereby the Sultan of Oman is not only head of state, but also the head of government. Chief of state and government is the hereditary sultan, Qābūs ibn Saʻīd as-Saʻīd, who appoints a cabinet to assist him. Sultan Qaboos also serves as supreme commander of the armed forces, prime minister, and minister of defense, foreign affairs, and finance.
Maybe the sultan decrees a strict cleanup program and sets punishment at a large amount.
The highlight for me yesterday was a visit to the museum called "Frankensense Land", which besides selling and burning Frankensense, contained an expansive collection of sailing ship models, panels describing the history and pre-history of the area, and archaeological artifacts.
Human artifacts indicate people or creatures living like them go back to deep history. It seems not surprising since we were not far from some possible routes between Africa and the Arabian peninsula at the horn and farther along where the red sea and gulf of Aden meet, where the span of water that animals including people would have to cross narrows to 15-20 miles today, and might have been much narrower in prehistoric times.
As usual, pictures to posted on instagram.
any iranian influence?
ReplyDeleteI did not detect any, aside from the obvious Islamic bent. We saw no women out in the day, and man mostly wore the white robes and caps we saw everywhere. Interestingly, almost all public writing (advertisements, bill boards, store fronts) had English subtitles.
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