I’ll be returning to the states in a few days, so here are some random things I wanted to remember about my experience here:
- Our villa has geckos. I caught a tiny one in our dining room and then saw a huge one on the side of the house outside.
- Pretty much all the stores in this area have English translations under the Arabic script, and they are always weirdly literal and serious: “Sale of foodstuffs” “Ironing of clothing” “Sale of luxuries”
- Muscat and the surrounding area are mostly made of neutral colors, like white or beige buildings, tan mountains, sandy dirt, and so on. This makes the sunsets especially striking, though.
Not a sunset, but you can see that even the laundry is neutral. - My taxi driver tonight was very friendly and I was able to speak a little Arabic with him. He corrected my grammar a couple of times.
- Karak tea, which is basically Indian chai tea and is not native, is still really popular. The taste reminds you of Fruit Loops.
- Mutrah Souk is fun, but not as fun as guidebooks make it sound, since it is really hard to bargain with the sellers and you know a lot of the prices are ridiculous.
