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Originally Posted by BnaBreaker
Nice photos! I have a close friend who is originally from Muscat, and he always speaks very fondly of the place. I hope I get the chance to visit someday!
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Originally Posted by Nightsky
Nice photos, white and beautiful! I wonder why they chosed not to built skyscrapers like in Dubai and other nearby cities in the region.
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Originally Posted by LouisianaRush
I would never travel to the middle east outside of Turkey and Israel and unfortunately this is the one place that I am bummed about I have always thought Muscat was beautiful and much more sophisticated compared to its garish neighbors. You captured it perfectly!
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Originally Posted by mrnyc
well that seems rather arbitrary.
saudi arabia, qatar, bahrain, uae and oman seem pretty safe to me to visit.
what they dont seem is very interesting. at least in the modern parts of the big cities (i’m sure the old town sectors and countryside are another story though). muscat here seems the best choice of those.
now yemen. thats a place that has always fascinated me. apparently its truly the wild west there unfortunately. good luck getting from sana’a to see shibam and back without getting robbed or kidnapped. or so they say.
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Thanks for your comments. There isn't much about Oman on here so I hoped you enjoyed them. I've more coming from my road trip out of Muscat.
Oman's leaders modernized infrastructure over a generation, and the locals are greatly respectful of what the late Sultan Qaboos has done. They adopted a much more traditional approach compared to its neighbours, refusing to change into a Disneyland of vice or a gold-infested paradise. That actually was the reason why I wanted to visit. There was plenty of natural beauty, traditional life, and a less crowded tourist scene. Yet I came in from Dubai so could still get some modern architecture therapy along the way.
Oman is quite off the radar to Asian tourists, but I was surprised there were a lot of European road trippers here, plus the cruise ship crowd in Muscat. I guess the country's special riches have already been discovered.
Yemen is also on my radar as well, but with the war continue to rage, I don't think much of its world heritage will be left at the end of all this. Seeing how long it has taken Egypt to recover from the revolution, I don't think Yemen will open up any time soon.