Muscat: Royal Opera House

We planned our trip around tickets to the Royal Opera House to hear Joyce di Donato sing.  

The Oman Opera House is the cultural pride of the city; its impeccable programming is mouth-watering to Abu Dhabi residents who are spoon-fed Cindarella on ice and Moscow City Ballet's back up corps. (A child could leap higher than most of their principals.)

We didn't get a great picture of the building -- but check it out on this dress, which at least
one of us wanted to bring home.

But the inside is better. Here is the lobby.

The theater itself is small, but piled high with balconies and boxes, from which -- by some freak of chance -- the Omani ushers decided to extract us. Perhaps they knew that it was past our bed-time, and that sky-scraper dwellers like us are no longer pleased about the existence of stairs.

They deposited us in the second row.

And there we sat, on our violin-print chairs, listening to a heart-wrenchingly beautiful voice, and watching the tiny minutia of each musician's movements, surrounded by gorgeously arrayed expats gathered from all over the Gulf region, and a sizeable Omani contingent. (Omanis are always gorgeously arrayed.)

We have always wondered why friends from Abu Dhabi can do nothing but rave about Oman. But now we know. Oman is just the best.

Muscat: The Coast

One odd part of living in Abu Dhabi is that one can spend hours near the water without actually frolicking in it.  Muscat has no such problem. The city is built entirely along the winding coast, and the beaches are wide open to everyone.  Our hotel was a two minute walk from this beach, which was busy all night, with Omanis and expats basking in the glowing sunset, and playing in the warm water.

From the 17th century to the 19th century, Muscat was the capital of the Omani Empire, which stretched from Pakistan and Iran to Zanzibar.  Its wealth was largely based on trade.  Muscat has two large ports, between which there is a beautiful corniche, with free bicycles!









Looking into the water, we saw hoards of butterfly fish feasting on Wonderbread, many crabs, and one turtle! All in the course of a five-minute period of gazing intently down.

After our first day exploring Muscat, we enjoyed pizza (rated by at least one person as the best in the Middle East!) before our date with the Opera House.

Hatta Fort

 

We are trying to squeeze in UAE travels while the weather is still tolerable.  One of the places on our list for this spring was Hatta, a fort town in the mountainous center of the country.  The climate at Hatta is hot but drier than Abu Dhabi and Dubai, making it a relative summer haven.  

Nearby Hatta Fort is a small complex of a few towers and a main square, now converted into a museum scattered with all-too life-like soldiers.

We stayed at a charming hotel, open since 1981 (an eternity by UAE standards).  Hatta Fort Hotel lacks the sheen of modern UAE architecture, and we didn't miss the glitz one bit. It is an unofficial gathering spot for the Dubai Harley Davidson club. The 100+ degree weather didn't deter the bikers from parking their bikes in the sun and striding about in their leather pants.

The hotel has an endearing medley of attractions: a putt-putt course, where the "greens" are cement (the ball never stops rolling!), rabbits in a rabbit house, goats, ducks, and several loquacious peacocks.

Even though it is spring here, it is still quite warm.  We walked up to the hotel's observation point. Despite our considerable sweat, no one will be impressed with our ascent.

 

Photos from a weekend in the desert

Sri Lanka: the train

Train travel in Sri Lanka is hard to book, but well worth the booking. 

Between bumps, you'll see monkeys, jungles....

...tea plantations, and mountains.

Sri Lanka: the safari

We saw ancestors of the modern chicken, a leopard lounging in a distant tree, sunset over the wilderness, elephants at arm's length, munching casually on thorn bushes, eagles, eagles eating monitor lizards, monitor lizards, mongooses, rabbits aplenty, wild hogs, and wild buffalo.

It was tremendous. And bumpy. And splashy. A few other park-goers sported cameras that looked more like rifles. For you, our faithful readers, these regular-camera photos will have to suffice.

Sri Lanka: Ella and Little Adam's Peak

After conquering Adam's Peak, we were off to Ella, a sweet little town surrounded by tea plantations, monkeys and mind-blowing lushness.

Having hiked Adam's Peak the day (if you can call 2 am day) before, we felt somehow compelled to climb Ella's Little Adam's Peak. We ran up during a warm morning shower, our first run in the rain since our January runs in Washington.

The pathway up Little Adam's Peak is tranquil, with scarcely a few dozen stairs near the top.  Like its namesake, it boasts staggering views from the top.

Afterwards, we had a Sri Lankan specialty, kothu roti, roti bread chopped into tiny pieces and stir-fried with vegetables (and meat or egg or anything you can think of).  It didn't sound too special in our pre-trip reading, but as our friend put it after his first bite, drenched in the local spicy sauce, "I could eat only this."