Dhow Cruise (Musundam, Oman)

Last night...

Last night we got a number of answers from the front desk on whether or not the Old Souk would be open and what time it would open. Every time Chris or Dan asked, they got a different answer, even if it was the same guy they asked. So we decided to make our way back across the large parking lot to LuLu's Hypermarket (Supermarket with some additional shops in it) to find something for dinner. Then we all headed to bed. Between the heat and travel, we were tired.

This is Dan and Chris trying to figure out if it would be worth a trip to the Old Souk after getting about 5 different answers on what time it would be open. 

 This was a pretty view of our hotel pool in the evening as we were standing outside deciding whether  or not to venture to the Old Souk.

This is a photo of the Omani Rial (sorry it's upside down). Exchange rate: 1 OMR= $2.59 USD (pretty extreme exchange, and not in the good way).

 This is LuLu Hypermarket. One of the few places open to buy dinner. It's a supermarket with some other shops in it, but the deli has some pre-made food that we got take-out from a couple of times so we didn't have to eat the hotel restaurant for every meal.

 Inside of LuLu Hypermarket. It's hard to tell from this photo, but we are in the extreme Gulf and most of the folks we see are dressed in traditional Arab clothing. Wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt, I felt like I was nearly naked. Almost all of the women were wearing an abaya and hijab.

Dhow Cruise:

From Wikipedia: Dhow (Arabic داو dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with lateen sailsused in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Some historians claim the dhow was invented by Arabs or Indians, but the majority give the credit to the Chinese.^[1][2] Typically sporting long thin hulls, dhows are trading vessels primarily used to carry heavy items, like fruit, fresh water or merchandise, along the coasts of the Eastern Arabia (Arab states of the Persian Gulf),Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and East Africa. Larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty, smaller ones typically around twelve.

Today we went on a Dhow cruise in the Straight of Hormuz. It was absolutely beautiful. It was 15 OMR per person or $38 USD (Jake was free) for the half day cruise. A bus picked us up at 9 AM and drove us to the boat. We boarded and were off by about 10 AM and got back around 1 PM. We got a beautiful view of the Hajar Mountain Range surrounding Musundam. The locals refer to them as Ru'us al Jebel or "Peaks of the Mountains." We saw dolphins and got to swim in the Gulf of Oman.

 Here is a small map that kind of shows where the Straight of Hormuz is located.

 The top photo is of the water where we stopped to swim. The bottom photo is some of the scenery we boated past on our cruise. We were surrounded by these large masses of limestone jutting up from the sea on both side of us. Every once in a while, we would see a village located at the base of one of these mountains. It appears the only access is by boat and is apparently a pretty rough life. The spot where we stopped to swim had the remnants of a village that didn't make it.

 Some photos of Team Baldwin.

 Top photo is a panorama of some of the scenery. Middle left is one of the other Dhow cruise boats our on the water. At this point there were about 10 boats circling this area and chasing the dolphins (middle right) to try and get their tourists the best photos. The bottom left you can kind of see the remains of one of those old villages that didn't quite make it. The bottom right is where all the boats parked to let us off to swim around for a few minutes. It was nice to get Jake out in the water to cool him down. Although being on the boat felt like winter compared to the land, it was still pretty hot.

 This is a photo of us all swimming in the Gulf of Oman.

This is a photo of our driver. Zoom in and check out the "control panel" or whatever it's called on a boat. I felt like if we had a maritime emergency we would have been in trouble!

 This is our friend Dan who is traveling with us. His wife, Kaylan, took their daughter back to the States a few days ago. He's a good sport for putting up with the Baldwins on this trip.

 The boys all taking in the view.