Muscat was so much smaller than I thought it would be. It's like this big. It's like the size of your thumb. The old city is really small, jammed in between mountains the Arabian Sea. It's really amazingly beautiful. By my second day there I realized there was more to the city than the tiny little port towns of Muscat and Mutrah, where I stayed. I took a cab out to the new housing developments at al-Qurm, where there was a glitzy shopping mall with, you guessed it, a Starbucks. But I have no pictures of that nonsense. Just old Muscat. The city is divided in three: Muscat, Mustrah and Ruwi. My hotel was on the corniche in Mutrah, and, I hate to admit it, Lonely Planet was right: the corniche is, at least as far as I've seen, the loveliest in Arabia. And I guess I've only see three others: Dubai (sucks), Abu Dhabi (shrouded in construction), and Sharjah (really nice).

Mutrah is really cool. It's where the souq is and there's lots of old forts and ruins of forts and mountains and Portuguese architecture and old dhows in the harbor. It's quiet, small, crawling with Indians and Bangladeshis, so you know there's good food. I spent much of my time walking around the alleyways of the city behind the waterfront houses. Tiny little alleys, more stray cats than I've seen anywhere outside of Little India in Singapore, a mosque every 100 yards or so, and all those great Arab doors.


Muscat, the old town where Sultan Qaboos lives, is just three kilometers from the corniche in Mutrah, so you can stay in Mustrah, for about 20 USD a night in a decent place, and walk, or take the microbus for 1/10th of a rial, to Muscat. I wish I'd spent more time in Muscat. It's where the civic looking sorts of buildings are. And also where Sultan Qaboos has his palace. And, again, LP is right on when it says his palace is a great piece of architecture.