The Bite Magazine - Spring 2019 - Issue 24

bite travel A Beautiful Country with Distinctive Diversity OMAN stunning sunset and see the sky so dark that you could spot every single star. Well, we didn’t do all that in a day, as quite frankly it was our holiday, but it could be possible as the distances are easily driven in the comfort of the country’s incredibly efficient road network. We landed at Muscat airport in the middle of the night, following a few days stopover in Istanbul, Turkey, to visit the Grand Bazaar, one of the oldest and biggest covered markets in the world, for its exquisite selection of jewellery, scarves and spices. It was the end of January and having left gloomy London behind, we were looking forward to some winter sun to restore our levels of Vitamin D and bring some col- our on our faces. Our first impressions were over exceeded by the cleanliness and calmness of Muscat’s super modern airport building but soon dampened by the greedy taxi driv- ers waiting by the arrivals terminal. We had done careful research on travelling in Oman in advance and we had been warned of their deceitful intentions but as it was 2am we had no choice but to jump into the first car in the queue. Our driver pretended that he didn’t know where our hotel was and it was clear he took a longer route than necessary but we made sufficient fuss to ensure he didn’t totally rip us off. By the next day we had had the opportunity to install an Omani sim card which we bought at the airport and we started using one of the local taxi apps which proved totally safe and offered an effective way to explore the city. The research I had conducted of the country made me realise that I wanted to see as much as possible of this incredible country in nine days so we planned a trip that started and ended with a couple of days in the capital city of Muscat and in the middle of our trip we rented a car and stayed in different places along the route. Muscat is a vast, colourful, yet peaceful city offering plenty of variety and interesting places to visit from museums, Photography: Mark Kurtay