MUSCAT day 2

We room serviced breakfast in bed today because we had to be UP and OFF the ship.

Sultan Qaboosh's Mosque  was only open to the public until 10am. 

It was well worth the alarm call. What a wonderful gift to celebrate his 30th year of reign. 

In 1992 Sultan Qaboosh decided Muscat should have a mosque to celebrate his 30th year of reign.

Quietly imposing from the outside, this glorious piece of modern Islamic architecture was a gift to the nation from Sultan Qaboos to mark his 30th year of reign. The main prayer hall is breathtakingly rich. The Persian carpet alone measures 70m by 60m wide, making it the second-largest hand-loomed Iranian carpet in the world; it took 600 women four years to weave.

Woman had to dress modestly and basically cover up everything.

It was so very modern, scrupulously clean, fanatical sweepers were everywhere, this was a beautiful building to be very proud of, we were very impressed.

Then we headed back to the souk and oh my goodness frankincense gets stuck in your teeth. 

We bought some to chew and some to burn and some elephant cushion covers because I'm running out of space at home for eleornaments and STILL we picked frankincense out of our teeth.

We found JOOP!!!! and had a glass of mango juice but still it lingered. 

We walked back to the ship via a ghastly, graphic, smelly, fish market but STILL couldn't free our gums of frankincense. What powerful stuff. I don't remember Mary and Joseph having this problem.

"And it came to pass that Joseph reached for another toothpick..." :)