Though I finally get time to update a little. Oman (pronounced oh-MAHN) has been a very interesting place! As a guy I met from Colorado put it, Oman is like the 'wild west' of the Middle East. It certainly used to be and there are forts just about everywhere (they say over a thousand)!
When I arrived at night, I went into a small phone shop to ask for directions to a hotel I was looking at. The Indian-Omani shop owner's reaction? "Don't worry about it, I'll take you there."
And just like that he closed up his shop for the night and drove me to a hotel 5 kilometers away. Shocked as I was, I offered to pay, but he wouldn't take it. "Traveling should always be free," he smiled and said to me. Never have I experienced kindness like that from a total stranger.
Public transportation was sparse so in my 3 days, I spent over $60 on taxis alone (with bargaining)!! Not to mention their currency is strong with 1 Omani Rial equaling roughly 3 dollars. A 'basic' 5 Rial taxi ride was costing me about 15 bucks!
However, my hotel room was amazing. Clean, spacious, with a modern bathroom.
Arab hospitality, as they say, is no joke. Drenched in sweat during the day, I had Omani men offer to buy me water, random drivers stop by the road to ask me if I was lost or needed help. One Omani man told me "with only 3 million people in Oman, every man must help each other."
Climbing old forts, walking around the 'corniche,' this was certainly off the beaten path backpacking...
On my last night, I also met two awesome Omani guys (Mohamed and Mohannet) who took us out Omani-style. We went to the beach close to midnight and had some barbeque squid, shrimp, and beef, while conversing about the different ways of dating between Oman and back home. A pretty great way of topping off my last night in Muscat!