Our visit to Salalah was at first quite fraught as we tried to get a taxi to visit the city.
Once we had a ride we visited some of the tourist spots and had a close call with some camels!
Salalah was our last port until we reached Valletta after seven sea days including our passage through the Suez Canal.
Our cruise through the Suez Canal started in Dubai and took us to Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Salalah, then the transit of the Suez Canal, Valletta, Dubrovnik, Hvar, Venice, Split and finally back to Valletta.
Day 10 Wednesday 27th March Salalah, Oman
Salalah is the most southerly port of Oman. I watched small boats and dhows as we entered the port.
The port was just like any other container port. We could see ships being loaded or unloaded of containers on all sides. Away on the other side of the port were large areas filled with containers.
The air was full of dust or sand as we watched Oceana manoeuvring from our balcony.
Salalah, Oman
Over the previous days we had had meals with fellow passengers who had either visited or even lived there before. We had learned that unlike Muscat the city was far more traditional. Previously the city had had only one hotel for quite a long time. It is about a days drive self from Muscat and has a different climate to much of the region. It is cooler, has more rain and often has mists.
There are many camels but unlike Abu Dhabi they are only kept as a source of meat. We were told to look out for camels being transported to market in the back of pickup trucks.
From all our available information we expected to be able to take a taxi from the port area to either go into the city or to negotiate a tour. During the earlier port talk we had learnt that the tourist buses to be used for the P & O tours would have driven down from Muscat during our sea day. Salalah itself not being a tourist destination didn’t have enough coaches based there.
A couple of my BNI colleagues back in Surrey had been based in and around Salalah with British forces. One had fought in the mountains against separatists in the hardly publicised terrorist incursions. While another had been stationed there in the first Gulf War. Both had told me about the miles of fabulous beaches that they had been on further down the coast. But from our recent port talk these beaches were not part of any of the excursions and that bathing might well be frown on by tourists!