Tier three, again

For the second year running, Oman has earned a place amongst the fabulous glitterati of Tier three on the US Dept of State Human Trafficking report. The only entities surprised by this are the ministry in charge of fixing it, and perhaps the courts. The media coverage and press release from the Ministry of Foreign affairs was so shocking, that if I were in charge I would haul up the Minister and departmental heads of the ROP and Courts and demand an explanation.

You can read the report here. One can and should question if the US is a good country to be evaluating the human rights of other nations (Git-mo Abu Gharib, etc...) but the observations in the report are a totally accurate analysis of the current Human rights situation in Oman.

I, personally, am ashamed and embarrassed, because I thought Oman was actually going to DO SOMETHING about human trafficking, instead of throwing a few conferences, issuing a decree which was never enforced and distributing a printed leaflet to illiterate labourers. How hard would it be to actually run an aggressive sting programme to bust companies and individuals who deny their employees their basic human rights? Follow that up with some aggressive prosecutions, some crippling fines, and jail time for the CEO's and sponsors convicted of sexual trafficking, Physical abuse, Non payment of Wages, and withholding Passports. Then publish their pictures in the paper. Front page. Next, set up a small shelter for Victims of human rights violations, as well as local victims of marital violence.

Congratulations one and all. This is certainly a proud moment for our glorious nation.

Oman Tourism Hotline

An advert on the paper was made today to announce the Ministry of Tourism's new Tourism Call Centre which should answer all queries regarding tourism in Oman and will provide info on tourist attractions around the country. The Tourism Call Centre will have Arabic and English speaking staff should start operating on the 16th of Feb and can be reached on the free number 800 777 99. Lets all call them on the 16th and see well they do. :P

Live flight information at the click of a mouse

MUSCAT — Oman Airports Management Company (OAMC) SAOC has relaunched its website www.omanairports.com with a new look and feel. The main features of the new website include a live flight information menu and a flight timetable (plan your trip).

The live flight information product features an updated interface, with the airport flight information system which incorporates real time flight status that displays live arrival and departure details for all domestic and international flights operated from/to Muscat International Airport. (more)

D-Day is nearing

Read the story here.

Qurum beach is suffering

After a longtime, I went to Qurum beach last Friday only to find the place had lost most of its pristine glory at the hands of the devastating cyclone, Gonu. There are the usual crowds, children playing, families chit chatting, but you get a feeling that something, somewhere, is amiss. I shall let the pictures to talk for themselves.

The damaged main road. A small rivulet around the vicinity is making the re-building process tougher I guess.

Families enjoying their weekend.

The beach is littered with small stones and pebbles making it uncomfortable to walk.

This is how the Qurum beach looked in August 2006.

Childhood School Trips and Visits

I have published some of my childhood experience when I was still in Oman in my previous post; it was about Parks that I used to visit and some play centres that don’t exist any more. This time I will go back to how school visits and trips were arranged and where or which destination our trips used to be planned for.

In all schools that I have been to always planned nice visits or day trips to places that are considered to be useful and combines fun, enjoyments and education all in one. Our trips used to consists of us the pupils, the head-teacher and some teachers who didn’t mind take the responsibility of taking care of students and check on them all the time.

Our trips were divided into indoors and outdoors trips and sometimes a combination of both depending on where we went. Some schools didn’t mind us to bring along a relative with us in many cases only one was allowed and in they would prefer a student so they could benefit from the trips the same as us.

Indoor trips:

Visiting Museums and Exhibitions, they took place within the school hours for an hour or two and then go back to school.

The Science Museum (aka = Mot-haf Al-Tefyl): This museum had a big reputation when was launched over 15 years ago. It had a good number of visitors visiting it every single day, well this was to my knowledge at them days. We had the chance to visit it and it was awesome. We had the chance to try things in there such as the gravity experiment, the magnetic force, the current flow, the generating of energy, the solar system group, the Galaxy group…etc. at them days you will hear every one talking about it and everyone will make a big effort to try to get a chance to visit it or at least to have a glance. Again it was one of the things that every one of us would feel proud to have visited the place and it’s like it adds a credit in our list of “Where we have been!” again just another thing that our generation used to think in that way.

The Historic Natural Museum (aka = Mot-haf Al-Tareekh Al-Tabeey’e): This museum was and still is a place that attracts everyone despite their age. This place is about the flora and fauna that lived and still lives in Oman and their historic approach and changes within the years. Every time I visited this place makes me feel that I am visiting it for the first time; its just that it is so amazing that you can never feel bored to go around it as many times as you can. There was always an addition to the collection whenever I’ve been there. One of the most breaths taken things is the bone structure of the giant wheal, sea creature’s fossils, old plant and animal’s fossils that lived in the Omani sea and land over thousands of years ago. There are as well as numbed wild animals, insects and reptiles.

The Historic Omani Museum (aka = Mot-haf Al-Tareekh Al-Omani): This museum really takes you back to the old Oman and the current. If you ever wanted to know more or wondered about the Omani history including how did the Omanies ruled and managed to include Eastern coast lines of Africa and the Southern coast lines of near Asia to its empire then this museum is the best place to discover about all the events and the outcomes. Also this museum presents the old Omani life style that the Omanies adopted in the old days in relation to traditional clothing, house decorations, habits and attitudes especially when it came to hospitality. It also brings the secrecy of the handy crafts business in Oman and how big impacts it used to have on the economic including importing and exporting things from and to the world via the sea trade and the land trade.

The Book Exhibition was the most approached exhibition of the year by and always attracted every one from various age. Although it used to run for a whole week but was always packed! The exhibition presented all sorts of books, cassettes, CD’s, charts, posters, journals…etc despite the categorization of the books. Any thing that can be thought of or wanted can be found in these exhibitions. Plus they used to be cheap to buy books from such event. I used to save up a lot and my mother always encouraged us to read more books, so she did not have much restriction to how much I wanted to spend in buying books.

Outdoor trips:

Visiting Forts: These types of trips were always the best, because you get to hang out with your friends and classmates for a whole day out of the classroom restriction. Plus your teachers will be your friends and not the horrible teachers, not that they are always horrible but some tend to be serious in the class room and when they are in these trips they come out of their shell and appear in their norm.

The reason that they are done out of the school days and most of the time take place over the weekend, is that it takes a bit of the time to get to where we want to go and also it is always nice to take our time to discover and observe and learn rather than rushing up and to roam around and not getting the chance to learn a thing.

It always great had to visit places and forts where battles had taken place or where they used to be houses for people and you could still see some remarks and evidences left behind them. Though in some moments they used to be spooky places to be in, especially if you were left behind by your group or some one decides to play some naughty tricks on you.

We always combined our fort visits with other activities such as having lunch by the beach, or in the parks, or visiting the hot water or spring water spots/location and we land there for some lunch and then continue with our visits to other forts.


Some examples of forts/ locations that I have visited in the past are Barka,Nakhal, Rustaq, Sohar, Nizwa, Saham and Muscat [ The Twin Forts]. Some examples of hot water/ spring water are Al-Kasfa and Al-Thawara.

One time we were taken to Widam Al-Sahel and it’s where the Marine headquarter of the navy force is based. It was the most enjoyable trip I ever had and was full of learning. We learnt a lot about our navy force and how things do work, especially with the missiles and the sub-marines. The Navigators or the navies made us proud to be Omanies and the effort that is taken on board to protect the country and represents Oman to the world as a great force to our country.









Nakhal Fort

Barka Fort











Nizwa Fort










Rustaq Fort













Ayen Al-Kasfah











Ayen Al-Thwara





Has any one visited the above places? What did you think of them?

If you’ve been to more places can you please list them down and tell us what you thought about such trips?