Muscat Daily - City of Lights
This is a long pending post... It is about life in Muscat. May not be single post, but then I will try to write what I have seen and known so far in small snippets. And the category will be Muscat Daily.
All thanks to my friend and fellow blogger SG at http://sowmyagopal.blogspot.com who reminded me about this post. If you know me well, you would have guessed that my explorations, thoughts and experiences generally are on my blog as immediate as immediate can mean.. latest by a week's time. These days, I dont get to make much time in my mind for my blog. So, as and when I do, you'll see more up-to date posts.
Muscat, the captial of Oman is said to be one of the most scenic places in the Arabian land. Most of the scenic beauty during the day is contributed by the various colored mountains and beautifully paved roads here. The scenic beauty at night is lights.. If you get out of your house at night, all you get to see is lights and lights and lights everywhere. The lanes are well-lit by the street lights, Yellowish Orange or Plain White. (I know I am not talking the technicalities - Sodium vapor lamps and CFL and such serious science specs here.. Thats because the color is what catches me more than the science here). The backdrop of black and the distributed, patterned lighting identify the places mostlly.
A flood of light tells you its a stadium, a row of lights says it is a road, a curved pattern of lights in a winding pattern says that there is a winding road running up the hill, a neat line of lights that seem to hang in mid-air indicates that it is a crane positioned next to a construction area... The harbour or Mina as they call it here, is the best place to go to, if you want to see the beauty of the Muscat city at night. There are a lot of rocky hills that are also bathed in the shine of the glowing flash light from the ground. The whole scene makes the place very beautiful.
Most of the pavements have trees - date palms and neem mostly, with a floor light on, showing us the golden trunk of the tree. It will seem like trees in gold and silver have been planted along the side walks. Call it extremely bombastic and hyper imaginative, but then this is how I felt when I looked at some of the side walks in the roads here, as I sat watching out of our car window.
There are some watch towers of archaelogical importance here. The lighting gives the 'truly important' touch to these towers at night.
Muscat is celebrating the 40th National Day. The entire country is lighted up for one whole month in a festive mode to celebrate the National day. Every road has colorful, well designed lights in beautiful patterns.All bridges are also lighted up. There was a fireworks display also... another color splash!!!
The heavy loaded trucks here are another beautiful sight at nights. Every truck has at least three of these colors - Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, White. Its quite a sight to see the well-aligned lights move in the backdrop of the night color.
The stadiums are flooded with lights, so much that would make you think that a major match or event is happening there. Even on a light day, the stadiums are super-lit with the flood lights that compete with the moon's color on a full moon night.
Every building's compound wall has half a dozen lights at least to indicate that it is a compound wall. Most houses have lights on their window sill, so you can see the beauty of the window's design and architecture.
Overall, if you want to see how lights can make a difference to your mood, you must drive late evenings in Muscat. City of Lights, quite a sight, at night.
All our attempts to capture the best of this lighting were not successful. Check the slideshow to see some photos.
All thanks to my friend and fellow blogger SG at http://sowmyagopal.blogspot.com who reminded me about this post. If you know me well, you would have guessed that my explorations, thoughts and experiences generally are on my blog as immediate as immediate can mean.. latest by a week's time. These days, I dont get to make much time in my mind for my blog. So, as and when I do, you'll see more up-to date posts.
Muscat, the captial of Oman is said to be one of the most scenic places in the Arabian land. Most of the scenic beauty during the day is contributed by the various colored mountains and beautifully paved roads here. The scenic beauty at night is lights.. If you get out of your house at night, all you get to see is lights and lights and lights everywhere. The lanes are well-lit by the street lights, Yellowish Orange or Plain White. (I know I am not talking the technicalities - Sodium vapor lamps and CFL and such serious science specs here.. Thats because the color is what catches me more than the science here). The backdrop of black and the distributed, patterned lighting identify the places mostlly.
A flood of light tells you its a stadium, a row of lights says it is a road, a curved pattern of lights in a winding pattern says that there is a winding road running up the hill, a neat line of lights that seem to hang in mid-air indicates that it is a crane positioned next to a construction area... The harbour or Mina as they call it here, is the best place to go to, if you want to see the beauty of the Muscat city at night. There are a lot of rocky hills that are also bathed in the shine of the glowing flash light from the ground. The whole scene makes the place very beautiful.
Most of the pavements have trees - date palms and neem mostly, with a floor light on, showing us the golden trunk of the tree. It will seem like trees in gold and silver have been planted along the side walks. Call it extremely bombastic and hyper imaginative, but then this is how I felt when I looked at some of the side walks in the roads here, as I sat watching out of our car window.
There are some watch towers of archaelogical importance here. The lighting gives the 'truly important' touch to these towers at night.
Muscat is celebrating the 40th National Day. The entire country is lighted up for one whole month in a festive mode to celebrate the National day. Every road has colorful, well designed lights in beautiful patterns.All bridges are also lighted up. There was a fireworks display also... another color splash!!!
The heavy loaded trucks here are another beautiful sight at nights. Every truck has at least three of these colors - Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, White. Its quite a sight to see the well-aligned lights move in the backdrop of the night color.
The stadiums are flooded with lights, so much that would make you think that a major match or event is happening there. Even on a light day, the stadiums are super-lit with the flood lights that compete with the moon's color on a full moon night.
Every building's compound wall has half a dozen lights at least to indicate that it is a compound wall. Most houses have lights on their window sill, so you can see the beauty of the window's design and architecture.
Overall, if you want to see how lights can make a difference to your mood, you must drive late evenings in Muscat. City of Lights, quite a sight, at night.
All our attempts to capture the best of this lighting were not successful. Check the slideshow to see some photos.
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