I've always been curious about how different minorities live. These things tell you a lot about a country. In Oman, the minorities are Christians and Hindus. Together they make up less than 5%.

You can't just build a temple wherever you want here. You need government permission. In Muscat, Christians were given permits in the same neighborhood, so practically all the major religions ended up in one place: Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and many others. From the outside, you wouldn't even guess these buildings have anything to do with religion. That neighborhood was the only place where I actually remembered it's the new year.

Hindus in Muscat have only 2 temples, but they're among the oldest in the Middle East. And attendance is impressive: I stopped by for 5 minutes and there was an endless stream of families coming to pray. Probably because it was a holiday.