What a subject for me to talk about today! Mattresses! Like it or not, we use them every day for a number of hours, and I wanted to share my experience with my Raha mattress - because I'm totally in love with it.
When I first got to Muscat, 4 and a half years ago, a colleague at the time took me to Lulu's on my very first day and said order a mattress now because it takes a few weeks to come. I was all a bit confused with everything and so purchased a Raha 1001 nights king size mattress for about RO 55 and carried on with all the things one does when they first move here.
Flash forward to May 2011 - my 1001 night mattress is well and truly battered, and my back was killing me - it was definitely time to find a new mattress. I went to the Towell bed centre, Fahmy Furniture, Khimji Furniture, ID Design, the IKEA catalog order store in Shatti, and a couple of other furniture places, trying to find a new mattress. I really wanted to get a TempurPedic memory foam mattress, but the price was really off-putting - North of RO 1000!!
In my search, I happened to tweet about my ongoing search for a new mattress, when someone from Raha emailed me and invited me to tour their factory right here in Rusayl. I don't know about you but I had no idea that Raha was an Omani brand, and definitely had no idea that they had a factory here, so I accepted the invitation and was actually quite excited to visit a factory. The last time I visited a factory that was not for work was an industrial photo printing plant in the UK and I was 12. Joy. I've actually been to quite a few factories but I digress.
So, last May, I went on a tour of the Poly Products L.L.C. state-of-the-art manufacturing complex spread across an area of 45,000 square meters in the Rusayl Industrial Estate of Oman. I wont get into the in-depth detail of the inner workings of the factory, but it is significant: they manufacture their own foam products, springs & coverings there, along as make additional foam products for other uses, as well as furniture too. I really was quite surprised at how involved the factory was, and how many uses there are for foam products!
I learned that Raha is a brand owned by Poly Products L.L.C. and that the parent company has been in operation since 1979, and has a factory here in Oman, as well as one in Germany & 2 smaller ones in the UAE. The InterCon, Hyatt, Al Bustan and The Chedi all have their mattresses made by Raha, and a very long list of 5* hotels in the region outside Oman also buy their mattresses from Raha. So their stuff is top-drawer quality.
After seeing how the mattresses were made, and just how much technology went into them (who knew?!) I decided that I was going to buy local, and selected the RO 320 Cloud Nine Expectations mattress. A week later the mattress was delivered, and now, 8 months later, I feel comfortable fully recommending this mattress. It is a no-turn mattress and is made up of pocketed-springs, multiple layers of foam, including a memory foam layer, and a quilted pillow top layer as well. I can guarantee that after these first 8 months the mattress has not become lumpy or uncomfortable, and my back pains have simply vanished. I won't lie, I did receive a modest discount, it was not free (no where near free!) and I don't want people to think that this is some paid-for advert, because it really is not. But none-the-less, Raha is a shining example of Omani products, and I for one had no idea they were even Omani!
If you find yourself on the hunt for a new mattress here in Oman, or even further afield, take the time to check out the Raha mattresses, I can guarantee they are built to last and are extremely comfortable. I've not had back pain in months, and I attribute a lot of that to the fact my mattress is helping me when I sleep. Here in Muscat, Fahmy Furniture in Al Khuwair is the main retail outlet for Raha mattresses.
le fin.
