Oman Journal

Oman Journal

I'm planning on doing a couple more posts about my trip to Oman, random cool stuff in no particular order.  This post is mostly photos of the Corniche, the waterfront of a small bay which has been the main port area in Muscat for centuries.  There are large forts on both sides of the bay built in the 16th century by Portuguese invaders who held parts of Oman for a hundred years or so.  They aren't lit up very well, so use your imagination.  The fabulous Muttrah souk is just behind the buildings in these first pictures.






The following pictures were taken in the alleys just outside the souk or in the souk itself.  There are lots of tiny tailors, not just in Muttrah, but everywhere in Oman.  Anna tells me many of them are sewing for large corporations.  But you can also hire a tailor to make any type of garment for a very reasonable price.  Most of these shops are selling traditional Omani or Indian clothing.

 



I really like this photo of an upstairs tailor shop with a cool-shaped window.





Aria is hungry, so we stop for sandwiches and juice at a small restaurant in the souk.  The fresh juice here is the best I've had anywhere--mango!  Yum!





I don't really feel ready to shop.  It's kind of nice to stroll through the souk without any pressure to buy.  The vendors encourage you to check out their stores, but in a low-key way.  I step into one shop to look at the jewelry, and the proprietor tells me about khanjars, the traditional curved swords of Oman.  A really nice khanjar with a silver sheath is really expensive!



Notice the funny spelling in the next photo.  This has become much less common in the three years since I was last here.













We spend an hour or so exploring the souk, then wander out to the waterfront to take more photos.  There are hundreds of gulls sweeping over the water and Anna shoots some interesting pictures of their movement reflected in the lights.  We try to find something to feed them in Anna's backpack, but only come up with dates, which don't interest them, and an old banana.  Aria thinks this is hilarious and gets us all giggling.







This is Aria making giant shadows in the parking lot of Bait al Baranda where we left the car.  It's a new history museum.  Anna's having her first ever photo exhibition "I:Woman:Flower" at the museum in February.

Oman Journal

Oman Journal

Nizwa/Tanuf.  12/7/07.

            We sleep in this morning.  After breakfast, we drive to downtown Nizwa.  It’s a fairly large town in a bowl-shaped valley completely surrounded by mountains.  In the center of town there is an old fort, unusual in its round construction, and a beautiful blue-domed mosque.  The narrow old streets around the fort are lined with tiny shops.  Selling a wild, jumbled, mismatched array of goods, they remind me of the old 5 & 10s in Midwest towns.  Nizwa hosts a market on the weekends also, but the Nizwa souk specializes in cows rather than goats and camels.

            The traffic is snarled around the market.  By the time we park, the sun is high and it’s getting hot. This is Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, and everything shuts down at noon, so we only have about two hours to look around.

            I want to see the fort, so we find the entrance and wander around the dark hallways.  The view is nice from the top, but Aria wants to be carried up all the stairs, and she gets heavy fast walking uphill in the heat.  Anna asks me if I need to see every cranny of the fort, and I tell her I’ve seen enough.  It’s interesting, but the castle we visited last time I was here was more thoroughly refurbished and pretty much satisfied my interest in Omani forts.

            Anna wants to photograph the cow souk.  It’s a similar set-up to the goat souk in Sinaw with cows parading around a circle for the inspection of potential buyers.  But the action is pretty much over by the time we get there.  So we wander around central Nizwa, and then head out to the country to explore.

            On my last trip, we looked for a town called Tanuf, which Anna and Herschel had heard had interesting ruins.  We ended up in a very pretty date palm oasis, but never found the ruins.  This time, Anna tried a different turn-off to Tanuf, and we easily found the ruins—typical mud, stone, and wood buildings crumbling in the hot sun, the home now of wasps and lizards.  It is very dusty.  Aria plops herself down in the fine-grained warm dirt and proceeds to sprinkle herselft.  Since she’s had a potty mishap or two this morning, she is soon a muddy mess.  Cool—I like to see a dirty child, especially if it’s not mine.

            I hear voices and walk to the end of the ruins.  Surprised, I see a small pond and a big tree.  A large family is picnicking under it.  We get back in the car and drive around to investigate.  Just behind the ruined village is a high cliff with a large dry wadi at the base.  There are quite a few families picnicking and exploring—it’s shady and cool.

            We notice something has been built out of rock on the side of the cliff.  It looks too narrow for dwellings.  I wonder if it’s a falaj—the ancient irrigation system still used in Oman.  We climb up, and sure enough, that’s what it is, full of cool running water. 

            We return to the hotel late in the afternoon, sweaty and filthy.  Anna bathes Aria while I go for a solitary swim in the huge lovely pool.  I have seen a few families at the hotel, but most of the guests are older couples.  I’ve heard a few speaking English with British accents, but most seem to be German.

            Anna really wants a nap and Aria isn’t cooperating, so I try taking her to a little playground outside our room.  She is temporarily happy, but then wants Mom.  She can be shrilly persuasive, so Anna doesn’t get much sleep.  We have an early dinner, then put Aria to bed and stay up late having a long mother/daughter chat.

Oman Journal

           My daughter Anna took the photos in this post.  She said to tell you that they are happy snappies taken midday.  I still think they are great.  Check out more of her stuff at annakmair.

Nizwa and Sinaw.  12/6/07.

            As I expected, Anna hits the snooze button when the alarm goes off at 6:00.  She does the mom routine during the day, and then stays up late working or writing, so she’s usually at least a little tired.  Still, we are up fairly early.  As we walk to breakfast, the sun is just warming the huge gray mountain directly behind the hotel.

            We have a nice buffet breakfast, complimentary with the room.  The watermelon and pineapple are delicious.  I order tea and it comes in a large pot, so I ask Anna if she’d like some.  She informs me that tea makes her pee, a problem because there aren’t any toilets at the Sinaw souk.  Information I wish I’d had before drinking several cups!

            Tummies full, we’re on the road by 7:30.  Sinaw is about 45 miles south of Nizwa.  The land is harsh and flat, mostly rock—red, gray, brown, and black—with little vegetation other than patches of scrub grass and a few low, thorny, windswept trees.  An occasional date palm oasis breaks the stony monotony.  Reminds me of some of the less attractive parts of Nevada.  There are many small villages.  As in Muscat, most of the houses look big like boxes with little boxes attached in various spots.  The roofs are flat—no need for pitched roofs in this rainless climate.  However, the roofs usually have a cubelike structure on top which houses a stairwell to make adding another floor easier as the family grows.  Almost all the houses I’ve seen in Oman are white or tan, though there are a few pastel-colored ones.  Some of the houses are large and well-kept; many look in need of attention, especially in the interior.

            We stop at a Shell station on the outskirts of Sinaw to use the toilet before heading into the market.  The Arab women’s toilet is a hole in the ground with water to rinse with.  BYOTP – Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.  After the market we stop at the same gas station.  The women’s room is occupied, so I use the men’s.  It has a regular toilet.  What’s with that??!

            Sinaw hosts a Bedouin market every weekend morning (remember the weekend is Thursday/Friday here).  The first thing we see when we enter the town is an old man riding a donkey at a fair clip towards the market.  This isn’t common anymore.  Even the Bedouins drive pick-ups now.  There are lines of beat-up Toyota 4 X 4s all over the place.  Anna tells me that expatriates (the foreign workers in Oman) are not allowed to own open-bed pick-ups for some reason, only the Omanis.

            There is a lot of traffic and not much order, so we pick our way through the honking crowd and find a place to park.  The place is packed with people of all ages.  The men and boys mostly wear dishdashes and kumers or turbans.  The old men all look the same to me with their long scraggily white beards.  Some men wear khanjars, curved knifes.  A few carry swords.  Most of the women are dressed in loose pants with embroidered cuffs, then several layers of bright fabric covering everything but the face and hands.  Many women wear black masks that made them look birdlike and rather fierce.  The Bedouin women are less shy about being photographed than other Arab women; Anna wonders if it’s because they are masked.  Many of the women are heavy.  We see some BIG mamas!  Lots of cute kids, too.  The girls wear bright, mismatched clothes and have wild curly brown hair.

            The Muttrah souk in Muscat (which I forgot to write about, but will!) is wonderful, but obviously somewhat geared for tourists.  The Sinaw market has a completely different feel.  I don’t see any other Westerners the whole morning.  It feels a little uncomfortable to me, but only a little.

            The animal market is held in a walled compound ringed with small shops.  Another ring of vendors sell their wares on tarps in front of the shops.  As we walk in, I spot my first camels lined up outside a large covered pavilion open on three sides with a gravel floor.  They aren’t the huge camels you see in zoos.  I’d guess they weigh about 500 pounds.  Anna’s pretty sure the Bedouins don’t ride them, but raise them for meat and milk.  They also raise larger camels for racing.

The pavilion is packed with people.  One side is lined with men cutting and selling fish.  Bleah!  The sight and smell of thousands of dead, fly-covered fish turns my stomach.  There are some vegetable vendors in the pavilion selling greens of some sort, onions, garlic, peppers, cucumbers, carrots, spices, and walnuts.  I see a few cows, too.  But goats are the main attraction.  Men with goats for sale haul, tug, slap, and swat them around a circle lined on both sides with potential buyers, who pinch, poke, and pet them.  Every so often a goat changes hands, and the new owner pushes through the crowd with his or her animal. 

            At first we can’t see the circle of goats through the crowd.  But suddenly a tiny ancient hunchbacked lady in black bursts out of the circle, then trips and falls at my feet, holding the lead of a large black goat that appears to weigh as much as she.  She doesn’t make any attempt to get up, just sits in the middle of the chaos with her new goat.

            Eventually we push forward so we can see what’s going on.  I hold Aria so Anna can take photographs.  All sizes and all colors of goats circle by.  Lots of people shout, laugh, haggle, argue, and pass money back and forth.  The people are every skin color from fair to black.  All speak Arabic musically, though a few, especially teenage boys, greet us in English:  “Hi, how are you? Fine? Wecome to Oman.” 

            Aria is getting heavy and squirmy, so I take her a little ways off and find a stair to sit on next to a mama and baby goat and a man selling vegetables.  An old man on my right is smoking a pipe of something that smells like marijuana.  He grins and offers me a puff.  Laughing, I refuse.  Kids stare and point at us, and some photograph us, usually with cell-phones.  Aria attracts smiles.  These people obviously love kids.  They want to touch her, kiss her, shake her hand.  She puts up with this to a point.

            Finally Aria curls up next to me, and I make up silly stories.  She talks to the mama goat and pets the baby.  I close my eyes and listen:  goats baaing, cows mooing, indignant camel brays.  Many voices like water ebbing and swelling, one or two occasionally rising above the others.  With my eyes closed, the smells are more distinct.  The goat smell is strongest, mingled with onion and perfume.  The people are clean; even though it’s crowded and warm, there is no smell of sweat.  Thankfully, I can’t smell the fish on the opposite side of the pavilion.

After a while, Anna finds us, and we walk around looking at all the stuff people are selling.  It’s getting hot, so we buy some drinks from a tiny “cold” store.  The mango juice (my favorite—I drink it everywhere here) revives me.

Aria needs to pee, so Anna runs off to find someplace not too conspicuous to let her go.  I walk slowly around the market.  The stores are all small, maybe twelve feet square.  Some sell cheap clothing, much of it winter stuff I can’t imagine wearing in Oman.  Several stores sell and repair knifes, the proprietors doing metalwork on open fires in their dark cubicles.  I pass shoe stores, lots of plastic junk, used appliances, live chickens, eggs, perfume, and jewelry.  Oddly, since there’s no water anywhere near, one store sells large metal anchors.  Maybe the men who bring the fish from the coast buy them.  An old Bedouin lady grabs my hand and shows me some small woven rugs.  I’m willing to buy one, but can’t understand the price at all.

            I meet up with Anna and Aria by the camels.  We decide to make a circle of the market, then check out the ladies’ market outside the wall.  It fills about two square blocks, with similar items on sale plus lots of brightly colored fabrics.  I love fabric, but can’t think what I’d do with the flashy stuff.  Fun to look at, though.

            Anna and I make a few small purchases.  Aria finds a ripe tomato on the sidewalk and pokes holes in it until it’s so drippy we make her drop it.  We’re getting tired, and car and trucks are starting to leave packed with people, animals, and purchases.  Anna tells me it’s interesting watching the men load the animals into trucks, so we decide to stay a little longer.  When we get back to the camels, several men are tying one with straps, bending her legs at the knees and binding them so she can’t kick.  She bares her teeth and squalls piteously.  The guys finally get her trussed up.  It takes five of them to lift her into the back of a small pick-up truck.  They see us watching and are self-consciously macho.  The poor camel protests the whole process bitterly.  Quite a show.