Salalah Pictures :)

Just a few pictures from our walking adventures...


Traditional dancing and music that we stumbled upon in the traditional souk - was really cool to see some of the traditions that are a bit more difficult to see normally. Those red dresses are mad of velvet too - extremely heavy traditional female dresses that are slightly longer in the back so women have to move them out of the way and hold their hands up.


We found a cute little juice shop and sat on the beach relaxing for a little while :)


Taking pictures on the beach = maybe not the best idea. Suddenly the gulf decided to not cooperate and we ended up getting soaked. The beach reminded us of home though, and it seemed very similar to the beaches on the East Coast.


A great example of some of the foliage of Salalah - much different than the dry, almost desert like surroundings in Muscat. This was just a back alley way that we saw near the fruit and vegetable stands as we walked towards the beach.


And this was the fruit and vegetable stands that ran parallel to one of the main streets near the beach (about two blocks maybe). All the fruit was fresh - Salalah is known for its bananas, but we saw all sorts of fruits like avocados, mangos, star fruit, coconuts, etc.

xoxo

A New Part of Oman

This weekend, a number of us traveled to Southern Oman, to a city called Salalah. Two students visited a few weeks ago, and were raving about it, and throughout our trip, we've heard nothing but good things about the city. Located in the Dhofar region of Oman, Salalah is approximately 120 kilometers from the Yemen border (I believe). There is a slightly more conservative or traditional attitude of residents in Salalah and the Dhofar region, in addition to a slight difference in dialect spoken in the city compared to the Muscat Omani we have been learning. The current Sultan was born in Salalah actually, and before Sultan Qaboos, it was tradition for the Sultan to reside there. With all these things in mind, I went in with an open mind, not really knowing what to expect.

We decided to take the bus there and fly back to save money, though definitely not time. Our bus left late afternoon on Wednesday, and we arrived at a little after 7am I believe. The ride ended up being almost 14 hours. After walking the 2 kilometers to the hotel, we crashed exhausted and slept for a few hours before going out and exploring. And explore we did.

Salalah is very different from Muscat, that much we noticed the instant we got off the bus. First, and of course most importantly, the weather is so much more bearable. Being able to walk the 2-3 kilometers from the bus stop was so nice - yes, we started sweating about three-fourths of the way there because our bags were heavy, but it wasn't even close to the oppressing heat and humidity here in Muscat. We were able to walk around without dying of heat exhaustion, though the fact that we wished to walk seemed to confuse most Omanis; taxi driver after taxi driver pulled up along side us and asked us if we needed a ride, and were always in disbelief when we told them that we actually WANTED to walk.

The second thing we noticed as well, in particular when walking, is that the city is much smaller and more contained than Muscat. While most Omani coastal cities are built in similar fashion (aka a city in a long strip along the water), Muscat has developed a lot away from the coast line as well. This tread has yet to hit Salalah, and therefore walking to the beach or the souk was relatively doable.

Thirdly, there are not nearly as many expatriates here, or at least we didn't see nearly as many as in Muscat. I did notice a large number of Arabs from surrounding Gulf countries (a lot of Saudis and Emiratis in particular). The tourist resorts are on the far ends of the city, so many of the citizens are not as used to Westerners walking through the real Omani parts of the town. I noticed this particularly when we were walking by the popular fruit stands and through the traditional souk. Usually when we visit places like this in Muscat, first of all the prices are ridiculously high for us, and second, while some people stare, it's not incredibly uncomfortable (here, a little staring is to be expected, since we are foreigners and don't look Arab). In Salalah though, we got relatively equivalent prices to the Arabs shopping, but we got a LOT more attention - to the point of making me slightly uncomfortable. I realized as we walked through the souk that I have a strong sense of cultural appropriateness. The staring didn't make me uncomfortable for myself, I mostly felt aware that I was making others uncomfortable, especially other women. Yes I feel out of place here often, but in the Souk I just felt like I was disrespecting their daily lives by drawing so much attention - I know it's somewhat ridiculous, but it was still an interesting feeling.

It's amazing how much more into the culture you can perceive when you're not getting bused around from place to place only speaking English. Such a small group made it possible for us to engage with locals on a much more basic level, and we didn't look like a complete tourist group since there were so few of us. Salalah has really been the culmination of all the cultural experiences we have had here so far, and it makes me really think about what an amazing and diverse country Oman is.

Ibri Photos

Here are some more pictures, these from our visit to Rosha's town, Ibri. Her dad brought us around in the morning, showing us a lot of the city.


Rosha and I at Bat, which is a super old location, with what are called "beehive tombs", which are quite the feats of architecture considering that they are old enough to be too old to actually know their age.


The tombs are falling apart (to be expected from something so ancient), but it is possible to climb in some of them through tiny openings like this.


This is the old souk of Ibri that Rosha's dad took us too. The government tried to get venders to move to street-stores instead of stores in this area, so there are less venders here and much less traffic than in the past.


We saw a very angry kid-camel outside of the Goat and Camel Souk - One of those foreigner excitements again haha. There is something about camels...


Rosha's dad brought us to this traditional animal souk, where they were selling goats. Apparently, camels are sold first thing in the morning, followed by goats, then by cows. It was interesting because there was really no organization at all, just people milling around talking and bargaining - no auctioning or anything.


These last three are of Rosha's little brother who was absolutely adorable. He rode this adorable tricycle around the room and the courtyard right outside the sitting room where we spent most of our time while at Rosha's house. I could probably create a whole album of cute pictures of him from our visit.



xoxo

Jumbo Trip Pictures

Sorry these are so late! Here are just a few pics from the jumbo trip we took a few weeks ago...



The beach resort we stayed at the second night near Sur (I think) - swam, collected shells, the guys all played soccer, and just relaxed. We also got to see Green Turtles at night at the Turtle Reserve - saw one turtle laying eggs and helped lead a baby turtle to the ocean :)


We got to ride camels in the desert on the second morning - a classic touristy thing when in the Middle East but it was worth it.


Woke up at 5 am and ran up a huge sand dune to watch the sunrise across the dunes. Beautiful experience and quite the workout.


The first day, we visited Jabal Akhdar, one of the two biggest mountains in Oman (Jabal (or جبل) means mountain and Akhdar (or اخضر) means green). The mountain is more a huge series of mountains on top of each other, but the views were amazing. We all packed into 4-wheel drive vehicles and the road got a little treacherous at moments.


Finally, on the last day, we visited Wadi Sham where we hiked into the wadi to the pool of water, and then ended up exploring further, walking across some fairly sharp rocks and swimming in our clothes to an awesome cave where you could haul yourself up a rope and jump in from the upper rocks.

Update :)

Sorry for not writing - we've been super busy and a lot of things have just been stewing in my mind after the jumbo trip and celebrating fourth of July here in addition to just fully experiencing more of Omani and Arab culture.  I decided after the jumbo trip that a play by play is interesting to some extent, but also slightly tedious for me to write all out and not quite as interesting as maybe just posting the more personal commentary on what I've been seeing.  But that's just my opinion.  So here it goes; the following posts are things that I've both observed and been thinking about throughout the trip and have noted down.  Hope you enjoy!