Muttrah

So after the pit stop at Sultan's fathers house we made our way to Muttrah. It is a beautiful drive through the mountains and is much closer than I anticipated. I saw the tops of huge ships peaking over the road indicating our closeness to the harbor. Muttrah is the first port city of Oman. It's where The Sultan of Oman keeps his yacht. It's gigantic, his old yacht which is about 2/3rds the size of his new also sits in the harbor.It really is an exquisite site. I've never seen cliffs drop off into the water in person. Your in the mountains but on the water at the same time, its the best of both worlds.

We park and all the while Salim is telling me all about the Souks and giving me some insight into the history behind this place. This was the first place that has felt somewhat touristy. And its a great place for it, you can actually walk around a bunch and visit different shops. The Souks are actually underground.

As we entered the Souks it felt like a much cleaner and spread out version of China town in NYC. Except all the shop owners were Indian and you could politely decline their invitation to enter their shop and they wouldn't bother you. Although, that could be because I was with Salim who I'm assuming was declining invitations in Arabic. We enter our first shop, it specialized in the traditional dagger or khanjar's. This would be worn for special occasions kind of like our tuxedo's. They wear it as a belt around their waste with the khanjar as the focal point (kind of like a belt buckle). So we look around a bit and Salim starts speaking in Arabic. Its evident that some of the khanjars are really expensive and some not so much. I could tell based on the size of the khanjar itself and the shininess and intricacy on the sheath. Out of no where they start gift wrapping a small khanjar up that has a bright pink belt attached to it. It's a small belt, so I ask Salim if it's for his son, who's the same age as Jack and he also has a 6 yr old daughter. He replies no, and says it is gift for you. So Salim bought me a khanjar. I probably thanked him like 4 or 5 times before we left the shop it really is pretty cool looking.

We make our way to the second shop where they sell dishdashas (the traditional everyday attire you see here in Oman). I told him I wanted to get Jack one before we arrived. Its clear he intends to buy one for me so I try on a couple kumah's (the hat they wear)and dishdasha. Find one that fits. Its here in this shop as I'm trying the dishdasha on that I realize that Salim comes up to my shoulder. I was not at all aware how much taller I was and from then on actually noticed how short people in the Souk were. Although there were also some well above 6 feet, but probably less than 20% of the people I saw. Which was great for my ego. I discretely pull out my wallet as Salim is negotiating with this very young Indian man. They negotiate in Arabic for about 5 minutes or so, a few times I thought Salim was going to walk out. Both of the men were smiling the entry time, which was kind of confusing because I could sense the back and forth negotiating was heating up. Then Salim sets his sons attire aside, I'm thinking good I can buy my mine and Jack's. I try to buy Jack's dishdasha and kumah, but Salim refuses and buys both of them, separating his stuff from my stuff, like he payed a lower price for mine than he did his own. So again I do my best to be overly almost annoyingly grateful as we leave the shop.

I continue to ask many questions and then inquire about where I would buy women's dress. At this point I kind of got the feeling it was sort of weird for a man to purchase women clothing and I didn't push it with Salim. As we were leaving the Souk Salim introduced me to frankincense. It's really cool how it burns, it does smell good, but they were burning way too much of it at once. The smell was a little over powering. After a couple quick sentences in Arabic Salim put the frankincense in my bag along with some charcoal and a little ceramic bowl to burn it in. The frankincense are like rocks and to burn it you set it on top of the burning charcoal (think thin square blocks that last a while). The result is a lot of smoke and a pleasant odor. So once again I made sure Salim knew how grateful I was as we exited the Souk. I learned a great deal about Omani culture from just this one afternoon with Salim. So I'll save all my other information for a different post.