Shopping and Suqs in Salalah

While most of our time is spent at the university in class or in peer facilitation sessions (with Omani students who study here at the University) we do have time to get out around town. I wanted to show you some pictures of what Salalah looks like.

Again, it is a very hard city to get around in by walking. Luckily taxis are cheap and easily available. But taxis are only so useful as the person taking them -- and in our first week or two here, we really didn't have any idea of what was available to do or see here. Unfortunately, we had a tour of Musqat but not Salalah!

Café culture does not exist here like it does in most of the other Middle Eastern countries I've visited. But there are a lot of juice shops and fresh juices such as mango juice here is wonderful!!

Here is a picture of a coconut juice stand right on the beaches here. You just go up and point to what you want, and you can get a 'coconut juice' which is really just a straw stuck in the top of a coconut.

They also sell really yummy bananas and other 'exotic' fruits that I don't know the names of, because we don't really have the equivalent of it (or at least I've never had it in the US).


So the oldest, most famous and most touristy suq (Arabic for marketplace) here in Salalah is called Suq Al-Hafa (funny because our hotel was called "Bayt Al-Hafa" which means Hafa House) as well, even though they were in completely different neighborhoods.

So one night we went out to explore Suq Al-Hafa. This is where they sell lots of traditional hats and dresses as well as traditional Frankinsence incense and traditional sweets.

Here is a picture of a traditional shop in the interior of the suq....can you read the sign?

It says "Perfume and Incense Shop"

You can also see the next shop, which is a man (not Oman of course, but Southeast Asian or Indian -- a topic for another day) at a sweet corn shop -- its just sweet corn, but seasoned with vinegar and butter.


I have another picture of a street in Salalah -- so you can see all the cloth that is for sale in this neigborhood.

I already wrote about the traditional outerwear, but innerwear (under the Abaya) is really quite different! It's very colorful (bordering on tacky) and very loose fitting and robe-like.

Here is a picture of all the cloth for sale in one shop, and another of a typical street: