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Many different cultures have had an influence on Omani culture, notes designer Amy Ocampo. “As a designer, I am inspired by Oman’s visual iconography.�In the past, Amy had three small companies that sourced and designed for, and sold to, museum gift shops and retailers round the world. After moving to the sultanate, she decided she wanted to design and develop an artful product for tourists.

“I spent much time considering various visual concepts which would reflect the culture and traditions here. The medium with which I wanted to work was textiles. My chosen visual became the exquisite, chocolate-coloured henna designs seen in so many variations here in Oman.�br>
The most expressive henna designs, be they bold and geometric or intricate and floral, are painted for celebrations, and last on the skin for about a week to ten days. After spending a year researching and drawing henna designs, Amy decided on one design to silkscreen on to a length of fabric. In the corner of the design is a motif in Arabic calligraphy that translates as ‘Beautiful Oman� The fabric can be used as a sarong or shawl or even as a tablecloth. Amy changed the background, which was originally soft caramel, to a richer, warmer tone by twice dying the cloth in a bath of tea.

“This first design venture is quite an adventure,�she says. “Life in Salalah is peaceful, so there is time enough to make and create.�br>
Studiosalalah designs are available at the Hilton Salalah Resort or through Amy Ocampo (tel: 92 709101).

souq
Turquoise and coral by weight

Mutrah souq is a colourful draw for locals and visitors alike, but many newcomers express disappointment that the majority of the stock available for sale is foreign, not Omani. It is worth remembering however that Muscat has always been a thriving trading port, buying and selling goods garnered from round the world. So it remains to this day, a place in which to unearth Kashmiri embroidered coats, American almonds, Indian shawls and Chinese cinnamon, as well as frankincense from Dhofar.

Afghanistan is the source of coral and turquoise for sale in strands, and made up into ready-to-wear jewellery, at The Luxury Home Trading (tel: 99 333573). The strands of beads are priced by weight and cost 200bz per gramme. Like pearls, corals are organic and grow in water �the fact that Afghanistan is a land-locked country proves just how labyrinthine are the trade routes that traverse the globe. Turquoise is a hard, opaque mineral, and is mined from deposits in places such as Iran, the Sinai Peninsula, the US, China and Afghanistan. At The Luxury Home Trading, visitors can expect to pay around RO4 for a strand of tiny, peppercorn-sized turquoise beads; a heavy strand of large chunks of coral will be closer to RO50. These strands cannot be worn immediately, of course, because they have no clasps. Instead, creative shoppers can use them to make up their own, unique jewellery designs. Look around the souq for examples of ready-made necklaces, bracelets and earrings to find inspiration.

souq
Spices, sweeties and coffee powder

‘Wholeseller and retailer of all kinds of dry fruits, spices and food stuffs, household items, novelties and perfumes�reads the slogan on the business cards of Hamed Khamis al Farsi Trading (tel: 24 711324). This shop in Mutrah souq is a cook’s cornucopia. Alongside piles of gaudily wrapped chocolates are trays of pistachios, walnuts, almonds, cashew nuts, dried banana slices, black and white peppercorns, green and black cardamom, Chinese and Indian cinnamon, shrivelled figs, nutmeg, star anise, cloves, bay leaves, dried lemons, hibiscus flowers, sesame seeds, fenugreek, chillies, dried pomegranate seeds, lumps of turmeric and blocks of rock salt both ebony and white �to list a mere handful of the pungent bounty on offer. A barrel of Omani coffee powder spiked with cardamom (RO1.600 per kg) stands near vats of coffee beans, some of them green, others roasted and richly fragrant. And beside the till are small boxes of saffron, that most treasured spice derived from the dried stigmas of crocus flowers. Shop assistant Mohamed says that the Iranian is better than the Spanish saffron (it is also double the price at RO1 per gramme). He recommends adding saffron to juices, tea and coffee, and using it to gild rice dishes.

Archaeology
Three stones and few clues

Peppered through the dust just metres away from road construction on the Salalah-Thumrayt road stands an unmarked line of stones that deserves recognition. The stones were put there by man thousands of years ago, although we don’t exactly know when, or for what. We call them triliths because they consist of three vertical slabs
of stone facing each other, and are typically found in a line where each trio is followed by another.

Western explorers first noticed them only in the late 19th century, documenting their presence from northern Yemen to the island of Socotra, and in Dhofar. The basic three stones that make up a trilith are set in a stone ellipse and the number of trilith stones per ellipse varies from three to nine. The entire ellipse with triliths was then packed solid with pebbles. The number of trilith ellipses per row also varies. In some cases, only one or two ellipses can be seen but in other cases more than 20 such ellipses in rows stretching for over 500m have been seen.

Observation of these rows also confirmed that they were associated with adjoining small rectangles whose corners were defined by small boulders. Finally, in every case, the trilith rows were accompanied by carefully constructed small stone firepit circles filled with pebbles and ash. On occasion other small structures, perhaps houses, can be seen near the rows, as well as pecked rock art on boulders. Absolute dates derived from the ash of the fireplaces has placed the rows within the Iron Age and more specifically within the period 400BC�00AD.

Some archaeologists have suggested that the triliths represent a late period funerary rite evolved from much earlier stone rows and pillars of the Bronze Age.

The barber
Facials and dreams

Iraq Hussein came to Salalah in 1975 from Rajasthan, to make a life cutting hair in Oman. He’s been here ever since, teaming up with Mohammed Hussein from Lahore and Liyaqat Hussein from India to run a barbershop in Salalah’s Haffa souq. Now in his 50s, he wears his reddish-orange hair dye proudly, the colours of a man who has made the Hajj.

Iraq has followed the ups and downs of hairstyles through umpteen monsoons, phases of high demand and market lulls, and still he has managed to survive. “We make up to 12or 15 rials a day each during the khareef,�he says, “and as low as five or six rials in the off season. And this is by working from eight in the morning till one o’clock at night. Electricity and rent add up to RO120 a month, and we have to come up with another RO30 for the sponsor.�

Men’s fashion reached its peak in Dhofar about five years ago, when everyone seemed to want long hair. That was bad news for Iraq, though �long hair means less business for his shop. Still, he has enough up his sleeve to offer the discerning customer: facials, shaves, steaming, styles of haircuts and colouring.

If you are particularly picky about your beard, a normal razor just won’t do. Iraq will happily pluck out individual hairs with a thread, a process only stomached by seasoned veterans. But his trump card has got to be the magical cream that he will apply on your face at the end: Tibet Snow. With a name like that, how could one go wrong?

Catamaran
SY Azzura lands in Muscat

Entering Marina Bandar al Rowdha it is easy to spot the tethered SY Azzura �her 26.8m-high main mast dwarfs nearly everything else. At 22.86m long by 10.5m wide, with a deck area of 110 square metres, this catamaran is big.

Brought to the sultanate by Ocean Blue International, the Azzura has only recently entered Muscat. The French-built catamaran arrived last month after completing her
52-day maiden voyage from La Rochelle, during which the crew braved storms, wind lulls and even the threat of pirates.

“Sometimes we faced winds of up to 50 knots [approximately 93kmph] near Biscay, the Atlantic and in some parts of the Mediterranean,�recalls Captain Marcel Girardin, a sailor with 35 years of experience. Another crewmember, Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah al Farsi, recollects that near Malta they experienced eight to ten metre-high waves from all sides. “It was an amazing adventure for us. Going into battle with the elements one is never sure of the outcome, but once you come out unscathed you are not scared anymore.�br>
According to Marcel, the Azzura was stable even in high winds. “Sails add to a boat’s stability in high winds. There is less pitching and rolling, so there is no need to add ballast,�he explains.

Four days into the voyage the crew sighted a pod of whales. They were also often accompanied by dolphins surfing the waves created by the twin hulls as Azzura moved through the water. At Gibraltar, Azzura stopped only to refuel before heading on to Malta, and by the time the catamaran had reached the island they had sailed 2,500 nautical miles (4,630km) over ten days. The distance to the next stop in Port Said was 1,300 nautical miles (2,407km); from Egypt the Azzura passed the Suez Canal en route to Djibouti. The crew battled with rough weather between Malta and Port Said, but travelling on to Djibouti there was little or no wind, so that on one occasion they had to use her two engines.

Leaving Djibouti harbour, the captain and crew faced a new concern �pirates. Pirates as eye-patch wearing, loose-shirted buccaneers may belong in movies or the past, but modern-day pirates still exist, and the waters from Djibouti to Muscat, through the Gulf of Aden, are notoriously thick with them. The result was that each time the crew saw another vessel they changed tack (direction) as a precaution �a catamaran like Azzura could have fetched a handsome ransom had it fallen into the wrong hands. The fact that the boat and her crew also sailed past an active volcano off the coast of Yemen also ensured that adrenaline levels remained high.

Lady Luck was feeling benevolent however, and the weather remained favourable on the last leg of this astonishing maiden voyage. Fifty-two days after departing France the crew moored the catamaran at Marina Bandar al Rowdha, having completed 6,000 nautical miles, the equivalent of 11,112km.

The SY Azzura, which will be based at the Shangri-La’s Barr al Jissah Resort and Spa, is available to charter. For details, call Bettina Colin on 96125081.