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The best stories are in details

Finery
Turning heads
A flick through Oman Adorned: A Portrait in Silver will reveal that headdresses and hair ornaments, like traditional clothing and other jewellery, have long varied according to region and tribe. Today fashion comes into the equation, of course – modern designs are often more angular and geometric than those favoured in the past.
The gold souq in Mutrah is a good place to study this unique form of jewellery, which was customarily fashioned from silver. For those who can afford it, gold is now a popular alternative. The precious yellow metal is vastly expensive; K M Basheer, of Abdul Hameed Haroon Ahmed and Brothers
(tel: 24 712861) in Mutrah, says that gold headdresses cost upwards of RO500. The silver jewellery is more modestly priced – a tikka, the ornament that hangs from the top of the head down over the hairline to rest on the forehead, costs RO18. The more elaborate shamber is RO35 and features two bands that wrap round the front of the head on either side of a tikka-style forehead accessory (see above left). Headdresses like these are collectively called mufrak in Arabic, and are worn for parties and at weddings and Eid. Women usually wear the jewellery over their head covering – the pieces are held in place with spikes that are pushed through the cloth of the scarf. According to K M Basheer, both the silver and gold jewellery is made in the sultanate, in Mutrah or Ghala; but the souq is the best place to see it.

Field guide
Birds in hand
Oman is famously good territory for twitchers. According to the new edition of Birdwatching Guide to Oman, “Its position, on the edge of the Western Palearctic, together with its location between Europe, Africa and Asia, means the avifauna of three zoo-geographical areas are represented in Oman.”

The original Birdwatching Guide to Oman was published in 2001; the new edition has recently been revised and updated. Written by Dave E Sargeant and Hanne and Jens Eriksen, the book includes information for visitors (details such as basic Arabic phrases and places to stay), sites of birding interest, and a ‘bird finder’ that gives suggestions on how, where and when to find species. The ‘bird calendar’ is handy, too: in mid-May for instance it notes that a massive passage of Marsh Warblers occurs round the country. Meticulously researched but accessible even to novice birders, the second edition of Birdwatching Guide to Oman is an indispensable handbook for anyone with more than a passing interest in the country’s resident and migrant birds.

Museum
Fort facts and weaponry
The Ministry of Heritage and Culture’s latest museum opened on January 7 this year, a memorial to the late Sayyid Faisal bin Ali al Said, a former Minister of Heritage and Culture. A showcase for traditional Omani weaponry and facts about the country’s fortified architecture, the museum is an uplifting and cleverly designed space that occupies a former stage building once used for theatrical and musical performances, which was itself built during Sayyid Fasial bin Ali al Said’s administration.

Today the large, white room is decorated with several timber models of dhows and is hung with boards charting details about many forts – details including the fact that Bukha Fort in Musandam features curious, pear-shaped towers and once boasted a moat filled with seawater; and that the fort at Rustaq was traditionally used for investing imams. Within this single white room is a small, elliptical subspace, its inside painted vibrant tangerine. This area displays a collection of weaponry, khanjars, ancient flints and so on, and reveals that gunpowder, called barud in Arabic, was traditionally made in Oman by mixing together charcoal, sulphur and rock salt. Bullets meanwhile were manufactured using lead mined from mountains in the sultanate.

Sayyid Faisal bin Ali Museum is located in the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, near the Natural History Museum, in Al Khuwayr. It is open to visitors from Saturday to Wednesday (excluding Tuesday), 8am– 2pm; admission is free. For details, call 24 641650.

book
A manual to inspire
There must be few people in Oman able to hold down a professional situation while also climbing, caving, snorkelling, hiking and camping their way round the country and finding the time to work on a book. Dr Khaled Abdul Malak is one of them, however. A leading oral and maxillofacial surgeon with a passion for adventure, he and Sukanti Ghosh have recently produced In Search of the Sublime: A journey through Oman, a paean to the sultanate and its varied, challenging landscapes.

Written and edited by Sukanti with evocative photographs by Dr Khaled, the book is broadly divided into chapters that list the surgeon’s favourite sites in terms of wadis, mountains, caves and beaches, all of which offer ample opportunity for exploration and adventure. An adrenaline fiend who has lived in Oman since 1996, Dr Khaled is a man as happy on the end of a rope in the Majlis al Jinn as he is snorkelling in the bay off Muscat’s Yacht Club, and the result is that this book offers something to rookie hikers and seasoned explorers alike.

Thanks to Sukanti’s lively text, which is also translated into French, the surgeon’s enthusiasm is palpable on the page, a rousing appeal to those people who claim to admire mountains and wadis but who prefer to stay at home. The book is a practical guide as much as an inspirational starting point, because it includes GPS points and directions for each site listed. Smartly produced and engaging to read, In Search of the Sublime is the ideal purchase for newcomers to Oman or anyone who has forgotten that this country’s landscapes are rare and inspiring.

On film
Desert cinema
More than half a century after Wilfred Thesiger wrote about his epic crossing across the Empty Quarter, a businessman in the UAE has turned the book into a movie – and is hoping its bilingual narrative will find universal appeal among both English- and Arabic-speaking residents across the Emirates and Oman.

Majid Abdulrazak was just a businessman in love with good books when he first tried his hand at the classic The Count of Monte Cristo, turning it into Eqaab. This first venture drew the attention of critics in a region dominated by foreign films, but fared hopelessly against the giants of the industry, song and dance movies from India and Egypt. “The problem,” says Majid, “isn’t making movies. Movies can always be made. It’s the audience here that’s lacking. We don’t have an audience.”

One million dollars later, he’s come up with the next business proposition: take a classic adventure of human guts and glory that appeals to everyone from Bedu to armchair explorer, and tell it in two languages. It might just work. Have a look at Arabian Sands, which premiered at Al Shatti Plaza (if you’ve missed it there, it will be released on DVD soon).

Cramming a life and death journey into 1.5 hours doesn’t necessarily work, though, and audiences accustomed to special effects and multi-million dollar production budgets will have to make do with more home-grown methods. Not only is Majid the lead actor – playing Thesiger of course – he was also screenplay writer, director and producer.

Still, what is remarkable is that someone had the determination to go through with such an endeavour, and did so while keeping true to the book’s content and purpose. Best of all, this production comes to you from a region that has a virtually nonexistent film industry, and yet is devoid of the raging soap-opera sentiments that flood TV screens here. Majid deserves a chance – try the movie and you will be the audience he’s been looking for.