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Shopping the Muttrah souk
Muscat is about as magical as Gulf cities get. It’s something to do with the sparkling azure-coloured sea and harbour; quiet, apart from the bustle of the morning fish market. It’s the setting of this white, low-rise city amid craggy arid hills and ochre mountains; the crumbling Portuguese forts and pretty white wooden buildings with delicate balconies that line the curved Corniche; the maze of alleys that make up Muttrah souk.
But most of all, it’s the slow-paced nature of the souk itself, the friendly characters who sell their wares, the exotic things to buy and the pungent aroma of frankincense and smoke rising from coal-fed hearths.
The Muttrah souk is without doubt the best in the Gulf. There may not be as much gold on offer here as in Dubai, and sure, the khanjars are cheaper in Aden – but this is an authentic, easy-going souk where you’re more likely to rub shoulders with locals haggling over silver or strike up a conversation with a young Omani government worker than you are to bump into a German tourist. And the quality and range of jewellery, crafts and ‘antiques’ on offer is high. c ity breaks : Muscat , Oman and, now that Etihad have launched a daily service to Muscat from Abu Dhabi, getting here is easier than ever.
Shopping the Muttrah souk is also more pleasurable than shopping any of the great bazaars of the Middle East. There is very little of the tacky tourist trash you find in Cairo’s Khan Al Khalili. The insane number of tourists found in Marrakesh and the scoundrels of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar are, thankfully, absent.
So what’s on offer? Scores of stalls and crowded shops selling everything made of Omani silver, for which the city is famous: intricate-patterned pill boxes and scrolls (originally intended for holding pages of the Koran), chunky ‘antique’ Bedouin jewellery, brass and silver coffee pots, lamps and trays, exotic Arabian perfumes and oils and colourful perfume bottles, sheesha pipes, old Arabian maps and prints, Kashmiri pashminas, Rajasthani textiles, African caftans and the fine embroidered caps and woollen head-dresses worn by Omani men (a refreshing change from the checked gutras of the rest of the Gulf).
If you only buy one thing in Muscat, make it frankincense, for which the land of the ‘three kings’ is famous. You can buy a packaged kit with burner, incense and coals, and be reminded of the aromatic magic of Muscat’s Muttrah souk long after you’ve gone.
By Lara Dunston
Courtesy of lifestyleandtravel.com
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