off the beaten track n oman
off the beaten track n oman
Gold, frankincense and more
oman tips l Buying frankincense: A half-kilo bag of midgrade, mixed frankincense can be picked up for about £2-£3. Prices in the souks of Salalah and Muttrah are little different, so haggle. l Must visit: Built in 1995, the five-towered Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat is cut from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. Its domed prayer hall has room for 6,500 devotees beneath the world’s second largest chandelier, kneeling on the world’s second largest, hand-knotted onepiece carpet; it took 600 Iranian weavers four years to make. l Eating out: The Chedi, Muscat, a large, beachside boutique hotel with an infinity swimming pool to die for, has a restaurant acclaimed as one of Oman’s best. The Mumtaz Mahal Indian restaurant in the Qurum National Park serves made-at-yourtable “snake coffee”, where brandy is drizzled over orange peel and set alight.
his is not good, come back in two weeks, then you will be able to cut the wood again and get the best sap.” Mohammed, our guide, is an expert on a certain milky-white tree sap. We’re in Wadi Dawkah, a valley about 15 miles from Salalah in the Dhofar region in the far south of Oman. The wild desert trees we’re being shown don’t look much. Straggly, in fact. But these are Boswellia sacra trees and they produce a resin which, when dried and then burnt, emits a pungent, heady odour. This crystallised gum – which we know as frankincense – has been prized throughout history. It was one of the three gifts brought by the Magi for the baby Jesus when they travelled from the East. Today, the Sultan of Oman keeps the best stuff for himself and his ultra-luxe Amouage perfume house. Visitors to Salalah, Dhofar’s main town, can haggle in Haffa Souk for the next-best grades. Frankincense resin droplets are dried in caves to form small, hard, multi-coloured lumps. The frankincense shops of Salalah – of which there are a prodigious n Bedouin children number – will sell you directfrom-the-farmer frankincense
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n Desert mountain scenery
n A frankincense seller in Al Husn Souq, Salalah
Carlton Reid
Oman Ministry of Tourism
n One of Oman’s 500 forts
Peter Ellegard
70 tlm n the travel & leisure magazine
Oman Ministry of Tourism
Gulf state Oman has emerged from the shadows of its neighbours to become one of the region’s rising tourism stars. Carlton Reid goes in search of its legendary frankincense in the deserts and souks of Dhofar and also explores capital Muscat with its fish and gold souks, while Peter Ellegard reflects on Oman’s other attractions
rocklets as well as painted burners and charcoal brickettes. Oman’s Dhofar region produces the world’s best and costliest frankincense because of warm winters and summers dotted with rain showers, an unusual microclimate for a region that contains part of the Empty Quarter, an expanse of desert made famous by post World War Two British adventurer Wilfred Thesiger (or Mubarak bin London as he was called) in his book Arabian Sands, a must-read for any visitor to Oman. Our small convoy of 4x4 vehicles – led by Mohammed – leaves the Boswellia sacra groves and heads into the sands for some dune bashing. In Arabic this is called tloua al ramel, or “climbing the sands”.
lost city Our drivers show us some of their tamer moves before heading off to the Lost City of Ubar. Clearly, this is no longer lost. Known as “Atlantis of the Sands” by Lawrence of Arabia, this caravan staging post was discovered by under-sand satellite scanning by NASA. It was unearthed by explorer Sir Ranulph TwisletonWykeham-Fiennes, who led the on-ground search team in 1992. In truth, there’s not a lot to see but the walled town was once a strategic transport hub on the famous incense road. More scenic by far is Khor Rori, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Legend has it one of the Queen of Sheba’s palaces was located here. Khor Rori – to the ancients it was Sumhun An Omani frankincense burner ram – dates Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts
www.tlm-magazine.co.uk
Winter 2011/12
Winter 2011/12
tlm n the travel & leisure magazine www.tlm-magazine.co.uk
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