Oman, which I visited in 2013, was my first trip outside of Europe. I went there to work. Along with a few other Poles, I was invited by Sultan Qaboos bin Said to work as an artist during the Muscat Festival and I have spent two months in that marvelous place. The Sultan paid for our flight and hotel accommodation and provided us with a salary in exchange for 4-5 hours of work in the evenings during the Muscat Festival. Work was in late hours due to the heat. Although we came to the country in February, that is in winter, the temperatures reached even 38 degrees, as it happens in the desert. This arrangement suited me very well - I had days to explore the city, then quickly I was taking a special bus to my workplace in the suburbs of Muscat, and then I was returning to the hotel for the night.

Visiting Muscat was very exciting for me. I was a young, inexperienced boy who admired a completely different culture. I was fascinated by the customs, traditions, and costumes of Oman, and vice versa - they also paid attention to me. Many people watched me while riding a bike, men sitting on blankets on the sidewalks was inviting me to join them, and the children were shouting “paper! Paper!" to me, which was probably a sublime comment about my skin tone :D

On the second day of my stay, I decided to go to the market. Markets in Arab countries are called Baazaar or Souk. They are not only ordinary shopping but a full cultural experience. It is good to negotiate the price with the seller a bit, but be careful to do it skillfully so as not to offend anyone. I must admit that I did it quite well, I cut the price by 50%, but whether I overpaid for my purchases or not - I will never know. However, I bought some gifts for the family (mainly clothes) and three Jellabiyas, which I used to wear as my clothes until the end of the trip. Jellabiyas are super comfortable, very airy, and protect from the sun, so I wore them mainly for comfort, but also as an expression of respect for the host culture. My complexion revealed that I was a foreigner, so the clothes did not allow me to blend in with the crowd, but more than once they made Omanians smile and I owe them easy hitchhiking and a few sincere small talks.

I probably didn't wear Jellabiya properly, which I found out in Poland, reading more about it. Well, I wore nothing but boxer shorts underneath, putting it on a naked bodysuit while Oman still wears underwear in the form of pants and shirts underneath. It's okay, it was comfortable. After returning to Poland, I donated one pair of clothes to a loved one and left two for myself. Today, eight years later, I still have one (the other is broken) and I sometimes use it for sleeping or for walking around the house in hot weather.

But back to Oman: it's impossible to tell everything in one post. I will certainly write about this country again. So let me focus in this post on one attraction that I have already started talking about, which is the aforementioned Souks.

The Souk, apart from the fact that it allows you to negotiate a price and gain new friends in the meantime, amazed me with its diversity. Wandering the narrow streets between the selling stalls, you could find absolutely everything on the spot: from colorful scarves to pots so large that I could sleep in them, from tiny, modest restaurants where the seller wiped his eyes in amazement when he saw me, to huge selling stalls with jewelry worth more than everything I own put together. And next to it, there were two smaller bazaars - one with fruit and vegetables, the other with a variety of sea creatures, the wealth of which provided access to the ocean on one side, and the Oman Bay on the other.

The noise, strong smells from street incense, crowds of passers-by, and the sun high in the sky created an atmosphere that is hard to find anywhere else in the world. In all of this, I admit I felt very safe. If I would be in a similar crowd in any city in South America, I would feel a little anxious about the risk of losing my wallet, while Oman provided a very high level of security. Anyway - as one of the very few tourist on the spot, I felt watched by absolutely everyone, so if someone tried to rob me at any time, I would have at least a dozen witnesses at the scene :))

Fish market

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Would you like to buy carpets or vases?

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And that would be me again, coming back from the souk with my friends from work

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Thanks for reading,
@papi.mati

All photos belong to me and were made in 2013 with my old Canon camera.

PS: Expect more publications about Oman soon