A Good Souq
Buckets of Bedouin silver
THIS LABRINTHYNE MARKET
is cluttered with perfume shops selling pungent perfume in jewelled bottles and traders hawking sacks of white frankincense, gold jewellery, khanjars (traditional daggers), copper coffee pots and burqas from little holes-in-the-wall. Best of all are the caves of Bedouin silver, sold by weight – beaten silver bracelets and anklets, necklaces strung with coral and old coins, enormous rings with carved stone facets. (Make sure what you buy is stamped with “90” to show it is real Omani silver.) It is in the souq you should try the Omani coffee – a rich brew infused with cardamom or rose. Although Omanis are tolerant of Western ways, it’s polite to have your arms and legs covered, if not your head. Mrs Amos was envious of the gorgeous local women, clad in jewelled black abayas, looking for all the world like they’d just stepped out of an illuminated manuscript of the Arabian Nights.
