Visiting Bahla Fort and Souk

Bahla Oman, Oman

1/28/2017

A visit to Bahla and the Bahla fort known as a World Heritage site.

After learning about the fort and the souk, we made it one of the places to visit while in Oman. Once again we drove into the mountains and through valleys to get to Bahla. Our first stop was to visit the souk. Many of the merchants had their doors closed and we learned that the souk opens at 6:30am and closes at 9:00am. We still walked through the older area and a renovated area where we were greeted by a very nice merchant. He offered us a seat on a mat he had on the ground, to rest and to have tea and dates, which we did. He was very kind and shared information about the area and how he is trying to build up the businesses in the souk. His little shop was full of odds and ends of all sorts.

Shira had read that there was someone in the town that did indigo dyeing and asked the merchant if he knew of this person. Yes, he did and gave us directions to find him. We walked through decrepit alley ways and found the business but it was also closed. On the way we walked past an opening where men were pounding on copper over an anvil making copper plates and bowls. We did purchase a few items and ask them to demonstrate how they do this intricate work. I was impressed with the quality of their work considering the primitive tools being used.

We did get to see a meat market where goat and lamb were hanging out all skinned and ready to sell. They would have loved us to purchase a goat from them. There was also a fish and vegetable market but they had already finished for the day.

We walked into a store where there were many more of the traditional caps the men wear. I took photos, some of the designs were elaborate. We talked with some people on the street and they wanted to talk about Trump. It’s interesting what people have to say. I usually say we have to wait to see what happens.

As we were turning a corner on the street I noticed this very old man sitting next to a building bent over rubbing his toes and chanting a prayer. It was a sad moment for me. Not sure why, he seemed lost. Maybe lost in a spiritual state. I think I felt some sort of compassion for him when I saw the bottoms of his feet.

Off to the fort we went. They have done an excellent job restoring this fort. When we arrived we saw walls and towers made of mud bricks over a stone foundation. The fort was built during the medieval Islamic period and through engineering skills in the 12th century they had developed a water system of Falajs (water channels) for watering gardens and for the household needs. This system is still a viable part of the community’s water system.

We all walked up a set of narrow stairs that entered into a grand opening where we ended up exploring the fort on our own. While I was going in and out of many different types of entrances and looking out of windows of all sorts, I was thinking how life might have been back then. I could imagine the sounds of people and tools being used. There were many different rooms of different sizes and I was not sure what they were used for but the bedrooms were obvious to me. It is said that there was black magic and witchcraft practiced in the fort and surrounding town. It is now known that the fort hosts ghosts but I didn’t feel anything of the sort.

The next blog will be about an adventure Shira and I did on our own looking for the hot springs we had heard about.

The photos can tell this story pretty well.