Mahrajan in Muscat!

This is the first in a series of posts of our sightseeing around Oman, so brace yourselves for some pictures! Once again, my husband has done a fabulous job with the photography.

This installment covers our visit to the Muscat Festival and mostly our time in the Heritage Village.

There was a really great laser, dancing fountains, and fireworks display celebrating Muscat, the capital city of Oman.  

 



These men are demonstrating a traditional Omani dance.

 

This lady is working with wool. Behind her is a traditional Bedouin home constructed from desert brambles.

This guy is making "heluwa" - an Omani sweet made from date syrup. 

 

This is a traditional well. The livestock are harnessed to a pulley system used to bring the water up to a pool for easy access. It also makes a pretty annoying noise as it comes up, haha. I guess there is a lot of weight on the pulley!

 

 

These ladies were demonstrating traditional handicrafts like making tassels for the rugs. The jars have incense (a really big deal around here!) and maybe some black charcoal-like stuff they use as under-the-eye eyeliner.

These ladies and gentlemen are demonstrating another traditional dance. It was the first one we have seen with women and men performing together. The ladies are wearing a dress more typical of interior Oman traditionally that stops about mid-shin and has colorful matching pants underneath.

 



This lady is using a traditional mill to grind flour by hand! She is also a beautiful example of how colorful traditional Omani dress can be. We suspect that has a lot to do with the Indian influence over the years. These days, the beautiful colors are worn as house dresses but outside of the house they are covered in a black abaya, like the lady in the background.