Around Khasab

Ali drove us around Khasab to show us the sights and the more unusual things which the Omani people just take for granted.
Originally, the people of this area came from Persia where the houses were traditionally built in the drystone method. The Arabic/African way was to build in mud. There are several ruins around the area which show the stone construction.



Ali took us to a village outside Khasab which was located at the end of a narrow wadi. The picture below shows a goat house built into the space under a fallen boulder.

The boulders in this area were dislodged from the hill above where they were part of a cave system. The stone pictures, which we were told are ectographs, were carved approximately 3600 years ago. There were plenty to see and it made us wonder how many more were hidden underneath the boulders.

The Omanis are very easy going people and that is demonstrated quite well in this picture. The small boats you see are high speed smuggler's boats and the piles of goods on the wharf are the waterproof packages that they smuggle. This wharf is inside the protected customs area and is not a problem for the Omanis. The smugglers are Iranian who leave after dark to run to Iran, approximately 35km across the Straits of Hormuz. The Iranian coast guard shoot to kill if they discover them but the profit to be made means that there are plenty of smugglers. We were told about the smugglers when I asked why some of the boats were jet black with enormous twin outboard motors.

As it turned out, the smugglers go in daylight on fridays because it is the holy day and the coast guard are not there. In Oman they just shrug their shoulders and say "They are only smugglers".