We arrived in Salalah last night, and today I explored the neighborhood for the first time. I figured it’d be helpful to walk you through it.

The street towards town from the hotel (al-Matar Street) was exposed to the sun. It wasn’t as hot as Muscat (maybe low 30s C, versus 46 C), and there was a frequent breeze. However it was muggy. I feel I’m not sweating as much, but my clothes are still quite moist. And it’s sticky.

I stopped into a Lulu Hypermarket, both to explore and to get out of the sun. Lulu is like a small Wal-Mart: the first floor is a supermarket, the middle floor is office supplies, electronics and home goods, and the top floor is clothes.

From Lulu I turned onto 23 July Street toward the town center. I was on that street for about 2km. The town was generally quiet and much was closed. Likely, this is because it’s Friday, and I can imagine a bustle most other days.

A little more than halfway down 23 July I stopped to check out the “new souq.” By the way, I swung by a Shell station because I was curious. If I did all my conversions right, a gallon of gas costs 65 cents.

The new souq had stangs of vegetables, fruits, fish and meat. It looked like it was used to handling a lot more: there were empty stalls and gated shops. There was a courtyard surrounded by cafes and men were sitting around drinking tea, chatting and playing dominoes.

The following block was an-Nahdah Street, another main strip of Salalah. To the right was some grass with park benches shaded by palm trees. I sat in the shade for a few minutes.

The block of an-Nahdah between 23 July Street and as-Salam Street was full of Indian clothing stores… or maybe that’s just all that was open? I turned left on as-Salam and headed back toward the hotel.

The intersection of an-Nahdah and as-Salam is supposedly the commercial center of Salalah. Not at prayer time on the holy day! The only shops open on as-Salam after noon were ahandful of restaurants and some tailors.

After turning left onto al-Matar I started getting cat-called at from a cab: it was one of the CLS participants, shouting Arabic pick-up lines at me.

That reminds me: all day cabs have been harassing me. They honk and slow down in front of me and the drivers sometimes yell out. And I experienced a similar phenomenon as to Egypt, when a line of cabs would each honl — like I didn’t want that first cab because I was keeping my heart for the second!

This was back to the rough stretch without shade. Even though the sun was high, as-Salam Street had shade along the buildings for most of the way. The city was quiet: even Lulu was closed when I walked back by it.

I ran into four of my CLS colleagues, who were looking for lunch. I decided to join them and we went to one of the only open restaurants: a place that served Arab/Indian/Chinese food between the hotel and Lulu. It’s quite possible that 80% of our group went there after our recommendation…. such is life when traveling in a group of 65!

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On that note, I should mention we’re local celebrities in Salalah (as if we don’t stick out enough). Yesterday there was an article in al-Watan (I can’t look for the article now) about us coming to Salalah to study Arabic. When we landed at the airport there was a man with a 20 year old camcorder filming us. In fact, they wouldn’t let me open the van door at our hotel before the camera man could hop out of his car to catch our entrance! It turns out he’s with Dhofar University — he also shot the “making of” video of our group photo upon arrival!

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