Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and a more family-oriented licensed restaurant with an international menu. The chef is
from Morocco - try his excellent fare before he moves on to better things!
Rawazen Restaurant$
TURKISH
( 98 077980; mixed grill OR3; 8am-2am)
With small cubicles, this new restaurant on the
main highway in Ibra (opposite the Ibra Motel) offers cosy dining for good-value prices.
Getting There & Around
The Muscat-Sur Hwy passes through the modern town centre. The Muscat to Sur bus
stops in Ibra (from Muscat OR3.700, about 2ΒΌ hours, six times daily both ways). A
shared taxi costs OR2.500 to Ruwi in Muscat.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Sinaw
25 / POP 10,000
The reason most people pay a visit to Sinaw is to see its rather wonderful
souq
, which, like
most other souqs in the country, is at its most active early on a Thursday morning. What
makes this particular souq such fun to visit is that it attracts large numbers of Bedouin
from nearby Sharqiya Sands who throng to the town to trade livestock for modern com-
modities. Local ladies wearing bronze peaked masks and transparent gauzy
abeyyas
add
to the exoticism of the spectacle. Just before
eid
(Islamic feast) the centre of town comes
to a virtual standstill as camels are loaded (with inordinate difficulty) onto pick-up trucks
and goats are bartered across the street. Spirals of smoke emanating from almost every
house in the vicinity over the holiday period indicate that the livestock are not traded in
vain.
The souq is on the edge of the town, on the Sinaw to Hijj (also known as Hay) road. It
is arranged around a central courtyard and the souq gates are decorated with a green car
for some reason. If you pass this gate on your left and veer around to the right, a left turn
after about 500m takes you up the hill towards a
cemetery
. After a couple of kilometres
more, you'll come to the old town of Sinaw. Well-preserved multistorey
mud houses
make
this a fascinating place to wander around and give an idea of how this town has always
been an important trading post.
Sinaw is 65km west of Ibra. Although you can catch a bus from Muscat (OR3, three
hours), it's not very useful as it leaves late in the afternoon and there's nowhere to stay.
