SALALAH

The following blog was started sometime during June 2015 when I was based in Salalah where I had gone for a project from work. While the project started of slowly, I started this blog and then I got terribly busy at work. And then lost the thought process and forgot about this blog until a few days ago in September 2020! So here is my half baked incomplete blog...😑😑😑 I tried to think about what I wanted to write and how to complete it. But nope!! Am blank slate as far as this blog is concerned!!

Its been a very long time since I did write about anything at all. In between all the routine things that I have been doing, I had to visit India a few times this year. I have also being away from home for weeks on end - thanks to the rigors of my job. At the beginning of the year I was at a place called Bahla (near Nizwa) about 150/170 kms away from my house in Muscat.

Since the last week of June I have been in a place called Salalah. This place is about 1,000+ kms away from Muscat. Thankfully I dint have to drive down to this place and have been flying down. By flight its about 1 hour and 10/15 minutes. If you were to drive then it would probably take any where between 10-14 hours by road.

From June to mid of October I will be in and out of Salalah. My company was doing a project which is still going on. The project will finish on October 12 and then for a week it will be tear down. I should be back in Muscat hopefully by the 20th of October.

Well, the reason for this blog is not about the project that I have been working on - but to write a bit about the places that I visited to in Salalah. For people who dont know about Salalah - this place is located right at the bottom of Oman and borders to Yemen. A lot of places here resemble to places in Kerala/Karnataka. Coconut trees line the roads and when you drive a bit into the side lanes, you will come across places that have banana plantations.

Salalah is famous for its Khareef (Wikipedia says this about Kharif/Khareef:  is a colloquial Arabic term used in southern Oman, southeastern Yemen and Sudan for the south east monsoon. The monsoon affects Dhofar Governorate and Al Mahrah Governorate from about June to early September. Towns such as Salalah depend upon the khareef for water supply.)

Khareef festival happens here between June and September. During this time, the mountains and plains around Salalah turn lush green (rest of the year it looks all brown and plain!).