“Salalah” .. and the tourism industry
I say about Oman, when we were young, we had a summer residence, especially in the Al Batinah region, where we forgot the summer heat. At that time, social communication was at its best and purest meaning. Al Batinah was for us a natural tourist outlet, not with its services that people are looking for nowadays, but rather a mini-resort.
In summary, I mention the components of this resort, the water from the sea or the farms’ basins that water the crops, which are as fresh as snow and cool that extinguish the summer glow, and the greenery from the farms arranged as far as the eye can see, palm trees, coconuts, mangoes, almonds and cedars, as for the people of the place, their faces reflect the generous hospitality for visitors.
This situation was available in the sixties and seventies, for those who had narrowed the possibilities of traveling to other continents that people compete to visit, and then talk about the available cool atmosphere or high-end services.
At the beginning of the eighties, our eyes opened to the city of Salalah, after Al Batinah, so we made the first tourism there with some colleagues by land, traversing an area of 1200 km in a period of time estimated at 12-14 non-consecutive hours.
Here we arrived at the tourist address of “Salalah” in its continuous autumn, from July to the end of September. For us, it was a new discovery in the Sultanate of Oman.
When you enter Salalah, you are greeted by clouds that have settled on the tops of mountains, heights, plateaus and plains. The clouds may be touched by your hands or your vehicle may be filled with dew and mist, a scene whose drawing and description is known only by the feather of an artist or a writer’s pen at the level of Al-Rafi’i or Al-Manfaluti.
In this bright place with the beauty of green mountains and flowing waterfalls, the Dhofar revolution took place in the mid-sixties of the last century, backed by the Soviet Union, and after nearly ten years, the people of the region handed over their weapons to the Muscat government, and the revolution was put down, and the Dhofar revolutionaries returned and united with their government led by the Sultan Qaboos bin Saeed, may God have mercy on him.
Without this security and stability, we would not have been able to reach the dazzling “Jinan” of Salalah, and the clouds would not have been able to spread their wings on these mountains extending to the Yemen of Wisdom.
As far as the eye can see, the eyes of tourists shine with happiness, tents are planted like trees, and kites fill the atmosphere and horizons of the sky accompanied by the laughter of children, the generosity of the people of Salalah reaches the neighbors of the two camps, and coconut water quenches thirst.
After the first return from Salalah, trips with family and friends in the nineties and the third millennium continued several times, convinced that the Gulf tourism industry could be a suitable alternative if Europe complained of staying up late in the summer fever. .
* Emirati writer
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