Desert Oases of Central Oman - Part 6: Ghost Town of Manah

This forsaken ghost town was my favorite memory of the Middle East.

It was our final day of wandering these barren semi-deserts for myself and my newly acquainted Spanish companion Jose. Just 20 km south of the ancient capital city of Nizwa, we arrived at a little known locale called Manah.



I realize that most travelers don't have the Sultanate of Oman on their list, and far less would ever make it to this landlocked but culturally fascinating region of Central Oman. Even for those who do make it, most would only visit the landmark Fort of Nizwa, the Friday goat auction or the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Falaj Daris and Bahla. The ruins of Tanuf, the medieval town of Al Hamra and the mountain village of Misfah are lesser known but still featured prominently in guidebooks. But where is this Manah?



It wasn't until after returning home when I realized the significance of this unheralded ghost town, the subject of international research for its remarkably preserved architecture. We arrived with no expectations, and came away with some of our favorite photos and memories of the trip.



We parked underneath a windswept tree outside Manah's massive fortified walls. There's no ticket booth, no official entrance, and we soon realized ... NOBODY at all! Just a thoroughly deserted and unguarded medieval town, and then us.



This was as close to a National Geographic expedition as it got for my 4-day mini-trip -- an intact town of medieval mud brick houses, skyscraping watchtowers and solemn mosques, all abandoned as if the natives all disappeared overnight. This reminded me ominously of Pompeii, or perhaps ancient Thira.



But natural catastrophes didn't swallowed up the locals ... 20th Century urbanization did. As medieval as these crumbling mud brick dwellings may seem, this was a fully inhabited and functional town until the 1980's when all residents moved to the new town to the north. All the infrastructure from the defensive walls to the watchtowers to the water wells were still in working condition just a generation ago.



The atmosphere was surreal as this ... ahem ... team of Canadian-Spanish explorers combed the labyrinth of courtyards and houses. Some of the private houses appeared entirely livable with small caches of household items left behind by the original inhabitants, from empty earthen jars to mysterious wooden chests that remained locked. As Jose quipped, it was very Indiana Jones.



"Bat, man!" I replied, pointing to the new occupants of these not-so-vacant houses. I managed to flush a few of these bats out of an alcove and one of them hit Jose's head on its flight out the door. All in a morning's adventure.



Thick earthen ramparts and round turrets betray a history of tribal warfare, back in the days of the Ya'aruba Dynasty of Imams when Manah was a highly desired watering stop for desert caravans. Somehow the watchtower over the main gate was built in a rectangular Yemeni style, 1000 km away from Sana'a. These towers were among the best preserved structures in town; some of the private houses had started to fall apart after only a quarter century of abandonment.



Manah is a desert oasis after all, and its ancient houses of mud and straws were never meant to withstand the increasingly frequent rainstorms brought on by 21st Century climate change. The wood-and-thatch roofs were the first to collapse, followed by the fragile walls of the peasant homes. As we entered the town we were careful to avoid the caved-in houses and took extra caution in climbing onto what remained of the upper floors.



The real danger lurking within the deserted town was its system of ancient water wells, still functional and fully exposed to those who wish to gauge their depth with a stone throw. An accidental trip would be deadly ... nobody would likely pass by for weeks even if the victim survives the 15m fall down the shaft.



Among the best preserved architecture in town were several 500-year-old mosques, some of the oldest surviving in Central Oman. While some of the Mihrab are left fully exposed to the elements, one could still identify the intricate geometric patterns carved out of earth and clay. This led to my favorite discovery of the entire trip ...



The mosque had its holiest spot ornamented with the most unusual treasure -- a piece of antique blue china porcelain from medieval China! Arguably more surprising was how the holy Qibla wall became adorned by the image of a Chinese phoenix which, as any devout Muslim know, is considered taboo by Hadith traditions as the portrait of a living creature.



How did this porcelain dish make its 5000 km journey from Ming Dynasty China to this remote corner of Arabia, 6 centuries in the past? Possibly via the Maritime Silk Road from Quanzhou, through the Malacca Straight and the Indian coastline to Muscat, then crossing the desert in a caravan of camels before reaching medieval Nizwa. The full story will likely never be known -- that's just part of the mystery of these ancient towns, and I loved every bit of this.



As we bid farewell to fascinating Manah we noticed an official-looking signage for the restoration of the old Bilad. I had a queasy feeling about it, but it appeared that the Sultanate was planning to turn this unknown ghost town into a managed tourist attraction.



Having seen the renovated Fort of Fiqain pictured above, I really didn't want to see more restorations that would undoubtedly turn charming mud brick walls into smooth mortar. To any reader intrigued by these pictures of Manah: go now, before it's too late.



We drove by yet another renovated fort at Birkat Al Mawz before taking the highway back to Muscat. Renting a cheap Nissan Tiida was the best decision as the gasoline price of OMR 0.12/L worked out to about CAD$0.3/L, compared to CAD$1.30/L in Canada. My 600km journey from Muscat and back ended up costing only CAD$12 in gas!



The total cost was much more expensive as I received TWO traffic tickets by photo radar along the highway. I still had the time of my life here, navigating the labyrinth-like alleys of a forsaken medieval town and rediscovering a beautiful treasure from a faraway land. To this date the excitement of finding that blue china dish remains vivid in my mind ... it's a little slice of adventure that I rarely taste in my 9-to-5 job.

Desert Oases of Central Oman - Part 5: Medieval Mountain Village of Misfah

One bad turn and we're ambushed by an legion of Arabian goats.

It was a most unusual destination for both Jose and myself. Both of our guidebooks touted this remote mountain village as "medieval" or even "stone age," promising of an idyllic hamlet where locals carried on a lost lifestyle from the Middle Ages or beyond.



Misfah. Misfat. Misfah al Abriyeen. Misfat al Abryeen. Or perhaps Abreyeen or Abriyyin or even Abreen. While there seemed to be no consistent Romanization of the name even on the official road signs, the direction was clear enough -- take the winding mountain road into the heights of Jebel Shams and locate the village at the dead end.



No matter how you spell it, the meaning is the same -- it's the home of the Al Abri tribe in this secluded corner of Central Oman, overhanging a sheer cliff on the rugged plateau of the Hajar Mountains. For centuries it's entirely cut off from the rest of the world, until a couple decades ago when a motor road finally established its link with modern Oman.



There's no town gate. There's no ticket booth. There're no signs. You just park your car at the dead-end road in front of the village, and walk through one of the ancient rock arches to time-travel back to the 12th Century.



This is an ancient land that predates history and script, let alone the nation of Oman or even Islam. The 4500-year-old beehive tombs of Bat are in a region to the northwest, and standing guard just above the village is a ruined fort from the old Persian Empire.



Centuries of geographic isolation has fostered a closed society with its own ancestral customs and mentality, similar in theory to Wuyuan Shicheng in China or Shirakawago in Central Japan. But Misfah has only opened up to the outside world in this current generation, and at the time of our visit there was absolutely no commercial activity and seemingly no desire to welcome any form of tourism. I hear that this has since changed with the opening of the first guesthouse, though thankfully the village is probably decades from mass tourism and gentrification.



We've had a glimpse of Omani tribal culture at the Bedouin goat auction in Nizwa, but medieval Misfah was at a totally different level. Whereas the people of Nizwa were generous with smiles, in Misfah we could sense watchful eyes from a distance. As travelers sometimes we can feel it when the locals don't even want to engage in an exchange of "Salam"; this was such an instance.



Gingerly we trod the narrow and claustrophobic alleys while mindfully avoiding disrupting the daily routines of the villagers and especially the local women. Painted stripes of yellow, white and red marked a "suggested" path for visitors, intended less as guidance and more as deterrence against violations of privacy and taboo.



This is your classic mountain stronghold of the Middle Ages, made self-sufficient by a system of ancient underground Falaj which channeled life-giving water to the village and its livelihood of date palms and pomegranates. To modern day visitors like us the canals provided refreshments under the 40-degrees climate, though we had to be extra cautious to avoid the forbidden areas where the local women would wash clothes and carry out their daily chores.



The moment we turned back from the Falaj and stepped into the rocky outcrop at the rear of the village ... Whoa! ... we're entirely surrounded by this flock of village guardians! And just as we established that we weren't in danger of being edged off the cliff side ...



... a little girl started yelling and hurling stones at us two camera-toting outsiders, and with alarming accuracy. That's when I had to advise Jose to pack away the camera out of respect for the locals and work on our diplomatic skills. The girl eventually stopped and retreated inside and we resumed photographing her flock.



To be honest I'm not entirely convinced by general claims of Misfah as an exhibit of untouched medieval life as promised by many of the guidebooks, Lonely Planet and Rough Guide among them. While timeless (and occasionally antagonistic) customs still persist, many houses have been modernized into ugly concrete complexes and the overall visual impact couldn't quite match nearby Al Hamra in my opinion.



On the way down we stopped for a panoramic view over the desert plains of Ad Dakhiliyah. This was the most rewarding day of sightseeing in my entire Middle East trip, covering Nizwa, Tanuf, Al Hamra, Misfah plus the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Falaj Daris and the Fort of Bahla, all in 12 hours. We would return to Nizwa for dinner and overnight stay, still stoked about our favorite photos at Al Hamra earlier in the day. At this point we had no idea that we would soon discover our favorite spot in Oman the next morning, at the deserted ancient oasis of Manah.