Taqah

The coast around Taqah has been settled for a very long time, and the reason is visible a few kilometres east. The lagoon at Khor Rori was the harbour of Sumhuram, a fortified port founded by the Hadramawt kingdom of southern Arabia in the last centuries BC to ship frankincense gathered in the valleys behind the mountains. Ships carried the resin out along the incense routes until a sandbar closed the estuary and the town was abandoned; its stone walls, gateway and temple were excavated in the 20th century and are now part of the UNESCO-listed Land of Frankincense.

Taqah itself grew as a fishing and farming settlement on the plain, with cattle and camels grazed on the mountain slopes above and coconut, fodder and fruit grown on the irrigated strip below. Its castle, the fortified residence of the local governors, is the town's main monument: rooms set around a courtyard, built for receiving guests and for storage as much as for defence. It has been restored and opened as a museum showing how such a household lived, and it is the sight most visitors to the town come for.

Like the rest of Dhofar, Taqah was affected by the rebellion in the mountains that ran from 1965 until it was declared over in January 1976, and by the rebuilding that followed: a highway along the coast, schools, a clinic, electricity and piped water. The old houses emptied as families moved into concrete villas, fishing was modernised with outboard motors and ice, and the ruins and wadis nearby became part of the tourist route east from Salalah.

Taqah belongs to the mixed world of the Dhofar coast: Arabic-speaking on the plain and close to the Jibbali-speaking communities of the mountains just behind, with families that keep a foot in both. Cattle and camels grazed on the monsoon pastures are still part of the household economy, and relatives move between the coast for work and the hills for the summer grass.

Life is ordered by the mosque, the boats and the seasons. Men gather at the shore in the early morning and in the cool of the evening, the middle of the day belongs to the house, and Friday is quiet until after prayers. Coffee is offered before conversation begins, frankincense is burned to scent rooms and clothing, and halwa is kept for guests. Weddings, with drumming, poetry and dancing that goes on late, are the great social events, and the songs of Dhofar are sung in Arabic and in the mountain languages.

Dress is conservative in the town: the dishdasha and embroidered cap or turban for men, the abaya for women. Visitors are received politely and with some curiosity, and small courtesies count — greeting people before asking a question, accepting coffee, keeping away from the parts of the beach where families are sitting. The town takes quiet pride in the castle and in the ancient harbour along the coast, both of which put it on maps far older than the modern road.

Taqah is small: the wilayat around it, which takes in farms and mountain villages as well as the town itself, had about 21,000 people at the 2017 count. Fishing is the main work: small boats go out for kingfish, tuna and sardines, the catch is iced and trucked to Salalah, and sardines are spread to dry on the sand for use as animal feed and fertiliser. Farming continues on the plain, with coconut palms, fodder and fruit under irrigation, and cattle kept in the hills above.

Government jobs, schools, the health centre and the growing tourist trade provide much of the rest of the employment, while many families have members working in Salalah, forty minutes away by road, or in the Gulf. Shops and services cluster along the highway, and the old quarter has thinned out as people move into newer villas with water and air conditioning.

The day runs early: boats in before the heat, the catch sold by mid-morning, a long quiet afternoon, and then a second life after the late-afternoon prayer, when the beach road fills with walkers and children. In the monsoon everything changes — the hills turn green, the sea closes to swimmers, and traffic from Salalah streams past on its way to the waterfall in the valley behind the town.

Fish is the foundation. Kingfish, tuna, grouper and sardines are landed on the beach, and the ordinary meal is fish grilled or fried with rice and a spiced tomato sauce, eaten with flat khubz bread. Mashuai, a whole kingfish roasted on a spit and served on lemon rice, is brought out for guests, and dried sardines from this shore are a long-standing product of the coast, used inland as feed and in cooking in small quantities.

The plain supplies the rest. Coconuts are opened and drunk at roadside stalls, bananas and papayas come from the groves between here and Salalah, and cattle and camels from the mountains provide milk, ghee and meat — camel is eaten more commonly in Dhofar than in most of Arabia. Majboos, spiced rice cooked with meat or fish, is the festive dish; shuwa, meat rubbed with spices, wrapped and cooked for a day in a covered pit, belongs to Eid; and harees, wheat beaten with meat into a thick paste, appears in Ramadan.

Coffee is the constant. Kahwa flavoured with cardamom and sometimes rosewater is poured in small cups and refilled until the guest shakes the cup, served with dates and with halwa, the dense sweet of sugar, ghee, rosewater, saffron and nuts. Karak-style milky tea and fresh lime juice are the everyday drinks, and frankincense is lit at the end of a meal.