I hear that people visiting Italy end up scarfing down gelato every day, just because they can. In Oman, I'm doing the equivalent with baklava. In need of a pre-dinner, pre-blogging snack I picked up a small tray. We had one for breakfast a couple days ago too, and there will probably be more before the trip is over. I'm vibrating slightly from the intensity of the honey and syrup but it's all good.

Also, I think I found my happy place. I had always assumed it would be a nice tranquil forest or sunny meadow or something, but I think it's being one of two whiteys in a crowded market trying not to get stepped on by goats or offend anyone while snapping photos. We headed out early this morning for Sinaw, a town about 100 km south of Nizwa, where we're staying, that attracts a fair number of bedouins. It's Friday and everything shuts down before noon, so we arrived just after 9 with the livestock market in full swing. They had camels, so right away it was worth the drive. A dozen beasts were lined up outside the covered marketplace, batting their long eyelashes coquettishly. It was a festive occasion, so quite a few of the men had curved khanjar daggers tucked into their belts and strutted around with short camel canes and their jaunty embroidered caps. I adore the Omani caps, brimless and covered in elaborate designs. More on that later.

The bedouins. Unlike the majority of Omani women, who wear black head scarves and black full-length abeyas over their clothes, the bedouin women rock the full spectrum. They wear black, satiny beaked masks over head scarves and gowns in every shade you can think of -- sage green and brilliant orange, bright yellow and cobalt and mauve. Also, they're shy and don't like to be photographed. Thus the challenge. Through stealth and only occasionally being rude, I got a handful of good shots, including a fabulous one of a woman in full beak and orange plumage leaning on her pickup truck and chatting on her cell phone. Later in the day I watched a woman and her young son struggle to get two goats into her pickup truck and I helped her lift the goats and she gave me a thumbs-up. A woman across the street then smiled at us and let us photograph her and her children. Score one for being polite.

I wandered through the goat show and accidentally landed in the catwalk. Well, goatwalk. There was a whole path around the perimeter of the market where goats were paraded in front of potential bidders on both sides. I was trying to maneuver and found myself in the middle of it before staggering back through the crowd and into the fish market. Piles of small sharks, including hammerheads, and fish of all sizes were piled up and being hacked by fishmongers and their young sons. Across the street was a whole building dedicated to produce of all types, and in the middle open courtyard vendors sold nuts and raisins and sticky, pudding-like sweets. Across the street was a whole pavilion of women and children's clothing. R and I wandered through it and R was drawn in by a woman selling bedouin legwear. R was encouraged to consider, and even try on, a pair of harem pants that would make MC Hammer jealous. They were bright pink and shiny with a low crotch and voluminous waist, and the ankles were embroidered six inches high with silver and colored thread. Another vendor produced several other pairs, orange and a fetching brown stripe, but they lacked one innovation of the pink pair -- zippers to accommodate the thicker American foot and ankle. As if that weren't enough, there's another option available -- gaiters of emroidered ankle ornamentation that only run about six inches up the leg -- enough to be seen peeking from under the gown but not a full-on trouser. Leg dickeys, if you will. R settled for a gorgeous speckled scarf instead. I watched with interest and tried on a scarf myself. Around this time it became apparent that I was suffering an outbreak of that occasional malady: being called sir. Or whatever the sir equivalent would be in whatever language they were speaking, which wasn't Arabic. Although the merchants of Nizwa give me ma'am consistently (R thinks it's because they're used to all the close-cropped German women passing through town), Sinwa clearly didn't know what to think of me, and the women clearly weren't sure I should be wearing a scarf. We bought scarves anyway and were inspired. We'd been wanting to buy some of the fabulous hats, but it's such a thoroughly male thing here that it seemed too conspicuous. Emboldened by ambiguity, though, we went back to the main souq and approached a friendly hat merchant. He cheerfully started putting hats on me, and in no time we had selected several to bring home. We are now replete with Omani headgear for all occasions.

Flush with success, we headed out of Sinwa for the town of Malah, which has an abandoned mud brick village tucked around back. We had a couple of acres of empty walled passages and broken, shuttered windows and arched doorways at our disposal. The light was fabulous, the sky was blue, and we took a lot of photos.

Having pretty much exhausted the region's attractions, particularly on a Friday afternoon when the whole country is closed down for religious observance, we retreated to the hotel. It's been a blissful 75 or so the whole time, and we basked in chaise lounges and I swam while looking up at the sheer mountain face behind the hotel's white-washed walls. It did not suck. We still face the problem of where to find dinner tonight, but something more substantial than baklava surely will present itself. The hotel does a nice buffet, if nothing else.

Other random Oman trivia: In a single day, two Omanis referenced Tom and Jerry, the cartoon. One was a shopkeeper delighted to find that we were from America, home of Tom and Jerry. Another was the cave tour guide who pointed out a formation that "looks like Tom and Jerry cheese."

Tomorrow we're off to Muscat, the capital, for a couple days. R is excited about the mosque. I'm excited about the ocean and yet still more souqs. We actually travel pretty well together. For whatever reason our individual tiredness/frustration/shyness/indifference cycles opposite each other such that one of us can always pick up the slack of negotiating with merchants or making a decision or leading the charge for the next adventure. It's a useful thing in a travel companion.