Traveling to Muscat, Oman usually involves a few trips back in time.

On one visit, we got up a little after dawn, and headed to the shore for the local fresh fish market (market = souq, pronounced “sook”).

In the crisp morning air, clutching our tea in styrofoam cups, walking in the sand between straw mats, we experienced something wonderful…

It smelled like fish. But not in the gross grocery seafood section kind of way. It smelled like fish because these babies had been captured that very night and hauled in from the water (50 feet away), stacked on a straw mat, sold by the kilogram, and carried in plastic bags to the building where you can pay guys to clean them for you (if you aren’t doing it yourself).

These are real fishermen, still earning a living in one of the oldest trades in the world.