After two decades of restoration, the biggest fortress in Oman, Bahla Fort is finally opened its door to welcome all visitors to see its impressive heritage and discover its outstanding value as a World Heritage Site. Actually, I never expected to have a chance to visit the fort because all information especially many recent reviews in Tripadvisor mentioned that opening time was only Friday and Saturday, as I visited Bahla on Tuesday, so I initially planned just to see the exterior and the nearby souq and visit Jabrin Fort instead. After had a really good time at Jabrin Fort, a former residence of powerful imam, admiring its very beautiful interior, I continued my trip to Bahla Fort and surprisingly saw a group of tourists entered the fort’s gate, so I went inside the fort to ask gatekeeper and found out that the fort was opened, so I immediately decided to change my plan and happily explored the fort.

Since the fort was built on the hill with formidable size, the fort really stunned me, but when I saw the entrance gate, I was surprised to find that the gate was quite small. After entering the first gate was the outer courtyard with thick and hall wall protecting by two round towers, a very classic defense design. I entered the second gate and found a tunnel liked grand hall covered with white plaster with many alcoves that maybe used as guard shelters or small bazaar in the old time but today a ticket kiosk. After the hall, I was at the central courtyard that has a small mosque, and the meeting hall called As-Sabla surrounded by large three adobe buildings namely Bait al-Jabel, Baith al Qued and Bait al Hadith. The layout of these three houses was very confusing like a labyrinth and seemed to be connected with each other forming a very big residence complex for the fort owner. Most of the rooms in the complex were empty, few rooms had fine painted ceiling, but everything seem to be newly rebuilt and a little bit fake. When I entered Baith al-Hadith I found some remaining original part of the fort, really old and dark mud brick walls and impressive columns. The atmosphere in the room was something that could not be explained as it was really cold and contrast to other part of the fort together with rumor that the fort was haunted, I felt that “I’d better get going” Then I entered into the citadel or Qasaba which was the biggest building inside the fort. The citadel was the oldest part of the fort and with three towers and very high wall separating itself from the rest of the fort. Inside the citadel was a complex of small rooms, stairs, and fortification systems. The citadel also looked more original than other part of the fort with its partial ruin state. One of the strangest of the citadel was one side of its walls had been left unfinished in the restoration, some Omani believed that demon inside the fort did some magic that even UNESCO could not restore it! Then I walked to the empty and plain stable and other part of fort’s high wall to see nice view of Bahla Oasis. Apart from the fort, there also was a big mosque and groups of ruining adobe houses beside the fort, the mosque was closed, and I was not sure with the state of preservation of those crumbling houses, so I decided to skip them. Then I visit the souq, there was nothing special with this small souq except the magic tree which locals believed that if touching it will eventually have a suffering death! Then I drove around the city to see oasis, beautiful wadi and the famous city wall.

When I visited Bahla Fort, I understood that only Bahla Fort was a World Heritage Site, but after read UNESCO document, I found that actually ICOMOS asked Omani Government to choose between the whole Bahla Oasis to be inscribed or only Bahla Fort but have to include other forts in Muscat and Rostaq as a serial nomination, and Oman preferred the first choice. The decision was quite interesting and why. At first, I thought about tourism promotion but in that time, 1987, World Heritage Site was not considered a tourist magnet, so maybe Oman only wanted to inscribe Bahla Fort which was in urgent need of preservation while other forts were in better state and no need UNESCO assistance and in accordance with a true objection of the convention, but this was my personal opinion. As I already mentioned the fort was really empty, so there was nothing much to see except the fortification design which was very impressive. If in the future Bahla fort has more exhibitions like in Jabrin Fort, Bahla surely will become the most interesting fort to visit in Oman, and possibly the best World Heritage Site that Oman present to the world.