20 Years; 20 Places: No.16 Oman

In June of this year I reached the milestone of writing this Blog for 20 Years. If I say so myself, that is quite a feat.

To commemorate this I have been selecting, in no marked order, 20 Players and 20 Places that I hold dear in my memories. My next pick for Places, no. 16, is Oman.

It is close to 20 years ago when we holidayed in Oman, and it opened my eyes to the Arab world (Dubai is an eye-opener in a very different way). Oman at that time had not long been widely open to tourists, and I have very fond memories of seeing Bedouin nomad tribes, black camels and searching for turtles along the Ras-al-jinz coast.

It would have surely changed but the beaches were untouched and fabulous and we watched whales and dolphins swim off the shoreline close to Muscat.

We based ourselves in the capital of Muscat, an historic walled city, but we spent a lot of our time on excursions including some much-fun wadi-bashing, ‘surfing’ up and down sand dunes in a 4WD as well exploring the ancient port city of Mutrah.

The Omani’s were incredibly friendly people and although generally more relaxed on their Muslim principles than some of their Arab neighbours, their culture, faith and attitudes are very important to them.

20 years ago western visitors were still novel, and my blonde-other-half got a lot of attention, but more in wonder than threat.

The Omani’s are known to invite complete strangers into their house for coffee and some goat curry, and we did take up an offer, which was an ever-lasting memory.

I am sure today Oman blends modern luxury, investments in the country have been huge, and tradition. I’d happily go back.

Oman. Holiday with the other half 2005.