Oman

This post was an entry to the 500 word Daily Telegraph Just Back competition.  The reference to BP in the final line should be read in context - this visit was some months after the catastrophe of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just Back – Oman

‘The pale crystals are the best.’  Although they look like rough cut gemstones the beautiful aromatic smell drifting across the dark alleyways of the souk tells us that these are crystals of frankincense.  Nasser, our Omani guide, has shown us how to nick the bark of the tree to start the resin flowing, but it’s a long job to collect enough.  No wonder frankincense was prized in antiquity.  Outside we blink in the fierce sunshine and 42°C heat beneath the crenellations of the mud walls of Nizwa fort.  Omani forts all look as though Beau Geste moved out yesterday.  Inside the redoubt we pass below the murder holes where the defenders poured boiling asil (date juice) onto the heads of their attackers, and climb to the roof. The date palms of the Wadi, fed by a Falaj or water conduit scatter the gravelly river bed.  The apparent uniformity of the palms is deceptive.  Hidden in the soil between them, behind moisture retaining walls, grow every manner of crops – corn, papaya, mango, citrus fruits.  To the north are the arid grey shapes of the Hajjar Mountains.  Wilfred Thesiger visited this frontier town in 1948.  His description sounds like Dodge City with more guns but without Wyatt Earp.

Further south, in Bediyyah, Nasser, who every morning emerges in a newly pressed immaculate dishdasha, the pattern of the tassel of which to the knowing eye betrays his origin from the Wahiba sands, pulls off the road next to a shop sign entitled ‘Lovely Perfumeness’.  Surprisingly, a mechanic appears with a pressure line.  Moments later, tire pressures as low as we dare, the Toyota begins careering across the desert.  Thirty kilometres of rolling soft sand later we lurch to the right and crest a dune.  A scary descent of ‘black run’ steepness in schuss brings us to our desert refuge: an open Bedouin style meeting tent and other sleeping tents.  Relaxing in the tranquil landscape, the desert at sunset becomes a quiet and magical place, colours painting the endless folds of the dunes in reds and browns before the moon rises and washes the sands with silver.  A soft breeze deletes our footprints, as if to emphasize our impermanence.

Back in what now passes for civilization, for our last night in a luxury hotel on the Gulf of Oman; we lie on sun loungers and gaze at the infinity pool.  The late summer wind blows gently off the warm Arabian Sea.  A hotel muzak version of ‘Summer Wind’ is playing.  It sounds like Cliff Richard imitating Frank Sinatra, so it must be Michael Buble.  The sea is warmer than the pool, which is chilled to make it tolerable.  Wrinkly brown German ladies on the sunbeds look as though they would be more comfortable in Freikörperkultur mode, but retain their clothes because this is Arabia.  Inside the hotel, a sign on a luxury meeting suite advertises ‘BP – Wellhead Management Master Class’, which is timely, overdue, essential, or bitterly ironic, depending on your point of view.

500 words