The Sultanate of Oman

The Sultanate of Oman

When I was living in Pakistan and writing In a Kingdom by the Sea, I was lucky enough to travel to Oman. The Sultanate of Oman is one of the most beautiful countries on earth. I would love to say that I trekked through the Arabian deserts or went on a wild jeep safari looking for ancient falaj water systems. I wish I could say I experienced remote wadis and shimmering oases, but I can’t.

We were staying in the stunningly, fabulously plush resort of Al Jissah near Muscat, where brown mountains plunge straight into the aquamarine Arabian sea. Oman was our escape from a hot, febrile Karachi, where our movements were restricted, and violence ever present.

We did, however, go out on a day trip in a battered old Landover (that broke down, alarmingly, on the way home in the dark) The driver raced through the huge drift of the Wahiba sands onto a mountain track that climbed up, through a dramatic, wild and unchanged landscape towards the Hajar Mountains. We passed through silent villages that melded seamlessly into the earth. Stone houses crouched into the shadows of mountains.  We caught fleeting glimpses of children, a flash of dark eyes, a small fleeing foot, a slash of colour as they hid behind walls and doorways, away from prying eyes. A small faded blue mosque, a herd of goats, a sense of lives untouched by a modern world. Most of all the quiet, a sense of time stopped, that deep silence of mountains and hidden eyes waiting for us to disappear back from where we came…
The other photos are of Nakhal Fort with its spectacular views. This tiny glimpse of rural Oman made me vow to myself that I would return one day. I have not, but I did put Oman in my book, and I treasure these photos of that day.

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