Oman: Please slow down and mind the camels

By Yeoh Siew Hoon/The Transit Cafe

Driving from Dubai to Oman is like moving between two vastly different worlds. Okay, the sands of the desert is the one common feature that links them but beyond that, the similarity ends.

As soon as you get outside the Dubai city limits – if there is one – you just see, well, more construction sites. What’s not built is left bare and unattended.

The first reminder that you are in the desert is when you pass the dunes where every Dubai-based tour operator worth their sand runs their desert safaris, where you can do dune bashing and sand skating. My first thought though is not of such romantic activities but “what Singapore would do to get at that sand?”

(Sand has become a scarce commodity of late in Singapore ever since Indonesia slapped a ban on sand exports. This is not good news to developers of mega projects such as the two Integrated Resorts, to name just a couple.)

Our car had to stop to make way for camels which seem to think the road is part of their sandy highway. I am told that here the camels are one-humped while in other places they come with double humps.

So how do you ride a one-humped camel, I asked? Having ridden a two-humped camel in Broome, Western Australia, and Marrakech before (forgive me for camel-dropping), I know how tricky it can be to balance yourself on these strange-but-adorable-looking creatures.

“You sit between the head and hump and if the camel is hungry, you fall off,” was the quick retort from a hotelier friend.

That thought made me hungry. We stopped off at the Hatta Fort Hotel for a bite. What a charming little place. More than 20 years old, it exuded an old world charm that I found refreshing after all the glitz and new-ness of Dubai.

The staff made it special. You could tell most had been there a long time. A Filipina had worked there nine years. Her Indian colleague was just under a year in the job but he was the best-informed hotel employee I had ever asked questions of.

At the Dubai border, we had to get out and have our passports stamped. No EC-like exit and entry in this part of the world.

But it was a quick and simple process compared to the Omani crossing. You enter a big, beautiful building that is practically empty inside. Just a handful of expatriates from Dubai going to Oman for the weekend, with an equal handful of staff manning the desks.

At this point, you have to mentally switch gear to slow-mo. See, in Dubai, life is lived in the fast lane. In Oman, you have to decelerate, otherwise you go nowhere.

First rule – queues do not work in Oman. Never mind what the signs say, locals do not follow them. Perhaps it’s because the signs are in English and are only meant for foreigners. Anyway, we get through painlessly, if rather slowly.

But who’s in a hurry? Muscat, which is about three hours away, is not going to go away. It’s been there for centuries after all since “the very dawn of civilization”, I read. Apparently, it is believed to have been the land known to the Sumerians as Magan and dates back as early as 3,000 BC.

Today, on a good day, you can make Dubai-Muscat in four hours by car. I think it’d be three-and-a-half if not for the roundabouts. You see, to Omanis, roundabouts are not just things to break up traffic flow but to tell a slice of history.

So each has something unique. There’s one that has an oversized Omani coffeepot while one has a giant traditional incense burner. They serve as landmarks, as well as talking points.

“What is that?”

“An incense burner.”

“It’s enormous.”

“There’s a lot of frankincense in Oman. Did you know this is the home of the frankincense tree which is found in the Dhofar region …”?

And so you get distracted …

The other thing you will notice is how green and clean Oman is. Each road is so well landscaped you think you are in a tropical garden city. And it’s, I swear, cleaner than Singapore. All day, you see Indian workers cleaning up the roads – 24X7 litter patrol.

Oman is also taking the same care and attention with its tourism development. No mega-scale developments here, just a handful of resorts scattered here and there.

Shangri-La’s Barr-Al-Jissah Resort & Spa is the biggest new project thus far – three hotels in one, with 640 rooms. It opened a year ago and is packing in travellers from mainly Europe.

Evason Hideaway, opening in Zighy Bay (less than two hour’s drive from Dubai airport), is creating quite a buzz with its location on a headland on the northern Musandam Peninsula.

On the Muscat shoreline, the first major integrated resort and residential development, The Wave, is taking shape. The 25 million sqm site will house four luxury hotels, an 18-hole Greg Norman golf course and a 300-berth marina among other facilities.

Yes, like the way they live, the Omanis are taking their tourism, slow and gentle.

Catch Yeoh Siew Hoon every week at The Transit Café – www.thetransitcafe.com