This was the first time that NEAF had run a tour to Oman (“Oman: Travels in Old Arabia”) and, in view of the country’s wonderful natural attractions and excellent tourist facilities, it is unlikely to be the last.
In November, 10 NEAF members travelled with John Tidmarsh, the tour leader, through the length of Oman from the Musandam peninsula (‘the fiords of Arabia’) in its northern tip on the Straits of Hormuz to the lush, tropical frankincense country of Dhofar on its southern border with Yemen.
In this 15-day tour we travelled through some of the most stunning natural scenery and picturesque villages in Arabia. With its pristine sandy beaches, spectacular mountain ranges and desert vistas, its vast palm groves and hidden oases whose waters remain absolutely translucent, and its traditional mudbrick villages with their imposing tribal forts and cool palm-roofed souqs, Oman stands in total contrast to the great trading cities of Egypt and the Levant (Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut, Cairo) and represents an environment and way of life which would still be familiar to Bertram Thomas, Wilfred Thesiger, and those other great Arabian explorer-adventurers of the 19th and early 20th centuries.