Under Sindbad's
Shadow in Muscat
Continued from previous page.

... the Taj Mahal, and built to safeguard Muscat after its proud townspeople threw out the Portuguese in1650. In fact, this makes Oman the region's oldest independent country, free even as European colonialism was taking root in India and Africa.

Today, these forts have been impeccably restored, and each one is complete with an airy "summer room" on an upper floor, a cosy "winter room" for colder months, a "sun room" and a "moon room" expressly designed to observe these heavenly bodies. Jabrin fort is particularly enchanting, with wooden balconies over inner courtyards and detailed calligraphy on the walls.

Dates are such a staple here that inside the Nizwa fort is an exclusive date souk. Muscat dates are among the world's finest, and visitors are welcome to pick dates in public gardens, where they ripen, dry and drop off in great profusion. For the unwary, the date palm spines can be lethal — I nearly had myself impaled when I climbed up a chair and tried to reach a low-growing cluster.

One such date grove, near the warm springs of Nakhl, has masses of pink and white lilies growing around the palms as well as an occasional heavily fruited orange tree — not quite my image of Arabia. And there are the terraced rose gardens on the Jebel al Akhtar hills overlooking the city, where the flowers are harvested for rosewater.

Scent is indeed a part of Arab culture. If you walk through Muscat's Qurum Park after dark, the air is scented with night-blooming jasmine. And frankincense was the mainstay of ancient trade routes here. Silver frankincense from Oman's southern Dhofar region is highly prized. It was offered to the infant Christ by the three wise men; employed to embalm Pharaohs; and was one of the Queen of Sheba's gifts to Solomon.

The Arabian Nights says that Sindbad sailed "from sea to sea and shore to shore, buying, selling and bartering." If so, silver frankincense was his most prized merchandise. But the actual frankincense tree we saw at Muscat's well-kept Natural History Museum looked unremarkable, a gnarled shrub. Yet, after Sheila touched a drop of its white sap, it left an evocative scent on her hand for hours. Crystals of hardened frankincense resin are available in the souks or in select shops, like the Omani Heritage Gallery. You could even splurge on Amouage, Muscat's signature scent created here with 120 natural ingredients including frankincense, myrrh, musk, and sandalwood. At US$415 for a 10ml flaçon, it's advertised as "the world's most valuable perfume."

WHETHER YOU'RE in a crowded market or the street, visitors are treated with great respect. Most Muscat Arabs bow lightly and greet you if you meet eye to eye. Seeing them by their homes, whenever we did likewise and ventured greetings in halting Arabic I'd recall from a childhood spent in Kuwait, we used to be overwhelmed by their warm, delighted conversation.

Once, on a deserted stretch of highway, we pulled over to view the hills, walking up close to a rocky cliff. There we found a man and his wife beside their small shack, their maroon Toyota parked nearby with a Sindbad cartoon sticker on its door. Sheila and I were admiring one of their shaggy mountain goats, when the man came up and asked if we'd like some coffee. "No, thank you," I said, politely waving my hand. He shrugged and turned away. Later, I learnt that it's downright bad manners here to decline such hospitality. I still wish we could go back and make amends.

With immigrants from all over the world, Muscat's eateries offer everything from western to Chinese, Indian and Arab fare. In Arab restaurants, the diners are invariably men. Once Sheila braved a visit to one with another Indian lady who'd lived here but had never dared venture into an Arab eatery. I joined Sheila and her friend there half an hour later and asked how, alone in a place like this, the two young women felt? "Absolutely safe," they said. "In fact all the men sitting around us seemed to take extreme care at gently keeping their eyes away from our table!"

It was there that I rediscovered the shawarma, a real change from hamburger and pizza. And with any main dish, Arab restaurants serve complimentary soup, salad, pickle, yoghurt and hummous (a chick pea-and-sesame dip). The accent is on grilled meats and fish, never too heavily seasoned

Muscat's outskirts offer several opportunities for the outdoors adventurer. The Hajar mountains are a delight for rock-climbers, cave-explorers and fossil hunters. A favourite with visitors is taking a dhow, to glimpse the Gulf's whales and dolphins. Some camp out on the Wahiba desert sands, which has some spectacular sand-dunes to photograph. You might even gets shots of the graceful Arabian oryx — a local antelope that had once been hunted down to extinction. But, following a successful breeding programme supervised by the Sultan himself, the oryx has recently been reintroduced here using surviving members of the species that had long ago been exported to the San Diego Zoo, USA.

On Thursdays, the start of the Islamic weekend, fleets of four-wheel drives and Harley-Davidson motorbikes head out of Muscat to the coast, or to the "wadis" in the interior, often for what's become a national pastime. Many wadi beds are several metres wide, often with just a thin trickle of water here and there. "Wadi bashing" is the sport of speeding in a 4-wheel drive over a wadi's pebbled surface, splashing through whatever water there is with abandon — a rocky roller-coaster of a ride. But it's amazing how quickly a wadi can turn into a dangerously swift-flowing river. One day, we watched as it started to rain. Little rivulets ran down the bare cliff-faces and the wadi began filling rapidly. Campers by the banks packed up in a hurry because within the hour, the stream would become a torrent. But this happens rarely, since most of Oman receives little rain. Although Muscat's population uses desalinated sea water, many outlying areas are still fed by an ancient falaj system of irrigation channels bearing water from the mountains.

Centuries of ties with India have left their imprint on Muscat's lifestyle. Many Muscat Arabs who've never visited India speak Hindi, and the ladies' traditional dress, even if it's beneath the black burqa (not mandatory since the Renaissance), is the salwar-kameez, but in colours and designs a hundred times more vivid. Standard wear for Omani men is the flowing white disdasha with an embroidered cap-mandatory at work, since they want to keep that tradition alive.

AFTER PETROLEUM, Muscat's biggest industry is fishing, most of it still done in dhows. Try visiting the port at Muttrah or any of the nearby fishing villages along the coast from Qurriyat to Sur as the morning catch is unloaded. The sea around Muscat is bountiful, leaping with an amazing variety of fish — sardines, bluefin tuna, shrimp, squid.

Oman's economic progress was evident at a large trade exhibition I visited in Muscat. Along with Germany's Basf, Japan's Sony and Britain's Jaguar, were several brands on display, from canned foods and orange juice to cement bags and garments with "Made in Oman" labels. Muscat's leaders have laid emphasis on private-sector manufacture. They realize that their modest oil reserves may dry up sooner or later, and even today geological factors make crude-oil extraction twice as costly per barrel as it is in some neighbouring countries. But the sons of Sindbad are prudent financial managers. Mr Baqar Taqi Mohammed, then Assistant General Manager at the National Bank of Oman, informed me that Oman's 1998 fiscal budget assumed that the price of crude oil will be just US$9 per barrel. "A smart strategy that's created surpluses," he explained, "because oil has now been selling for over thrice that amount."

With a vibrant stock market, rapid industrialization and its commitment to free trade, Muscat now looks all set for even more development, the fruits of which are still to get to the far reaches of this country, almost the size of Great Britain. But visiting the villages that surround Muscat, too, you notice clear hints of rural modernity: stray ATMs, gas-station supermarkets, school buses.

AFTER I RETURNED home, the Sindbad mystery kept haunting me. I re-read the Sindbad chapters in The Arabian Nights, no schoolboy's adaptation this time, but Sir Richard Burton's 1884 translation. Sohar isn't mentioned there. And although Sindbad's base is indeed Baghdad, it seems he was an expat living there. He arrived in Baghdad from his "native place" by ship. Since Sindbad was an Arab, that had to be somewhere down the Persian Gulf's western coast itself — Sohar perhaps. The doubts remained until I recently located Tim Severin's book The Sindbad Voyage, describing his 1980 expedition. According to Severin, there may never have been a real Sindbad. In those times, no one sailor could have made all those long voyages, fought pirates, encountered cannibals, survived shipwreck and torture, found fortune and a beautiful bride, and each time returned safely to Baghdad. In all probability, Sindbad was a composite Arab sailor of those times. And, I reckon, because of Oman's great sea-faring and boat-building tradition, a good part of him must indeed have been Omani.

Planning a trip to Muscat? Consider the cooler months between November and March.