Our trip to Oman.

Going to Oman had become a regular thing to us, in actual fact I feel so bad that when we lived in the UAE prior to 1998, even though we had the same friends that we stay with now since 1981. So for 17 years they used to visit us on a regular basis and beg us to visit but we never did. Of course once we returned from New Zealand and settled in our lives, we decided to embark on a road trip to Oman, and after 4.5 hours, we realized that we had done a great mistake for not coming before, it was lovely.

What I like about this place is its simplicity, it's affectionate people and it's lovely surroundings. The country is full of potential and touristic attraction, but what they need is to borrow the PR companies that marketed Dubai, and let them loose in Oman so they know what is there so they promoted well; in actual fact I have just been talking with some students about Sur and Bani Waheebe, which are fantastic areas of Oman but no one seems to know about them, when in Dubai you have literally hundreds of companies who specialize in desert safari, but none in Oman, maybe I will give them the hints.

Also if you think about it! Masandum is part of Oman but you can only get to it from Fujairah, that is why it is promoted very well, as its promoted by the small businesses in the UAE. There you go, we got the secret, the UAE entrepreneurs are more tuned to exploiting every opportunity and are able to create needs out of every possibility, while the Omani people are oblivious to the fact that their touristic areas are up for grabs if only people know about them! In Lonely planet, they mention an Omani restaurant called Bin Ateej, us who are accustomed to the great food provided by the hundreds of restaurants in the UAE will never think of eating in that joint, to us it's just a place like those we used to find on the highway between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the eighties!

So if I were the minister of tourism, I will firstly invite companies from Dubai to check Oman, and ask them to promote it. Tourism generates funds to the locals and can change lives. to the best of course.