DATE: Sunday, May 18, 1997                  TAG: 9705200306

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR 

DATELINE: SOHAR, OMAN                       LENGTH:  553 lines

OMAN UNVEILED ``FORGOTTEN'' SULTANATE IS ONE OF THE MIDDLE EAST'S LEAST KNOWN BUT MOST SURPRISING AND ENJOYABLE TOURIST DESTINATIONS.

THAT GUY LAWRENCE, T.E. Lawrence, made his name in these parts on the back of a camel. Remember the movie? He cries, ``Hut, hut, hut!'' and whacks his crop on the animal's withers, and off he rides across the sands and into legend.

And now here I am on the southeastern cusp of the Arabian Peninsula, the quiet blue-green waters of the Indian Ocean at my back, Iran beyond the eastern horizon - WAY beyond the horizon I am pleased to say - well, of course, I would ride a camel, too.

I am in the Sultanate of Oman, which is a country. It is not to be confused with Amman, which is a city in Jordan, although both are in the largely misunderstood Middle East.

Oman is the difference between a B and a C on a geography exam . . . if anyone actually studied geography any more. It's like Benin, or Brunai, or Burkina Faso, not to go too far down the alphabetical list. Say you are going to Oman, and brows wrinkle. People look expectantly, hoping you will give them some clue as to where that is so they don't have to ask. It is famous for - extra credit if you knew this - frankincense.

Oman is about the size of New Mexico, and it looks very much like New Mexico. It is a country of striking and stark natural beauty. It is about 85 percent desert, with sand dunes as high as 600 feet, and there are vast caverns and mountain ranges with serrated peaks that tell the story of their violent creation in the folded strata and the scarp slopes of fault lines.

These are gaunt, rugged mountains, gray and khaki and copper, with deep gullies like giant, wrinkled prunes, rock on rock, daring vegetation to take a root and getting few takers. They rise up dramatically, unfettered by foothills, from along the seacoast and the flat, featureless interior desert plains.

There are old, thick-walled forts with crenelated parapets and cylindrical watchtowers guarding the mountain passes of ancient trade routes. And there are markets, called souks, where weaving, pottery and silverware are sold along with animals and produce, frankincense and myrrh.

It would look a whole lot more like New Mexico if New Mexico had about 1,000 miles of beautiful, pristine beaches.

From afar - say, from America - this is, if not an exotic destination in this shrinking globe of ours, certainly the end of the road less traveled. Up close, it is, well, probably not at all what you would imagine.

There ARE camels here, but there are probably more BMWs and certainly more Toyota and Nissan 4x4s. This camel I am mounting, with some trepidation, is actually something of a stage prop. For silly tourists like me. I'm probably the only person in all of Oman actually riding a camel at this very moment.

I am not heading off into the vast, shifting dunes - I had wanted to do that the other day at a Bedouin camp on the edge of the great Wahiba Sands, but their mode of transportation turned out to be a Toyota pickup. Instead I will take a lap on my camel (for about $2.75) around the lush grounds of the Sohar Beach Hotel (motto: Sohar So Good).

So off we go at a slow walk, camel holder leading this lumbering beast over putting-green lawns, circling the huge swimming pool, past the tennis courts, past palm trees, English garden plantings of pansies, petunias, hibiscus, mums, zinnias, even magnolias. I might as well be in Fort Lauderdale or Palm Springs. (According to my friend Talib, who was born here, Sohar, now a city of probably 30,000, was nothing much more than a bunch of tents and a few mosques 15 years ago.)

I'm not about to do that ``Hut, hut, hut!'' thing - giddyup in camel talk - because it's pretty high up here on the hump and there're no stirrups, nothing to hold on to except a thin rope around the saddle.

The ride is fine, better than a horse, I'd say, the carpet-covered saddle sitting surprisingly firm atop the hump. It all goes well until the camel stages a half-sitdown strike in an effort to eat some palm fronds.

Camels, you see, have a unique way of getting up and down. You mount with the camel hunkered down on its belly. He rises on his back legs first, throwing you forward, then jerks you back upright as he stands on his front legs. When he goes down, in an attempt to eat or do some other fool thing, the front legs fold down first. Like a warthog. They just collapse, actually.

So my Indiana Jones hat goes flying off and I very nearly follow. But I manage to keep my seat, if not my dignity. Lawrence can have this. Camels are not what Oman is all about, anyway.

Not long ago, a poll was conducted in which American travelers were asked which city, country or region they were most afraid to travel to on vacation. The Middle East led by an overwhelming 30 percent. New York City tied with Iraq for second place, followed by Israel, Iran, Los Angeles and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Excuse me, but if Iraq and Israel and Iran aren't in the Middle East too, then exactly where ARE they? Put them in the mixed bag that is the Middle East, where they belong, and it moves Bosnia-Herzegovina up higher, where IT belongs. The U.S. Army doesn't even want to be there.

I don't want to belabor this ignorance of geography thing . . . but I will. Oman is about as much like that part of the Middle East that has been making the evening news since biblical times with its internecine struggles as New York City is like, well, New Mexico.

Oman is different.

Oman thinks of itself more as a Gulf State, as in Arabian Gulf (which most of the world calls the Persian Gulf, although Persia hasn't existed for some time) - with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Emirates.

But Oman is different, even from them. It is a Gulf State, but just barely. Only its Musandem Peninsula, an enclave separated from the bulk of the country by the Emirates, touches the waters of the Arabian Gulf, forming the Strait of Hormuz, the choke point that separates the Arabian Gulf from the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.

It was, and still is to some extent, a seafaring nation. It is the legendary home of Sinbad the Sailor. Omani ships - vessels with planks sewn together with palm fibers - reached the Malay Peninsula and Canton in China in the 9th century. In 1840, an Omani ship, the Sultana, sailed into New York harbor. I'm told a portrait of the vessel's captain still hangs in New York's City Hall. I'm not going to New York to check it out. New York scares me.

Oman had a long history as an imperial power. At its peak, in the 19th century, its domain extended southward to Africa as far as Mombasa (present-day Kenya) and Zanzibar (off the coast of present-day Tanzania) and eastward as far as India and Pakistan.

But beginning about the time that steam engines changed the way man sailed - or steamed - the seas, Oman sort of went to sleep, fell out of the realpolitik loop, dropped off the map . . . and stayed that way, a shuttered-away Arabian hermitage, for more than a century, which, in today's attention-span-deficit society, is an eternity.

So if you're a little hazy about Oman's place on the world map, you may be excused. It's mostly Oman's own fault. But under the enlightened leadership of Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Omanis are changing all that in a most dramatic fashion.

Steeped in legend and mystery until the early 1970s, Oman has emerged from a Middle Ages-style, near-feudal society to one poised to step boldly onto the Bridge to the 21st Century with the rest of us - in one generation. Oman is, in essence, all of a quarter-century old.

And the Omanis (there are about 1.5 million of them, plus 500,000 expatriots) have done it without nearly as many petro-dollars to throw about as their other Gulf neighbors, although the discovery of modest Omani oil reserves was a decided factor.

Mostly it was Qaboos (pronounced like the last car of a railroad train). Absolute monarchs have the sort of clout it takes.

After an education at Britain's Royal Military College at Sandhurst and brief service with a Lowland Scottish regiment, Qaboos returned to Oman and spent most of the next six years under house arrest in Salalah in the country's southern region. In July 1970, he deposed his father, the xenophobic Sultan Said bin Taimur, in a bloodless coup.

He quickly set about modernizing, and beautifying, his kingdom, all the while carefully preserving a culture with roots 4,000 years old. In a speech after arriving at Muscat's airport, he said he had seized power after watching ``with growing dismay and increasing anger the failure to use the new-found (oil) wealth of this country for the needs of its people.'' He added that his government's ``first aim must be to remove unnecessary restrictions under which you, my people, now suffer and to produce as rapidly as possible a happier and more secure future for all of you.''

Later he declared that any development must be carried out with respect for ``all the kingdoms under God,'' reflecting his concern for the environment and his basically conservationist philosophy.

It was a daunting task. But it was rapidly accomplished.

In 1970, Oman was one of the world's most primitive nations. There were 6 miles of paved roads, no newspapers, no radio or television stations, no grass, no municipal water system, a single electrical power plant, three schools with a total of 909 pupils and 30 teachers, and one small hospital. Life expectancy was 47 years.

Private cars were forbidden, permits were needed even to wear eyeglasses - a Western ``corruption'' - and there were no streetlights lest Omanis be tempted to carouse after dark. Promptly at 8 in the evening, a cannon boomed and the heavy wooden gates of Muscat, the capital, were closed tight. Go away, world.

Today, Oman is known as the Magic Kingdom. Disney's lawyers can talk to Oman's lawyers about that one. But what has happened here in little more than a quarter of a century is magic indeed.

There is a modern international airport outside the capital city of Muscat, and there are more than 3,000 miles of paved roads - much of the system world-class engineering, with British-style ``dual carriageways'' and roundabouts at intersections - connecting all the country's major cities. And not a pothole to be seen anywhere. Our highway engineers can talk to Oman's engineers about that.

You should see these highways. Roadside grass is manicured like a golf course fairway; the roads are lined with palms, shrubs, flowers and - peculiar to this part of the world - roundabout and roadside art. Ah, the wonders of fiberglass sculpture.

Let's just look as we drive along. There is a giant coffee pot (symbol of Arab hospitality), an incense burner, jugs or jars with flowers, a modest little fort, a dhow (traditional boat), fish, books, something I can't identify, clock, jewel boxes, silver bracelets, an oryx (a nearly extinct deer-like animal), horse artillery, Arabian stallion, butterfly, a bowl of dates.

Again, Oman is different. Unlike people in most Arab countries, Omanis obey traffic rules - staying in lanes, giving turn signals, more or less obeying the speed limit. It is as close to an oasis of order as you get in the Middle East.

Today, there is an elaborate water system and an electrical grid of 31 power stations. There are numerous radio stations, and satellite dishes sprout from virtually every house. One Omani told me he could get 60 stations. There are magazines like George and Esquire on the racks, and the Dilbert comic strip is in the local newspaper.

Today, there are 965 primary and secondary schools for boys and girls, 250 literacy centers and nearly 200 adult-learning centers, and a Sultan Qaboos University. There are 48 hospitals and 116 health centers throughout the sultanate. Today, life expectancy is 68 years.

Muscat's huge gates are still here, but today they are merely symbolic. They stand open and inviting. The city is not unlike Singapore, albeit a very horizontal Singapore. It reflects the sultan's passion for the pristine.

Mud brick has given way to concrete block and stucco - a sort of faux adobe - and everything is spotless. Air conditioners are hidden by wooden lattice work, and so are many TV dishes. Houses are usually two or three stories, flat roofed and have walls around the yards, often covered with flowers.

The ancient forts, watchtowers and buildings have been restored to a better-than-they-ever-were state, much like the buildings of Colonial Williamsburg.

Yet, Muscat does not have the nouveau riche look that typifies much of the rest of the Gulf region.

There is no graffiti, no litter. It is not allowed. A first offense results in a substantial fine; a second offense means jail time. Street sweepers go about their business twice a day. Sometimes I have more litter in the back seat of my car than I have seen in this entire country.

And speaking of cars, they are all clean (and new). Omanis are fined for driving a dirty car.

Americans dropped in here at night might think they had landed in, say, Albuquerque when the day dawned. There are just-like-America shopping centers (I saw three San Diego-based sailors admiring a new BMW Z3 roadster parked inside one of them), and the proliferation of U.S.-style fast-food outlets is amazing.

I counted 13 Pizza Huts, four Burger Kings, three KFCs, two McDonald's, and one each Hardee, Taco Bell and Red Lobster, in addition to a Rodeo Ranch, Texas Fried Chicken and OK Corral.

And there's an ice skating rink, of all things, in downtown Muscat.

But ``old'' Oman still exists in Muscat and throughout the country. I visited the fish market, swarming with Omanis, Asians, Indians and pale Europeans (they are the one with the cameras) and tread carefully through the narrow aisles of stuff for sale heaped on the ground. It's more than a fish market, really.

The signs, in Arabic and English, on the buildings are straightforward: ``Sale of Chicken,'' ``Sale of Live Chicken,'' ``Butchery,'' ``Sale of Meat.'' In one, a butcher works in the open air, knife flashing, trimming fat. The fruits and vegetables cry for an artist's palette: Yellow lemons and bananas, purple eggplant, green beans, orange carrots, red tomatoes, white radishes and garlic.

And there are the fish, of course, piles of fish on the pavement, sellers sprinkling them with water from buckets - big fish and tiny ones, skinny and fat, silver, pink, green, gray and yellow fish. Buyers poke the flesh, lift the gills to check for freshness, carry them off in sky blue and turquoise plastic bags. Sellers take their crumpled bills in bloody, slimy hands and stuff them in their caps.

There are smiles everywhere, and good-natured banter. I do not feel as if I am a foreigner.

The Mutrah souk, or general market, is considered by many to be the best in the Middle East. It's certainly the most pleasant of the many I've visited. It's hawking without hassle.

There is nobody pestering you to come in and sit and have a cup of tea or coffee while they try to sell you something at the most absurdly high price they can think of.

In fact, I had a shopkeeper sidle up to me and say he'd knock 20 percent off anything I wanted for starters. Another asked me, ``How much would you like to pay?'' I suspect he knew instinctively that I don't have a clue about haggling. Which I don't.

The Omanis were one of the first people to convert to Islam. Most of them, including the royal family, belong to the Ibadhi sect, a schismatic group committed to a pure form of Islam from the earliest times and, therefore, less susceptible to the fundamentalist revival causing unrest in much of the rest of the Arab world.

They are strict in certain public morality practices - no drinking, dating or mixed dancing, that sort of thing - not unlike a large number of followers of Christian sects in the United States. They do seem to pray a lot more. Omanis I traveled with stopped several times a day for brief visits to mosques.

Their strong sense of national identity is manifested in their traditional dress - much like their other Gulf States neighbors, but not exactly.

Men wear an ankle-length, long-sleeved, pocketless shirt-dress called a dishdasha, most often a sort of mauve . . . or lavender, or columbine, or light purple-blue, or whatever . . . the sort of color produced by the first dip in an indigo dye. It is usually less tightly cut than those worn by other Gulf Arabs.

On their heads, rather than the loose head scarf worn by most Arabs, Omani men wear a tightly wound turban (mussar) or a small brimless cap (kimah) that is intricately embroidered in abstract patterns. Sometimes, apparently, they wear both, the cap under the turban.

For more formal wear, a khanjar, an L-shaped decorative dagger worn around the waist is de rigueur.

Women's dress is far more colorful, though no more revealing, than the simple black cloaks common in much of the rest of the Gulf region. Brightly printed dresses are wrapped with equally colorful printed shawls and veils.

Most women wear at least a partial veil in public. Some Bedouin women I saw wore a stiffened Halloween-like mask, died a deep indigo and then colored with some kind of gold coloring. The masks are so exquisite that I bought one for about $10. It took forever to get the indigo dye off my hands.

Omanis are friendly, remarkably so. Make eye contact with an Omani man and you will get a smile, a nod, maybe even a spoken greeting. Everyone seems to know how to say ``How are you?'' in English. And mean it. If a meeting is only slightly more formal, Omani men, and even young boys, will shake hands.

As a man, I do not know about eye contact with Omani women. It really just is not done - on the street or in the souk, at any rate. Many have their faces at least partly covered. I'll bet, though, that a female tourist could establish the same sort of rapport.

One day I was strolling the beach at Sohar, picking up seashells. A half-dozen young Omani boys watched me. They seemed to think this was odd, but soon they all were bring shells to me - ``How are you?'' - and soon I had a load big enough to induce a hernia.

And Omanis are quick to display the traditional Arab hospitality. Several Omanis I met invited me into their homes for a meal, and the Bedouins at the edge of the Wahiba Sands insisted we sit under a tent on blankets spread over the sand and have hot, cardamom-flavored coffee, called askhawa, drunk black and without sweetening from tiny, handleless cups.

The local custom is to add one part cardamom to nine parts coffee, which is supposed to take away some of the bitterness.

There is an age-old ritual to this, and to do it is to experience a lifestyle. It's men only, for one thing. Coffee is poured, by the eldest man present, from a traditional metal pot - or often as not these days a modern thermos flask - into the cups. It is customary to drink three cups before shaking the cup from side to side as it is handed back. This is a signal that no more is required.

Usually coffee is accompanied by dates, halwa, an Omani specialty that is best described as a sweetmeat with a rather glutinous texture not unlike Turkish Delight, and often sliced oranges.

The protocol is to sit cross-legged, taking care not to display the soles of your feet, and to use only the right hand for eating and drinking. The left hand, by tradition, is used for, well, something else, and is considered unclean.

Outside coastal Muscat, on the way to the sites and cities of the interior, much of the landscape is bleak - gravel and stone are strewn at random over sand and hardpan. The earth colors - chocolate brown, tan, gray, white - contrast with the sun-bleached greens - tarragon, oregano, sage - of the wind-sculpted shrubs and trees.

In Nizwa, there is another remarkable old-new market, mud and stone juxtaposed with concrete and stucco. Old Oman, just tidied up. There are separate sections for the various items for sale. The new, or restored, sections have towering columns and decorative tile and are as clean as Harrods except for the occasional fly that has eluded the blue-light bug zappers.

The goat market here, on Fridays, is a highlight. They also sell cows and sheep. It's an open area with tall palms shading a gravel piazza. On off days, they sell fresh-cut alfalfa in large bundles along with dried fish, mostly shark. Bearded men sit cross-legged behind piles of dried fish, scales and weights.

In another area, there are swords, khanjars, knives, ammo belts and guns you wouldn't believe - some downright ancient. They'd probably kill you just as dead as an M-16 or an AK-47, if they didn't blow up.

For centuries, Nizwa was capital of the interior. The Nizwa fort and palace, more than 1,000 years old, have been restored to their former glory using tradition building materials and methods. The 17th century cylindrical fort with walls 115 feet high and 30 feet thick, standing beside a grand, blue-domed mosque, is an interesting example of the military architecture of the time.

It looks very much like a slightly scaled-down version of the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, better known today as Castel Sant'Angelo, on the banks of the Tiber in Rome. If you haven't seen that, then it also goods a lot like a very big drum.

It is one of many Omani forts, castles and towers that are distinguished by their remarkable architecture.

Nearby is Bahla, also a one-time capital of the sultanate. It still retains the character of an old Omani town, complete with nearly 7 miles of mud-brick walls encircling it. It has recently been designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site.

Oman's southernmost region, Dhofar, is one of the few places in the world where the low, twisted, thorny trees that produce frankincense will grow (neighboring Yeman and Ethiopia and Somalia in northeastern Africa are the others). On this incense was built Oman's original empire.

For thousands of years, frankincense has been burned from Karnak to Nineveh, from Rome to Constantinople, and even in the courts of primitive northern Europe.

According to ancient documents, the annual consumption of frankincense in the temple of Baal in Babylon was 2 1/2 tons. According to the historian Pliny, the Emperor Nero burned the whole of Arabia's annual production at the funeral of his wife Popea. Egyptians used it for embalming.

The frankincense and myrrh (another incense) gifts brought to the infant Jesus were, at the time, move valuable than gold.

It was prized mostly because it smelled good and people didn't.

The fat, prickly branches of the frankincense trees are slit, and a white resin oozes out. These drops are left on the tree for two weeks to dry. The free-form, amber-like globules, when dry, range in color (as does amber) from pale, translucent yellow, the most highly prized grade, to a brown-orange.

The incense has a natural oil content, which means in burns well. It also is believed to have medicinal qualities. It still is sold (and burned) almost everywhere in Oman.

Gradually, personal hygiene and air conditioning have diminished the demand for frankincense. Besides, you can't make a Rolex watch out of little clumps of resin. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by SCOTT SHELTON

TOP: A Bedouin woman with her child, on the edge of the Wahiba Sands

desert, wears a traditional mask. ABOVE: Sunset on the beact at

Muscat.

Writer Stephen Harriman in the saddle.

The Omani flag, which was redesigned by Sultan Qaboos bin Said after

he came to power in 1970, flies over ancient fortress towers in

Nizwa. Qaboos, who overthrew his father as ruler, has led a

successful effort to modernize Oman and improve the lives of his

people.

Map

Photos

SCOTT SHELTON

The mosque overlooks Nizwa, where buildings more than 1,000 years

old have been restored to their former glory using tradition

materials and methods.

The fish market in Muscat is a reminder that touches of the ``old''

Oman still exist.

Graphics

Enumerating differences

We English-speaking people, who use a modified Latin alphabet to

form our written language, say we use Arabic numerals, but we don't

really. Our number system is just more like Arabic than anything

else - Roman or Chinese, for instance.

Europeans picked up ``Arabic'' numerals, after a fashion, during

the Crusades, but they were so busy killing people in the name of

God that they weren't really playing close attention. They didn't

get it quite right.

Our 1 and 9 do look pretty much like the corresponding Arabic

numerals, but that's about it.

The Arabic figure for a 6 looks like a 7, the Arabic figure for a

4 is a backward 3, 7 is a V in Arabic and 8 is an upside-down V. The

Arabic figures for 2 and 3 are too hard to explain.

A 5 in Arabic is a 0 with a sort of squashed bottom that

resembles an eggplant, and a 0 is a . (a dot, like a period) in

Arabic.

So if you see a speed limit sign that reads 0., it doesn't mean

``dead stop, period'' but rather 50.

Numerals are not a challenge in Oman, however. Everything is

written in English as well.

- Stephen Harriman

TRAVELER'S ADVISORY

OMAN, formerly known as Muscat and Oman, is an independent

sultanate (monarchy) on the southeastern coast of the Arabian

Peninsula. It is bounded by the Gulf of Oman (north), the Arabian

Sea or Indian Ocean (east and south), Yemen (southwest), Saudi

Arabia (west) and the United Arab Emirates (northwest). Its official

language is Arabic, its official religion Islam.

Overview: Oman is a safe, secure, stable, clean, environmentally

aware country with great unspoiled natural beauty. The people are

friendly and there are no beggars, no hassles in the markets or

other tourist areas. Women travelers are safe and are never

harassed.

Who goes: Tourism is in the early stages of development (only

since 1987), which is hardly surprising in a country that has had no

concept or tradition of tourism. Last year Oman had 130,000 foreign

visitors, mostly from Germany, Switzerland and Holland, where most

of its modest tourism promotions have taken place, plus 45,000 more

from the neighboring Gulf States. Oman has no intention of

encouraging a mass tourism invasion. The aim is to cater to the

discerning, up-scale traveler, not the cut-rate package tourist;

prices effectively exclude the backpack brigade. This ``selective''

tourism will continue to focus on Oman's cultural, historical and

environmental assets, concentrating on quality, to preserve its

Arabic and Muslim values.

When to go: November to March is the best time. Europeans have

found Oman to be a delightful, sunny winter destination. In

February, the temperature was in the 70-80 degree range. Muscat, the

capital, sits nearly astride the Tropic of Cancer, about the same

latitude as Havana, Hong Kong and Calcutta; from late March through

October, it is hot and very humid, much like Houston or New Orleans.

In the interior, summers are perhaps hotter but not as humid.

Getting smart: There are few guide books in the United Stated

that devote much attention to the Arabian Peninsula; you won't find

a better one than ``Arab Gulf States'' by Gordon Robison ($15.95,

Lonely Planet). In Oman, there is abundant material available,

including books on off-road travel, rock climbing and scuba diving.

Getting there: There are no longer direct flights from the United

States to Oman. I flew from Washington to London on United Airlines

(new Boeing 777, shorter but wider and quieter than the 747), then,

after a 3 1/2-hour layover at Heathrow airport, on to Muscat (with

one stop in Bahrain) on Gulf Air (Airbus 340), the national carrier

of Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. I like to fly the national

carrier of the country I'm visiting; it provides an early feel for

the place. On Gulf Air's TV monitor, a Makkah (the Arab-English

spelling of Mecca) locator appears periodically for the benefit of

Muslim passengers who may wish to face the Islamic holy place to

pray (although I did not see this occur). Gulf Air provides better

service in economy than most U.S. carriers and offers business class

amenity kits. Gulf's fleet - 18 Boeing 767s, four A-340s and 14

A-320s - is one of the world's newest, with an average aircraft age

of about three years. It's about a 20-hour trip this way, and on

arriving you'll need at least a day to decompress and recover. So .

. . the following suggestion:

Consider a layover: Coming back, which takes longer because of

headwinds on both legs, I planned a layover stop in London. It's

roughly halfway. On a splurge impulse, I picked the Athenaeum Hotel

on Picadilly overlooking Green Park (Buckingham Palace is on the

other side of the park) in the posh Mayfair section. Capt. Jean-Luc

Picard of ``Star Trek'' fame was staying there too, but he must have

beamed down, because I didn't see the Enterprise anywhere. (When he

is not off in space, Patrick Stewart is a stage and screen actor, so

that may have been why he was in town; I didn't ask him.) The

five-star Athenaeum is a cozy, delightful place, and the location is

great for two reasons: (1) it's only a short walk from the Green

Park or Hyde Park Corner tube stops on the Picadilly Line, which

runs to Heathrow, and (2) it's great for shopping, about halfway

between the Harrods-Sloan Street area and the St. James's-Oxford

Street area. The hotel offers various package special rates. U.S.

info: (800) 335-3300.

Getting in: In addition to a valid passport, U.S. citizens will

need a visa, which may be obtained from the Oman Embassy in

Washington (see address below). Allow 10 days for processing.

Getting around: Self-drive rental vehicles, including popular

four-wheelers for off-road excursions, are available at the Seeb

airport and all major hotels in the country. Rental rates for a

small car are about $60 daily, for a 4WD about $150. There are

scores of tour operators who conduct private and group tours

throughout the country. Most are conducted by English-speaking

guides. Two examples from Orient Tours: full day to Wahiba Sands,

about $120; full day to historic Nizwa in the interior, about $60.

Getting along: Oman is a Muslim country; the social norms are

strict but they are not as rigid as they are in some other Gulf

States. The Omani is particular about following his customs and

traditions but rarely imposes them on anyone else. Women should show

restraint in dressing; body-hugging outfits, sleeveless blouses,

shorts and skirts above the knee should be avoided. Men should wear

long trousers, and long-sleeve shirts are suggested. Swimwear may be

worn at hotel swimming pools and on the beach. If you should dine in

traditional Omani style, seated on cushions on the floor, avoid

pointing the sole of your foot at anyone, and do not give or receive

food with your left hand, which is considered ``unclean'' because it

is traditionally used for other hygienic things. Omanis often scoop

food from a communal serving dish with their right hand. A good book

to read before you go is ``The Traveler's Guide to Middle Eastern

and North African Customs & Manners'' by Elizabeth Devine and Nancy

L. Braganti ($13.95, St. Martin's Press).

Getting a bed: There are about 6,000 rooms available in the

country today; 10,000 are projected by 2005. Omani hotel

accommodations are high quality and should meet the expectations of

U.S. and European travelers. The Al Bustan Palace outside Muscat,

government owned and operated by Inter-Continental, is among the

best hotels in the world. Prices begin at about $225 for a double.

There are more than a half-dozen other major international hotels in

the Muscat area, including the Muscat Inter-Continental, Sheraton,

Holiday Inn, Novotel and the Gulf Hotel. I stayed at the four-star

Gulf, on a cliff overlooking the beach and the mountains, located in

a plush residential neighborhood close to shopping centers. The

Euro-furnished room had a TV, minibar (eight different alcohol

choices), marble and tile bath with hair dryer, deep tub and shower.

Doubles are about $140.

Getting fed: There is a wide range of international cuisine - and

American fast foods - from which to choose. Unlike most Islamic

countries, alcoholic beverages are often available in restaurants. I

ate in both tourist hotels and in small restaurants frequented

almost entirely by locals, and I did not see a single menu that was

not in English. In one restaurant in the interior, the menu was only

in English. My Arab companions, who spoke and understood English

well enough, had to ask the waiter for translations.

Getting info: Information Attache, Embassy of the Sultanate of

Oman, 2535 Belmont Road N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008; phone (202)

483-4096. Oman plans to open a tourism office in New York later this

year; ask the embassy for details.

- Stephen Harriman

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