The Plains Of Dhofar, 1969

Here are my pictures from half a lifetime ago, the friendliest country in the world, the Sultanate of Oman.

I worked servicing the Sultans Helicopters at Salalah airfield, an insurrection of Soviet led guerrillas had been quashed three years before I arrived but patrols were needed with helicopter support, various groups of tribesmen from Yemen were still making raiding parties into the mountains of Dhofar stirring up trouble.

This was a little known war at the evening of the British Empire, Sultan Quaboos overthrew his father with British help and bought his country from the 14th century into the 21st century in just 40 years.

Some of you might recognise these helicopters from your military service.............

Some of us waterskied off the port of Raysut, it was rather unnerving as we did not know what was at the bottom of the sea looking up at us, there were stonefish, stingrays and sharks very close to shore. Ooo-er... no thanks.
Every now and then a turtle would surface to breath and remind us there were nasties below us, that was nice of them we said. 'orrible nasties with big bitey teeth.

It was a good engineering job, we finished work at 1PM and headed to the Holiday Inn for a few Amstel beers.
It was a very liberal country then, as long as you didn't drink in public or offer beer to the locals you were OK, and you didn't smoke in public on Fridays, that was just dumb.

All Omani men carried automatic carbines or ceremonial daggers as a sign of manliness, the women never wore any sort of Niquab, just beautiful bejeweled tribal dresses with a semi transparent veil over their faces, but you would get into trouble photographing them so we didn't. We may have been drunkards but we were not that far gone as to chat up the local girls, oh no. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

The sunbathing beach of choice for us was one called Beercan Bay, lovely snorkelling water with huge crayfish in the deeper waters which we caught with a spearguns to be cooked back at base by our Baluchi chefs. They transformed the crayfish into culinary masterpieces worthy of Heston Blumenthal.

Oman has a long history, the Queen of Sheba came from there, the Frankincense grown there is the best in the world and the grave of Job is high in the mountains in a small mosque down a perilous track.
The Frankincense given at the nativity by the three wise men was said to come from Dhofar.

This picture is one of the Queen of Sheba's palaces at Mirbat, there is not much left of it now, mores the pity.
Oman is a treasure trove for archaeologists, a lost city was discovered late last century by Sir Ranulf Feinnes, a city of legend hidden under the sands of the empty quarter, the city of Prester John (allegedly)

I hope this post makes people think about visiting Oman, there is much more to see than when I was there, it does not get into the news as it is a stable and peaceful and liberal country, Gulf Air will fly you there quite wonderfully.