“Oman has made more progress than any other country in the world in the last 40 years. Oman has achieved stability at home and peace with its neighbors”. (H. Clinton)
Until the 1970s, Oman lived in deep feudalism: three elementary schools, one hospital with twelve beds and a single piece of asphalt road from the sultan’s palace to the military base. Sultan Said bin Taimur apparently did not have the right gift for development and kept the country in the darkness of feudalism. His biggest mistake was, as it later turned out, that he gave his son Qaboos education in the United Kingdom. After his return, he held him in isolation for a while, but in 1970 the then 28-year-old Qaboos solved generational conflict by bloodless coup and sent his father into exile to London (where he died two years later). Thanks to his visionary intelligence and absolute monarchy supported by oil revenues, Qaboos has led his sultanate among the most developed countries of the world, with more than thousands of schools, several universities, hospitals in every town and thousands of kilometers of highways. On her visit to Oman, Hilary Clinton praised the progress Oman has made since Qaboos came to power after overthrowing his father.
I was fortunate to travel the beautiful country in January/February 2015. Here I am presenting some sample photographs to give you an idea of what the Sultanate of Oman can offer to visitors. A full-size travelogue from my voyage through the sands of Empty Quarter (Rub al Khali Desert) is coming soon.