February 12, 2007

AFRICA & MIDEAST | OMAN

Pack Your Sultan Lotion

By Mark Jolly

Oman scores the chicest beach retreat in the Gulf.

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Oman may not have been on your must-see list — until now. The March Travel + Leisure and yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph have both dispatched meaty reports on the The Chedi Muscat, a chic boutique retreat on the Gulf of Oman. The hotel’s recent surge in popularity (to secure a room, T&L’s writer had to call in a favor from a “collateral member of the royal family of Kuwait”) inspired an additional beachside restaurant, opening this month.

One of Oman’s big draws is the capital, Muscat, whose ancient souks and harbor are a world away from manmade mirage that is modern Dubai, in neighboring UAE. Still, you may wonder: why Oman now? T&L speculates that the sultanate’s new-found popularity with Western snowbirds might have sprung from current problems plaguing other warm-weather destinations of the east: post-tsunami Thailand and Sri Lanka still feel unstable, and the U.S. State Department warnings for major pockets of the Middle East and Indonesia make them less desirable. But, it could also be the death-defying dune driving in the desert, dolphin watching off the coast, the 17th century fort and the Friday market in the former capital of Nizwa, or trekking the Jebel Akhdar, aka the Green Mountains. Either way, get there by March, when temperatures soar.