When I was born in 1970, Oman still did not have electricity. Instead  there were still individual slave traders pursuing their abominable business. Come sunset town gates were closed like once in the East. In the same year British-educated Sultan Qaboos sent his medieval father into retirement, implemented a policy of modernization, the abolished slavery and ended Oman’s international isolation.

When we were visiting Oman on a long weekend trip in 1996 from our then home in Tehran and I again visited 20 years later on the course of a business trip, modern age had arrived since long. But despite this, as our Omani taxi driver stressed when he was taking us to the beautiful Al Bustan Palace Hotel outside of Muscat, Omanis had obviously kept their unique Arabia Felix attitude not to be compared with the other gulf states where there were mostly Indian guest workers driving Taxis, Bangladeshis cooking and Filipino housemaids.  But that’s just one reason.why Oman is for me the most beautiful country on the Arabian peninsula. Not to talk of course about the original Arabica Felix, the presently so unfortunate and inaccessible Yemen.