The magic of Oman

Expat life There is no way of saying this that will not seem smug to anyone unable to escape the wall of heat and humidity dominating summer days and nights.

There is no way of saying this that will not seem smug to anyone unable to escape the wall of heat and humidity dominating summer days and nights. Without straying too far, I was able to swim in cool waters towards small dhows anchored off the shore. After that feeling of wading in simmering soup when bathing off Abu Dhabi, it brought perverse pleasure to have to brace myself before plunging into the Arabian Sea.

This was Oman. Next day, in a lovely shaded square beside the souq in Nizwa, I sipped coffee outside at noon, no streaming sweat to declare me antisocial. Along the elegant promenade of Muttrah port, I later passed couples and groups of friends taking in the evening air, a gentle breeze rippling through the abayas and dishdashas. The expat experience, if it is to have meaning, involves exploration, and mixing with people who are not just other expats. I thought so when I lived in France, appalled by Britons who avoided their Breton neighbours or treated Périgord as Dordogneshire. And I naturally think so here.

In truth, July and August did not seem a great time for anything more adventurous in the UAE than mingling with date growers in Liwa, visiting Al Ain and Dubai and otherwise sheltering in air-conditioned buildings or cars. It was time to keep a promise made here a little while ago, to ensure that the gap between my third and fourth visit to Oman was a lot shorter than the 22 years between second and third.

It was also time to suspend my distaste for 4x4s; the planned journey was certainly tout terrain enough to justify that. Abdullah, our driver, knew all the wadis, sinkholes, scenic diversions and pretty villages that we would probably have missed. He made light of rough tracks that skirted stretches of roadway swept away by last year's floods. And he proved a dab hand at negotiating the crazy angles and drops of the dunes at Wahiba Sands.

A lot was packed into three days. Setting off, I had received messages from friends in Washington, DC, and Paris, asking in envy: "Are you really going turtle-watching?" To which the answer, in the end, was yes and no. Once we'd seen a couple of green turtles flapping in their huge craters on the beach, without even shaking enough sand off their backs to reveal skin, that was pretty much that so far as Abdullah was concerned, and he led us away. In the morning, others boasted about how much they had seen. And they'd been back in the early morning - when Abdullah insisted turtles never came ashore - and spotted more.

But the disappointment did not tarnish the magic of Oman; it merely fed the resolve to return. And there was time for one last novelty to make the trip memorable. Though it was frequently hot, indeed very hot, the climate was refreshingly varied. Leaving Muscat, we actually witnessed rain. Remember that? @Email:[e-mail]