UAE-Oman

Most people think of Dubai in one way, as a fantasy world of glitz and glamor. With its tall buildings trying to outdo each other in peculiarity, its world-topping skyscrapers and shopping malls, and its outlandish man-made islands, Dubai delivers …

Driving 2500 kilometers around northern Oman, we found navigating quite a challenge, modeled perhaps after the wandering channels of water built for their ancient aflaj irrigation systems. (For more about the significance of the aflaj and the wayward roads, click …

Aflaj, Oman’s gravity-driven water irrigation systems, date from 2500 years ago and possibly even 2000 years earlier. The word itself is said to imitate the sound of flowing water. Along the routes of these narrow canals, extensive plantations of date …

We drove about 40 minutes from Abu Dhabi’s airport to its shoreline, that stretch along the Persian Gulf of pedestrian walkway and motorway for expensive cars known as the Corniche. But we saw no sand. We walked the streets within …