Travel: Oman, Arabia's Magic Kingdom

Ending its isolation, Oman welcomes tourists -- rich ones

The sun rises like a fiery red ball from the blue-black depths of the Arabian Sea. As darkness retreats across the Hajar mountains, the barren landscape changes from gray-brown to beige and copper. It is the birth of a new day in the Sultanate of Oman, a legendary home of Sinbad the Sailor and fabled source of frankincense for the Queen of Sheba. In this New Mexico-size nation, located on the cutting edge of the Arabian Peninsula, the dawn light- and-shadow show is a spectacular curtain raiser to a host of attractions + that have made it one of the world's...

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