b a r   a l   h i k m a n

If you came this way,/ Taking any route, starting from anywhere,/ At any time or at any season,/ It would always be the same: you would have to put off/ Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,/ Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity/ Or carry report. You are here to kneel/ Where prayer has been valid.
T S Eliot, Little Gidding, Four Quartets

600km south of Muscat, we seemed to drive past a cross between the world famous pink lagoons and sabkha plains – absolutely flat from horizon to horizon, devoid of life, blazing in the sun as we blinked in the glare. Your jaw will drop at the sight of something so removed from reality, like an artist’s painted dream – just shades of pastel pink and white and blue. That smooth surface is infinitely delicate, crushed underfoot as you take your first few steps in. You will leave behind footsteps inches deep, filling with a reddish-pink saline concentrate. Turn away from this and you’re facing sand dunes – an endless flow of some of the greatest deserts known to man. That landscape of nothingness starts at the Arabian Sea, sweeping through the middle of Oman and disappearing into the depths of Saudi Arabia. There are no roads here – indeed, even the suggestion seems like a bit of a joke.

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