Betting on camel and horse races is allowed by the Koran, the only permitted gambling.We were invited through the gate in the wall of the local sheik's house because of Raya, and shattered Omani tradition by sitting and eating in the men's room while the sheik and his three sons sat across the room eating with their backs to us.We were given delectable dates, tiny cups of coffee and Omani pastries. The Omani intelligentsia had fled the old Sultan's stupidity for education abroad. Raya taught in remote village schools, then formed the Women's Association, groups of women offering voluntary service in the community. Now she has become a one-woman tour company and is the ideal guide.We watched speed trials for racing camels on a sand track in the middle of nowhere.

The jockeys are six-year-old boys in metallic-coloured hard hats and home-made costumes, who are lifted and tied onto kneeling camels I have never seen horses run as fast as those camels. The Bedouin who own them transported them here in new Nissan and Toyota pick-ups. The camels kneel in the back of these little trucks with their sad, disdainful faces lifted over the rear gate A good racing camel is worth upwards of pounds 100,000. Racing here is a weekly entertainment for the men of the area. Perhaps this long absence explains her independence of mind and action and her European humour.

Though she dresses like a proper Omani woman, is a good Muslim and accepts the social customs of her people, she is at ease with men as with women. The Sultan asked the Omani diaspora to come home and help build a new country. The village palm garden lay green and cool behind the high houses. These are low, bushy date palms and, within the wall that encloses them, each villager owns his personal trees.My favourite journey was with Raya Riyami, a small, soft-spoken woman who may be unique among Omanis. By her own choice, she went to England to school when she was 13, trained and worked there as a physiotherapist, and returned to Oman aged 28. The large stone house was probably overcrowded since the owner had two wives and 20 children Big tin canisters stood in the lanes, communal dustbins.