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The stony, weather-beaten location and monumental proportions of Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar look set-dressed for a period drama. At any tick, warriors will ride their horses through those high ceremonial doors and cause havoc along the colonnades, whisking away protesting maidens and smashing every clay urn in sight. It’s easy to entertain such fantasies at this mountain redoubt southwest of Muscat that opened late last year. A veritable mirage atop the Saiq Plateau, in the western Hajar Mountains, here is a place with its chest puffed out, holding fast to a plateau on the curved edge of a canyon at more than 2000m above sea level.
French-Moroccan architect Lotfi Sidirahal of Paris’s Atelier PoD, a favourite collaborator of the Thai-owned Anantara management group, has won the UNESCO Versailles Prize for best hotel in Africa and West Asia for this remarkable illusion of a castle of old, all turrets and parapets, its saffron palette resonating with the sands of the plains below, its building materials sourced from the obligingly rocky neighbourhood.
Public spaces flow around courtyards, slender channels run with water in the style of the heritage-listed falaj irrigation methods still used by farmers. Gardens are planted with Oman’s signature damask rose bushes and indigenous fruit trees. The guest-arrival process in these clear, cool climes mimics the hospitality expected at every Omani home. Coffee is poured from a silver pot into tiny cups and a platter the size of a shield piled with dates is passed around our little travelling party. “You can’t check in until you have eaten them all,” says an under-manager, and we exchange covert looks as we’re not quite sure if he’s joking.
Double-storey blocks in two wings with external breezeways feature 82 guestrooms, some with interconnecting options, which face the dramatic dip and rise of the landscape. These are spacious chambers with high thread-count bed linens, comfortably furnished terraces, striped rugs in earthy colours, and brass-studded chests. Big bathrooms feature large tubs, there are Nespresso machines, and work spaces and all the smart functionality of an urban hotel with the bonus of that empty, surrealistic view beyond. Hand-thrown clay bowls are from the World Heritage-listed town of Bahla, where it’s said the potters have magic in their fingers. Throughout the resort, there’s a sense of the concealment and intrigue of timeless Arabic architecture and certain constants are elemental to the decor, such as latticed brass lights that create spangled shadows, decorative archways, and recurring motifs of spirals and scrolls, mimicking curlicued script.
Thirty-three pool villas, in ascending price from garden courtyard to the three-bedroom, two-storey Royal Mountain Villa, are oases of style, much favoured by Omani and Emirati guests. The two-bedroom garden configurations are ideal for families and all offer complete privacy. Three restaurants, a bar and a deli keep guests well fed and watered. All-day diner Al Maisan, perched above the lobby and central courtyard, features top-to-toe glass walls, indoor-outdoor seating terrace and a breakfast buffet that includes Arabic specialities. Within the Musandam Tower, its tapered turret and archers’ slit windows straight from a storybook fable, Al Qalaa is all cool niches and a veritable galaxy of suspended lights. Its cuisine ranges across the Middle East and North Africa, with hot and cold mezze platters, grills from a charcoal oven complete with a choice of smoky and spiced salts, and desserts rejoicing in ingredients such as frankincense, rosewater and dried fruits.
The well-named Bella Vista — by the rim of Diana’s Point, where the then Princess of Wales paused in 1986 and contemplated her lot — specialises in Mediterranean cuisine from a talented southern Italian chef, including wood-fired pizzas. Then repair to the Al Shourfa shisha lounge, where the water-pipe menu includes pomegranate and wild peach flavours.
Guided village nature walks get guests out and about to explore sparsely inhabited settlements, steeply angled and hewn from stone, surrounded by wild figs, olives and junipers and roamed by goats and donkeys. If you are completely fearless, or possibly mad, try the Via Ferrata on a steel cable that runs along the cliff edge and drops you 20m on “steep and exciting climbs”. A 30-minute drive down looping roads leads to Nizwa, named Capital of Islamic Culture in 2015, and dominated by a 17th-century fort where would-be invaders were repelled with boiling date oil. The surrounding souk is a trove of silver jewellery, beaten brass treasures, bottles of rosewater, flower buds dispensed by the scoop, lidded clay pots to store oil, a fair representation of Oman’s hundreds of varieties of dates, and bars of frankincense soap.
Stay put at the resort? The canyon-edge infinity pool is the place to splash at sunset and there are movies under the stars, a remarkably large and well-resourced children’s and teens’ club, tennis, yoga, and the inviting realms of Anantara Spa. Sadly, however, the spa experience is oddly underwhelming, with diffident staff and no guidance regarding how to use lockers or where to wait for a therapist. The promised “homemade nutritious snacks, dried fruit, smoothies and herbal teas” translate during my visit to a bottle of water left for me on a chair. My appointment is in the late afternoon on what must have been a busy day for the spa team but it’s a major fail for a resort chain that prides itself on the wellness experience. Competitor resort Alila Jabal Akdhar, close by and also a member of an Asian-headquartered chain, delivers a spa experience that is miles above and beyond.
But wait, there’s more. Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar’s sister resort in Oman, Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara, is by the sea in the country’s south, between a white-sand beach and a lagoon. A reason to return to Oman? Yes, please.
The inhospitable terrain of a mountain range on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman is an unlikely perch for a five-star resort. It looks more like a place to flee than to seek out. Even the sense of territory is disjointed, as this geographically annexed finger of land sits facing the strategically important Strait of Hormuz atop the eastern edge of the United Arab Emirates, accessed via a border stop and passport check. So getting to Six Senses Zighy Bay means driving from Dubai or Abu Dhabi, albeit on freeways and good dual-carriageways, past cement plants and, on my journey, the pleasing sight of a roadside sign warning of speed humps, beside which stand two superior-looking camels.
From the heights of a rocky plateau, guests can choose to tandem hang-glide down to reception and then partake of a reviving date smoothie and a plate of little candies sweetened with honey, pistachio biscuits and date slices. I see no evidence of daredevil arrivals but next day, while on a dhow cruise alongside the fjord-like cliffs of the Gulf of Oman, the resort’s micro-light aircraft swoops across our vessel, casting the shadow of a giant moth. It’s all a bit prehistoric, as otherworldly as Six Senses Zighy Bay itself.
The atmosphere? Think sticks and stones, with 82 flat-roofed villas hidden behind cobblestoned walls and most of the main facilities laid out in the style of a village. Add wandering goats, one of which appears at the terrific Sense on the Edge clifftop restaurant during my dinner, clip-clopping its arrival like a supermodel before being shooed off by a waiter. It’s all rather a la The Flintstones but now, almost a decade old, the property is firmly in, and of, its setting, an earthed, organic and resolutely local resort, satisfyingly remote but layered with luxury.
The arc of beach is long and white, and the architects and designers have worked with nature, creating a low-rise settlement amid more than 1000 date palms and plantings of wild fig, citrus and pomegranate trees. Guests are encouraged to go barefoot or ride the supplied bicycles, which have padding on the pedals. It is more fun to walk, however, along raked-sand laneways lined with villas that open into little squares, with the sense of enclosure typical of Arabic design. All accommodation includes decent-size private pools and there are two big resort pools, with shaded seating in stone-walled cabanas and strategically placed hammocks.
I love the open-plan style of the villas, with rough timber finishes, beamed ceilings, stone floors and bath-tub, stucco walls and niches holding water carriers and jars; even such intrusions as air-conditioning units are hidden from view behind twiggy screens. There’s a Nespresso machine and distilled water bottled by the resort, indoor and outdoor showers. The top-tariff villas have infinity-edge pools and beachfront access and a couple are two-storey, with sweeping views over Zighy Bay.
A pillow menu suggests every sleeping model imaginable, from linear gravity or buckwheat crescent to isotonic or snore reduction. Need a yoga mat or a ylang-ylang fragrance sachet? Just summon your Guest Experience Maker, neatly shortened to GEM, who in my case is Sherif, a treasure in every sense. When I book Sense on the Edge for dinner, he appears in the afternoon brandishing the tasting menus, from three to nine courses. I suggest three. He looks downcast. We settle for five.
I discover the courses are tiny and the nine-dish vegetarian procession would have been a fantastic choice, with each course celebrating the essence and versatility of the star ingredients, from cucumber, beetroot and celeriac to leek, carrot and pear. Sense on the Edge, suspended like a terraced belvedere almost 300m above sea level, is probably a one-off choice during the average stay but sustenance is also varied and delicious back at ground level.
The all-day Spice Market produces an excellent breakfast buffet, with flat bread fresh from the hotplate, a long list of teas, and splendid Turkish poached eggs served on ciabatta with wilted spinach, yoghurt and chilli butter; stone-slab banquette seating near the windows is jollied up with bright orange cushions. Across from Spice Market is Zighy Bar, the spot for silky smoothies that declare their ingredients with cute names such as Mint Condition; during Happy Hour (renamed No Rush Hour from 9pm to midnight). Cocktails are also all the go, fashioned with dates and tamarinds, plus limes, Thai basil, parsley and lemongrass from Australian executive chef Timothy Goddard’s organic garden. Tiny birds flit through Zighy Bar’s arched windows and doors and glide about on the airstream of ceiling fans. It’s a welcome current of cool in the fierce heat of my May visit. Summer House is another casual option and has a great menu of pastas, noodles and grills plus desserts of the ilk of ginger creme brulee and raw chocolate and avocado pudding.
Six Senses Spa takes a forensic approach and conducts wellness screenings — body composition, movement efficiency and suchlike — and pamperings aplenty in a pavilion building that smells of roses and lemongrass and includes two Arabic-style tiled hammams. Exfoliating body scrubs and masks feature an Omani larder of dates, almond powder, green and white clays, frankincense, mint and goat’s milk. There are yoga classes and fitness sessions and dastardly-sounding boot camps.
The setting of mountain meets sea allows for water-based activities such as scuba, snorkelling and sustainable hand-line fishing, all available from a marina and dive centre to the south of the estate. A newsletter of activities suggests rugged hikes, sunset cruises or tours to the fish markets at nearby Dibba, followed by an Arabic cooking class. A lovely little boutique sells textiles, loose clothing, jute baskets and versions of the clay pottery goats that decorate many of the public areas and serve as lamp bases in guest villas.
Cinema Paradiso sessions on the beach under the stars, with wireless headphones supplied, sound like fun but the perfect finale to my evenings at Six Senses Zighy Bay is a dip in that private pool. For company I usually have the same goat, which chews at the shrubs and appraises my straw hat with flinty little eyes. Midnight at the oasis. Send your camel and goat to bed and all that.
CHECKLIST
To mark its 10th anniversary of services to Australia, Etihad has announced double daily A380 flights between Sydney and Abu Dhabi, effective October 29. All three daily flights between Abu Dhabi and London Heathrow are also operated with A380s. A Flying Nanny, trained by Britain’s Norland College, is on board every A380 flight to provide support for families with young children. Etihad operates regular daily flights of about an hour’s duration between Abu Dhabi and Muscat.
Tour operators such as Eihab Travels provide transfers and tours that can be booked from Australia through Bench International, which also has an eight-day Exotic Oman Superior package from $4485 per person twin-share ex Muscat, including most meals, accommodation at luxury hotels and a desert camp, air-conditioned 4WD transport with English-speaking driver and guide, and entrance fees.
Sоurсе: theaustralian.com.au