Friday 15 / November / 2024
Muscat: A photographer who has spent more than three decades of his life in Oman has published the Bradt Guide to Oman.
British national Tony Walsh, who first arrived here in 1986, published the guide, which details not just Oman’s best tourism hotspots, but also the Sultanate’s little-known adventure trails and hole-in-the-wall locations that many tourists are not aware of when they arrive in the country.
“I arrived in Oman in 1986 and have travelled throughout the country since, so the research for the guide was a 30-year job,” said Walsh, speaking exclusively to the Times of Oman. “The work that I have done in Oman was extraordinarily varied and that gave me unusual insights into the country.
Most interesting
“Also, because of my work in tourism, clients were constantly reminding me of areas that perhaps they found most interesting and rewarding about the country,” he added.
“Putting all this down on paper took about four months and of course I had the support of the editing team at Bradt who helped eliminate ambiguities.”
When Bradt were looking for someone with a wealth of local experience to write the guide, London-born Walsh’s name was one of the first that sprang to mind, his having previously worked with Oman’s Ministry of Tourism.
Contracting me
“I have been fortunate to have the Ministry of Tourism support an earlier publication with Oman’s Al Roya,” revealed Walsh. “However, this Guide to Oman is the result of a British company, Bradt Guides, contracting me to update their guide to Oman. Bradt Guides is a major publisher of guide books and I was really delighted to have this opportunity to revise the book and its maps.”
Walsh wrote the article in collaboration with Diana Darke, who, like him, has also spent about 30 years of her life in the Middle East, and has about 16 different guide books to her name.
360-page book
“I found that I had to really understand that a single page of text may seem insignificant when writing a 360-page book, but just a few pages a day will finish the job,” he recalled.
“While I was writing about places that were familiar to me, they were completely unknown to a visitor.
The text had to be clear of meaning and though a light hearted joke may be funny when said face to face, on paper it can often be completely misinterpreted so these also had to be kept to a minimum while still trying to write an easy to read book.
“The guide has been continually featured among Amazon U.K.’s best-selling Middle Eastern books since the day of publication and is often the number one selling guide by Bradt through Amazon,” Walsh added.
