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You may recall that I wrote about meteorite hunters in Oman a while back.

Just over two weeks ago, John Blennert, the American gentleman who had created a website exhorting people not to visit Oman as a result of his experiences exploring for meteorites in the Sultanate, wrote to me. He was, as I find many Americans to be, extremely courteous.

Regardless of any notions of rights or wrongs in the way Mr Blennert acted or how the authorities reacted, I think he raises an interesting point.

How do foreigners find out what they can or can't do in the country? How does any newcomer find anything out?

If you work for a firm of consultants, you are in Oman because your company has base representation there and a sponsor. At the very least, the sponsor should be able to advise on the best way to proceed. The company as a whole will therefore have gained knowledge, based on previous experience, on how to make contact with ministries and government bodies.

If the consulting company has a contract with a government ministry, it will be beholden to the ministry to establish contacts it may need with any other ministry through the hierarchy of the administration. It is considered inappropriate, and impertinent, to act in any other way.

Similar situations exist in the UK. I can remember being chastised once by an anonymous official of the Ministry of Health at county level for having presumed to write with a complaint to the national level. All sorts of organisations, from schools to health authorities, to firms of solicitors have complaints procedures.

But if you come from the wild, free west, as Mr Blennert does in the western USA, where there is distrust of any sort of government, how do you find out what you need to know in another country, such as Oman?

The problem is magnified because Mr Blennert would have made his enquiries about whether he could go meteorite-hunting in English, whereas Oman's national language is Arabic.

In his correspondence, Mr Blennert claimed that "I spent hours trying to research their collecting and exporting laws prior to going there. Numerous emails to various government agencies and phone calls in the middle of the night (US) to get verbal it's oks but never a reply in emails."

Mr Blennert's problem is that the relevant Royal Decree on mining was so broadly worded that he could easily overlook that it might have also referred to meteorite-collecting, that the Royal Decree provided for the relevant ministry to make its own regulations, and that it was written in Arabic.

Furthermore, who answers emails from ministry websites? Do emails follow the same prescribed path as letters? Are they referred to the minister's office who will route them to the appropriate DG?

Wouldn't it be nice if there was an effort to convey information clearly to potential visitors in English, and other international languages, even if it is to establish that certain activities, such as meteorite-hunting or shell-collecting, are not permitted.