Oman

General

My trip to Oman, the neighbouring country of the United Arab Emirates(UAE), where I’m based, began early in the morning, because it was the day of

Eid Al Adha and we were up early for prayers. Immedietely after prayers and

a quick bite, me and my two buddies started off at 8.30am. This was my first road trip crossing a countries borders, and the first long trip in my Honda Civic coupe, so it was going to be special. After setting the meter to zero, we set off on our journey.

UAE and Oman share two borders with each other. One is the Al-Hafeet border

in the Omani town of Al-Buraimi, which is right next to the UAE town of

Al-Ain. We intended to cross into Oman using this border, and exit using the

other Hatta border, and drive back to Dubai from there. The intended route

Muscat, with a few diversions here and there. I expected the total distance

to be around 1200 kms. Road travellers from Dubai to Oman normally drive the

450 kms/5 hours to Muscat on the excellent three lane, illuminated highway

and come back the same route, but with our plan, we could cover more

cities/towns apart from just Muscat, roughly covering the same distances.

We were prepared with Oman insurance(AED 100, approx USD 28) for the car and

visas(AED 30 each, approx USD 8), but at the UAE border we were also

required to pay AED 20 each for an UAE exit pass. Similarly on our return,

we also had to pay AED 20 totally while exiting Oman at Hatta. Both visas

and insurance are issued to GCC residents at the borders as well, in case

you dont have them in advance. If you take them in advance, you can save

yourself around 30 minutes to one hour at the border. Anyway, you will have

to stop and get out at the border even if you have visas to fill in the exit

forms etc. If you plan your trip well, you can consider this as a break

during the drive!

At 13.30, we entered Oman after completing all formalities. The roads in

Oman are good, but unlike in the UAE, there are lots of highways which are

dual carriageways without any dividers as such, and not all roads are

illuminated. In many cases, the roads dip up and down and can take the shape

of various curves. All this automatically forces all drivers, specially

night drivers to be extra cautious and drive very carefully. These

observations, however, do not apply to the Dubai-Muscat highway though. That

is an exception. Also, on most roads we encountered, the U-turn or other

road markings are just painted on the road, they cannot be distinguished in

any other way because there simply isnt any divider or anything else jutting

out of the road anywhere! After crossing the border, for around 250 kms

until Nizwa and another 100 odd kms from Nizwa to the outskirts of Muscat we

travelled these kind of roads.

After a quick lunch at Ibri, a small town famous for its Wednesday Souq or

Market (alas, we were there on a Tuesday!), we continued our journey, with

our next stop being Bahla. I did notice a number of car showrooms in Ibri,

of almost every famous make like Nissan, Toyota, Mazda etc. In an hour and a

half, we reached Bahla. A mysterious town - Bahla is the home of myths and

legends that have carried through the centuries. Some people today still

believe that magic is afoot in Bahla and many Omanis are superstitious when

it comes to talking about Bahla. This little town is famous for its pottery.

The old Bahla fort with its 12 km wall is the oldest fort in Oman. The fort

is believed to have been built in pre-Islamic times and is now undergoing

reconstruction sponsored by UNESCO and the site is included on UNESCO’s list

of World Heritage monuments. We were thus unable to enter it but had a

brilliant time going around it, clicking pics amidst the ruins. A short

distance beyond Bahla lies the Castle of Jabreen. This massive three-storied

castle was also built during the mid 1600’s. It is a fine example of Islamic

architecture with beautiful wooden inscriptions and paintings on the

ceilings.

It was slowly nearing sunset, and we had planned a few more places before

that, so we quickly made our way to our next stop, Al Hoota Cave. To get to

this place, we took a left turn on the main Bahla-Nizwa highway itself,

guided by a helpful sign board and then followed the directions on the

subsequent boards. Once you take this left from the main road, you enter

another road which after awhile gives options for a road to the cave,

another for the Al Hamra village, Wadi Ghul, Jebel Al Shams mountain and so

on. Our plan was just to try the cave before sunset and do the rest the

following morning. We were already aware that this cave also was also

undergoing renovation to make it more tourist friendly, but we wanted to

atleast try. Alas, we were unable to go in, as exciting as it sounded!

Hopefully next time we can!

As the sun set over the wonderful mountain scenary and on our first day in

Oman, we wound our way upto our night stop, Nizwa. However, there was yet

one more place on the way! Yes, it was Tanuf. Tanuf is an important Wadi in

Oman (Wadi is an Arabic word for a mountainous area which fills with water

during rains) from where a mineral water called Tanuf is produced, and we

decided to take a look. However, we took the wrong left turn on the

Bahla-Nizwa highway at the Wadi Tanuf board instead of taking the left turn

where it said Tanuf Dam (with a big board of the mineral water bottle!).

Anyhow, we finally descended into the Wadi which was right after the

bottling factory, and frankly, it was all dried up! Perhaps we could have

encountered water further on, but being in the twilight, in my little Honda

civic and with the gravel, pebbly terrain; this was not a very good idea!

Moreover, these wadis are very unpredictable, almost dangerous. One second

they maybe dry, the next minute it ight just rain heavily and water might

just flood the area!

We entered Nizwa shortly, a quaint little town which was once the capital of

Oman. It had one of everything- a beautiful mosque, a fort and a souq (all

of which were bang in the middle of the town and adjacent to each other and

had similar architecture!). It also had very few restaurants and hotels, but

enough for the towns small population, I assume. We had a light dinner, and

after a stroll along the closed Souq (which was beautifully constructed) we

decided to call it a day. It was getting late, and we had a long long day,

so we used the blankets, pillows and other stuff we had brought along to

create a comfortable bed in a park near Falaj Daris and slept away like

babies, our bodies tired, but our minds excited because tomorrow was day two

in Oman!

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