Sandy Adventures: Oman

Offroad Drive from Fujairah to Oman's Madha Inclave

April 20, 2017

As we had our aunt visiting the UAE, we chose to take charge in driving her to see the other wonders of the country which are not otherwise usually shown in videos. For her next route, we decided to bring her to Fujairah.

We are not good at following planned routes unless we have a definite goal on a specific place, and we would always just like yesterday when we decided to bring Auntie to see Fujairah. The thought of cutting through the mountain came to our minds. Fortunately we found our way to Oman's inclave within UAE in Madha, however our route was stopped when we reached the path that was washed deep with the recent rains, risky to force the car to pass. We turned back to the highway, yet happy we had good snaps of the mountain that had vibrant colors wonderfully kissed by the sun.

Lovely Little Creatures

February 15, 2014

Along Hatta - Oman road in between the Dubai borders. The gravel plain, and the carpet and clay figurine shops. (Photo taken with the phone camera)

It was a family date on Valentine's Day -- on a usual activity of desert camping, dune driving with friends, then another short road trip.

Temperature indicated 14 deg Celsius past 11pm on Thursday night as we drove into the camp site, so we decided to sleep in the car than putting up the tent. (Usually, the mercury drops further at around 3am.) My Gremlins were already asleep before we even reached camp so their Gremlin Dad and I had our time sitting and sharing stories instead of chasing them.

By 2am we left our friends by the bonfire so we could catch sleep. Camping with friends usually means hitting the sack between 3 to 4 am, but this time we wanted to spend Friday being out instead of being in bed all afternoon.

After the Friday dune drive at Lahbab's Area 53, our tyres were inflated back by 12 noon. Friends headed back to Dubai while we headed towards Hatta. Along Oman side (in between the two border checks), we drove off-track the highway where shrubs gave green color to the gravel plain. I probably was still exhausted from the previous week that spotting tiny flowers and taking photos of them already made me really happy.

Tiny flowers, lovely at close-up (Photo taken with the phone camera)

All about our Princess

Hatta Pools August 2012 - Riane's First Offroad Drive

August 22, 2012

Over the Eid holiday, we took the road to Hatta Pools via the mountainous Munay path from Sharjah-Kalba/ Maleha Road. It was a sweltering summer and because we have a three month old in tow (yes, we brought Riane along at 44 deg celsius! And it's her first long drive with offroading), stepping out of the car was minimized, and we did the route between 11:30am to 9pm, including lunch and dinner breaks:

Dubai - Maleha Road - Hatta Pools - Maleha Road - Kalba - Fujairah City Center- New Fujairah Road - Maleha Road - Dubai

This Little Princess is on a heat endurance training at 3.5 months old.
It's her first trip to Oman's mountains at 44 deg Celsius.

If I recall it well, this is our 4th time untrodding Hatta Pools, but this time, we had friends in a separate car along. The family is now not as excited it seems, that by the time we led the way to Dubai's Hatta Dam, all four of us just stayed in the car waiting while our friends take photos outside.

At Hatta Dam. My brother behind the camera and our friends in front.

The offroad part after the UAE - Oman border towards the pools is now undergoing widening and improvement. My driver-Husband though is not happy of the development, hoping that the little roughness of the drive be left as it is as this keeps more of the excitement. There were also two really tall and huge water tanks on the other side of the water gorges, and it's quite a distracting backdrop for the scenic nature view.

I used to believe that the mountains are 'cooler' than the plains, hence I agreed on a drive to Hatta considering that we have a Little Princess along. But I have to let go of that impression now because back in Hatta Pools, it was burning hot. We felt guilty of bringing our Riane along but we were thankful she coped, so maybe she deserves the title Little Miss Adventurous Riane instead, starting her early training of braving the sandpit heat :)

Here was our mini road trip itinerary:

1) Left Deira (Dubai) heading to Emirates Road by 11:30am.

2) Took right to Maleha Road before the National Paints flyover/ roundabout.

3) Drove straight along Maleha Road (also Sharjah/ Kalba Road) until we reached the road signposted to Munay.

4) Drove right to Munay road, driving up along mountain sides until the Hatta - Oman Road.

5) At the exit to Hatta - Oman Road, we took a quick right until we reached the Hatta Fort roundabout (to the right is Hatta Fort Hotel and towards the left is Emirates Cooperative.

6) It's about past 2 pm by now, and we parked outside the Emirates Cooperative building and had a late lunch of chicken at Popeye's.

7) We drove towards Hatta Pools passing by Oman - UAE border.

8) From Hatta Pools, we dropped by Hatta Dam. We forego of passing by the heritage village and of going to Hatta Fort Hotel as day visitor because of time constraint. One of our mates did not bring his passport along (just his National ID used at the Hatta Pools border) in case we needed to drive past Hatta - Oman Road border so we wanted to leave before dusk through Munay where there are no lamp posts ( we were too used to the UAE lights lined roads :-) ) .

9) We exited Munay Road to Sharjah-Kalba Road towards Kalba

10) Drove towards Fujairah, and dropped by Fujairah City Center for a quick dinner.

11) Headed back to Dubai via the new Fujairah - Maleha road.

Hatta Pools August 2012

Oman

Another Oman Road Trip

November 26, 2011

Oman's got three-day holiday this week so the Big Gremlin is with us over the weekend. It's funny how we delight when we both can have two consecutive days of coinciding days in a week to be together. You see, UAE weekends are Fridays and Saturdays while Oman has Thursdays and Fridays.

This weekend, we drove to Oman as planned, leaving early Friday and back home Saturday night, clocking 1,110 kilometers.

The drive's goal was to visit Al Hoota Cave. This is our second time in the area. On the first drive in March this year, we needed to call off Al Hoota Cave when we got too scared then to get caught driving at night in an unfamiliar single carriage-way-no-light-posts-no-center-island road for the expected next 300 kilometes drive before we reach Al Ain border (it turned out that that scenario was only about half of the way).

Also planned was to spend Friday night at a hotel (rather than drive straight 145 kilometers to Big Gremlin's quarters in Muscat) so we could go roam other Nizwa, Jibreen and Bahla forts/ castles/ wadis. But with the long exhausting drive and our failed expectation on Al Hoota Cave, we decided to leave for Muscat right after the visit.

This post has nothing against Al Hoota Cave. The cave is a wonder in its own right for the region. However, I guess it becomes a lot different when one expects a lot in exchange of travelling six hours (including 1.5 hours traversing Al Ain roundabouts and stoplights and 30 minutes border formalities), 410 kilometers from Dubai and paying AED 55 cave entry fee per adult, one expects a big reward at the end of the tunnel. For someone like us from the Philippine mountains who explored the magnificent Sagada Cave, and many other caves we are taking for granted, our reward was to realize to take pride, love and care of our home resources, as how Oman is preserving the 'inactive' Al Hoota Cave. It's overwhelming how the Omani invested US$ 5.7m to develop the cave for tourism purposes, and properly mans it to ensure its preservation.

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We sure love long road trips but somehow we say enough when our interests and curiousity wanes down for a certain place. Either interest or curiosity make us return to a place twice. Road trips are mostly not comfort-based activities hence we make it a point to infuse something relaxing in it. To make up for the Al Hoota Cave exhaustion, we drove to Qantab beach the next day and took a chartered boat ride (photos in another post).

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Driving from Dubai to Muscat via Al Ain - Al Dhakiliya is long and tiring which we dont plan to doing again soon:

2.5 hours to reach the Mezyad border from Dubai, mainly due to Al Ain's stop lights and round abouts, (that's about 1.5 hours granting you have a map and a little acquantance of Al Ain). Dubai to Hatta Border is only an hour drive.
This route is costlier at 3 hours and more than 200 kms longer compared to Dubai - Hatta- Sohar - Muscat.
Much of the roadside is barren compared to the greener Sohar roadside.

If there's something to go back to Dhakiliya Region, I guess it will be a mountain retreat at Jabal Akhdar.

Oman

And it's a rainy Muscat

November 04, 2011

Rains are un-usually heard of in the desert, and if it rains people rejoice -- unless it starts to become disastrous to the sandpit whose systems are not prepared to flooding and whatever brought by raining.

Dubai is yet to get its share of drizzles this time of the year, but near or along the Hajar mountain ranges (Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Oman), rains started pouring in October.

On Wednesday (first week of November), the Big Gremlin waded in Muscat's afternoon rains. He reached their villa drenched and with shoes on hand as puddles covered the streets. The amount of rains that day was like a typical subtropical afternoon rain in Baguio (Philippines). Tuesday was bearable just with 'strong' drizzles.

Rains in Muscat

Tunnels that are on lower elevation are prone to 'flooding', such as this in Muscat

With the Big Gremlin working in Muscat now, I pray that the most he'd witness be limited to his light experiences so far, and not a repeat of Cylone Gonu (in 2007, the strongest tropical cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea) that brought forth substantial damage as below:

(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

It's Eid Al Adha here in the sandpit and most are taking advantage of the long weekend break. Pleasant weather has now kicked in, and if not that I'm on pregnancy-induced-laziness mode, we would have pushed through with our planned Oman drive via Al Ain - Buraimi - Ibri - Nizwa - Muscat route to see more of those we missed earlier (more wadis, historical sites, Al Hoota Cave and Jabal Akhdar part 2). But with rains currently in season, it becomes risky getting into wadis (dried river beds) on chances of sudden gushing of water. So to those travelling offroad now - stay safe.

Oman

Oman's Bimmah Sinkhole On the Way to Sur

October 17, 2011

Any place of unique natural wonder or of historical story is attractive. On our first road trip to Oman, the Bimmah Sinkhole (a wide and deep natural inland 'hole' with salty water) and Bibi Maryam's Tomb (that's within the Ancient City of Qalhat, visited by Marco Polo and wrote about the place during the 13th century) were on our list.

From our google map prinout then, the place trickily seemed to be so near from Ruwi, Muscat. It turned out that it's actually more than 200 kilometers drive away. From our Al Suwayh offroad drive out to the highway, we unexpectedly realized we were near the Sink Hole!

We missed the sign and had to go back. If you intend to go, turn in as soon as you read the sign 'Hawiyat Najm Park'.

When planning to take a dip, be prepared that shower water might not be available in the toilet.

The flights of stairs is tiresome, emphasizing how deep the hole is.

At the opposite side of the hole

The big Gremlin and his signature jump (I am in for an explaining on posting a tummy :-) )

Notice the fearless man jumping from the mid-upper middle, we witnessed two of them.

Do not miss this sign, it leads to the sink hole

Oman

Oman Dive Center

September 23, 2011

If there's a place I love about Muscat, it is Oman Dive Center! It's a resort just adjacent to the equally picturesque (money-required :-) ) Shangrila's Bar Al Jissah. The few Riyals for entrance fees are well worth the different experience. It's not just about beaches anyway, but of stunning water creatures and beach side formations too. It was late at 5pm when we reached the place from Yiti Beach and we cannot resist the view from atop. It closes at 7pm so there's not much we have done but we enjoyed anyway.

I've been running through online videos of Oman's underwater wonders which made me wish we could dive and return to OMC for what it's for: a diving center.

Things I like at Oman Dive Center:

1. The low tide showing off 'dented' sides of the mountain enclosures. Going nearer, one amazingly witnesses this is home to aquatic creatures.

2. The enclosed location gives more sense of privacy and diverting from the usual long stretches of open beaches.

3. The low depth further is perfect for kids, giving less worry for parents.

4. Diverse activities

5. Shallow wonders -- water creeping out small holes, snails, crabs

6. The pool, albeit small to wrap activities up.

For you wanting to know the entrance fees, business hours, restaurant hours, here's the information board outside Oman Dive Center that welcomed us (please click on photo for a clearer view):

Oman

Yiti Beach in Oman

September 23, 2011

On the other side of Oman Dive Center and Barr Al Jissah is Yitti (or Yiti) Beach.

Yiti Beach: Boats, beach, camp

The road-trippers that we are we took the tricky Souq Ruwi street route instead of Wadi Kabir. I enjoyed more the views along the way than our destination itself. It seems I have been too accustomed to Dubai's white sands that brown beaches do not appeal as much. It was a 25 kilometers (from Al Hamriya R/A) drive exiting on a steep mountain ascend then through the mountains, tree-lined villages and fishing boats.

Here's a loadful of photos: