A TR from Dubai and Oman, the rest
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 7:37 am
Here the last part of my TR from Dubai and Oman.
I have to split it up in replies because of the many pics.
You can find part 1, 2 and 3 here:
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =3&t=25186
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =3&t=25205
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =3&t=25237
MUSANDAM
The Musandam peninsula is a part of the Sultanate of Oman, but it’s laying out to the Strait of Hormuz and with boarder to the United Arab Emirates. I had read an article about the place and want to visit it, even though it wasn’t so easy to come there.
If you drive from Muscat to Musandam you have to pass a boarder twice. In Tripadvisor it was told that it can take some time to cross the boarder and can give complications especially with a rented car. It’s also possible to fly from Muscat to Khasab, the main city in Musandam, but the schedules did not fit very well into our plans. But I found out that there also was a ferry going and not a common ferry, but the world’s fastest diesel driven passenger catamaran. That sounded so interesting, that we decided to sail from Musandam to Khasab.
To book tickets to the ferry cost a lot of time. The company didn’t answer my emails, and it was difficult to find the right persons to talk with in the phone. Finally after about 3 weeks I got the confirmation for our reservation. Now we just had to cross our fingers for good weather. The trip was sometimes cancelled because of bad weather.
In Muscat we again used time to get the tickets, because we had to pick them up latest the day before leaving. So we had to do it, before we left Muscat for our roundtrip. A lot of bureaucracy but people were friendly and helpful.
Luckily it was good weather the day, we returned to Muscat from Jebel Shams. We delivered the car and were ready to board. We had to come about 2 hours before leaving, and there was nearly the same security as in an airport.
We don’t have a good picture of the ferry, but if you are interested you can see and read about it here: http://www.taif.me.uk/ren_hol/ren_hol_hsf.htm
Finally we came on board, everything was nice and clean, and the seats were like in an airplane with a little table in front. There wasn’t numbers at the seats, and we just sat down, where we saw the first free seat. But an official came and asked us to go to the next room, named the family room, a nicer room than the one we came from. We wondered, why we had to move, but when there was filled up in the room, we could see that only tourists and Arab people were sitting there. No guest workers. We had previously seen that guest workers, mainly from Pakistan and India, were treated poorly in Oman. At the airport there was a new arrived large crowd of men, who was directed to having to stand in a straight row and were treated like cattle. We of course didn’t like to see that, but it’s so difficult to judge. People from Oman is said to be the friendliest Arab people. We have only been in Dubai and Oman, so we cannot say, if it’s true, but we didn’t meet any unfriendly persons from Oman. And maybe the guest workers have a better life in Oman than they would have had in their homeland? I don’t know. But still we don’t like to see people being treated in this way..
But we enjoyed the trip. Much more funny to sail than to fly. The trip took 6 hours, and included in the price we got a delicious meal. It was windy, so outside we weren’t allowed to go all the way to the ship's side.
So we couldn’t come close to take a photo of the wake from the boat
A nice view from the window
When we drove with the bus from the ferry office out to the harbour, we fell into conversation with a woman from Australia, who was travelling alone. She had a seat just behind us on the ferry, and we found out that we were going to stay in the same place in Khasab, a bed and breakfast room in a villa.
In the family room there also was an Arab woman, who was travelling alone. I was a little confused
because she smiled to me several times, as if she wanted to come in contact with me. I of course smiled back, but we didn’t talk with each other. Suddenly she left her place and sat down on the free seat besides our new girlfriend from Australia. They had a longer conversation, and she told us afterwards that the Arab woman had invited her to visit her the next day and had told that she would like to show her Khasab. It seemed, as if she wanted to be a guide and would like to practise the English language. But she was a little strange, and her English wasn’t perfect, so our girlfriend didn’t really know what to do. At that time we didn’t know that we would meet the Arab woman later.
During the sailtrip we have hoped to be able to see the Strait of Hormuz and perhaps Iran, but before we reached the strait, it became sunset, and so dark that it was impossible to see anything..
In Khasab an Indian, who was hired to take care of the guests in the villa, picked us up. He drove us to a supermarket, so that we could buy some goods. It showed up that we had to make the breakfast ourselves. I hadn’t noticed that it’s only was bed and no breakfast.
To go around in the supermarket was really an experience. It was clean and very nice and with a wide range of products. Many of the other customers were Arab women in burka and with a black mask for the face, which is typically for women in this part of Oman. Their cloth were clean and newly ironed, and they were elegant with high heels, lipstick, perfume etc., so I felt totally wrong in my knickers, barefooted in sandals and a little sweaty.
Our room in the villa was fine, some of the things needed a little renovation, but satisfying to the price. And like nearly all houses in Oman a wall surrounded the house. They are built so that you cannot see the females in the house, if she perhaps was without the burka.
Here the villa and our room:
There wasn’t a table either in the room or outside, so in the mornings we had our primitive breakfast sitting on the doorstep – which amused us.
In the villa we also met a young couple from New Zealand, who was on honeymoon. We decided to take a Dhow cruise on the Khasab fjords the next day all together, which the Indian assistant arranged for us.
In the evening we talked about how we were looking forward finally to be able to go out snorkelling.
And became so disappointed the next morning, because it was windy and raining, and our assistant told that perhaps the owner of the boat would cancel the trip.
But after about an hour the weather became better, and we went to the harbour and the boat.
Two nice young men took care of us, the captain was from Khasab and could speak English, and so he could tell us a lot.
The Dhow was made ready for relaxing.
We were regularly offered tea and also had lunch on board.
The captain stopped in different places in the fjord to let us snorkel. It was regrettably a little disappointing. Brown corals, only small fishes etc. We had read that it should be very good to snorkel in Musandam, but for us there were nothing impressing. I don’t know, if it was the weather, or whether we simply have seen so many other beautiful places that we are hard to impress.
Anyway it was a wonderful trip. Our captain was very clever to attract dolphins, and get them to swim a race with the boat, jumping up etc.. It was so entertaining. And although the fish and corals could not impress us, so could the beautiful scenery.
Some places we could see deserted located houses, which could only be reached by boat.
Our captain told that he was born in one of the houses, and that his mother still lived there and was one of those women, who wore a masque. Interesting.
I have to split it up in replies because of the many pics.
You can find part 1, 2 and 3 here:
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =3&t=25186
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =3&t=25205
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =3&t=25237
MUSANDAM
The Musandam peninsula is a part of the Sultanate of Oman, but it’s laying out to the Strait of Hormuz and with boarder to the United Arab Emirates. I had read an article about the place and want to visit it, even though it wasn’t so easy to come there.
If you drive from Muscat to Musandam you have to pass a boarder twice. In Tripadvisor it was told that it can take some time to cross the boarder and can give complications especially with a rented car. It’s also possible to fly from Muscat to Khasab, the main city in Musandam, but the schedules did not fit very well into our plans. But I found out that there also was a ferry going and not a common ferry, but the world’s fastest diesel driven passenger catamaran. That sounded so interesting, that we decided to sail from Musandam to Khasab.
To book tickets to the ferry cost a lot of time. The company didn’t answer my emails, and it was difficult to find the right persons to talk with in the phone. Finally after about 3 weeks I got the confirmation for our reservation. Now we just had to cross our fingers for good weather. The trip was sometimes cancelled because of bad weather.
In Muscat we again used time to get the tickets, because we had to pick them up latest the day before leaving. So we had to do it, before we left Muscat for our roundtrip. A lot of bureaucracy but people were friendly and helpful.
Luckily it was good weather the day, we returned to Muscat from Jebel Shams. We delivered the car and were ready to board. We had to come about 2 hours before leaving, and there was nearly the same security as in an airport.
We don’t have a good picture of the ferry, but if you are interested you can see and read about it here: http://www.taif.me.uk/ren_hol/ren_hol_hsf.htm
Finally we came on board, everything was nice and clean, and the seats were like in an airplane with a little table in front. There wasn’t numbers at the seats, and we just sat down, where we saw the first free seat. But an official came and asked us to go to the next room, named the family room, a nicer room than the one we came from. We wondered, why we had to move, but when there was filled up in the room, we could see that only tourists and Arab people were sitting there. No guest workers. We had previously seen that guest workers, mainly from Pakistan and India, were treated poorly in Oman. At the airport there was a new arrived large crowd of men, who was directed to having to stand in a straight row and were treated like cattle. We of course didn’t like to see that, but it’s so difficult to judge. People from Oman is said to be the friendliest Arab people. We have only been in Dubai and Oman, so we cannot say, if it’s true, but we didn’t meet any unfriendly persons from Oman. And maybe the guest workers have a better life in Oman than they would have had in their homeland? I don’t know. But still we don’t like to see people being treated in this way..
But we enjoyed the trip. Much more funny to sail than to fly. The trip took 6 hours, and included in the price we got a delicious meal. It was windy, so outside we weren’t allowed to go all the way to the ship's side.
So we couldn’t come close to take a photo of the wake from the boat
A nice view from the window
When we drove with the bus from the ferry office out to the harbour, we fell into conversation with a woman from Australia, who was travelling alone. She had a seat just behind us on the ferry, and we found out that we were going to stay in the same place in Khasab, a bed and breakfast room in a villa.
In the family room there also was an Arab woman, who was travelling alone. I was a little confused
because she smiled to me several times, as if she wanted to come in contact with me. I of course smiled back, but we didn’t talk with each other. Suddenly she left her place and sat down on the free seat besides our new girlfriend from Australia. They had a longer conversation, and she told us afterwards that the Arab woman had invited her to visit her the next day and had told that she would like to show her Khasab. It seemed, as if she wanted to be a guide and would like to practise the English language. But she was a little strange, and her English wasn’t perfect, so our girlfriend didn’t really know what to do. At that time we didn’t know that we would meet the Arab woman later.
During the sailtrip we have hoped to be able to see the Strait of Hormuz and perhaps Iran, but before we reached the strait, it became sunset, and so dark that it was impossible to see anything..
In Khasab an Indian, who was hired to take care of the guests in the villa, picked us up. He drove us to a supermarket, so that we could buy some goods. It showed up that we had to make the breakfast ourselves. I hadn’t noticed that it’s only was bed and no breakfast.
To go around in the supermarket was really an experience. It was clean and very nice and with a wide range of products. Many of the other customers were Arab women in burka and with a black mask for the face, which is typically for women in this part of Oman. Their cloth were clean and newly ironed, and they were elegant with high heels, lipstick, perfume etc., so I felt totally wrong in my knickers, barefooted in sandals and a little sweaty.
Our room in the villa was fine, some of the things needed a little renovation, but satisfying to the price. And like nearly all houses in Oman a wall surrounded the house. They are built so that you cannot see the females in the house, if she perhaps was without the burka.
Here the villa and our room:
There wasn’t a table either in the room or outside, so in the mornings we had our primitive breakfast sitting on the doorstep – which amused us.
In the villa we also met a young couple from New Zealand, who was on honeymoon. We decided to take a Dhow cruise on the Khasab fjords the next day all together, which the Indian assistant arranged for us.
In the evening we talked about how we were looking forward finally to be able to go out snorkelling.
And became so disappointed the next morning, because it was windy and raining, and our assistant told that perhaps the owner of the boat would cancel the trip.
But after about an hour the weather became better, and we went to the harbour and the boat.
Two nice young men took care of us, the captain was from Khasab and could speak English, and so he could tell us a lot.
The Dhow was made ready for relaxing.
We were regularly offered tea and also had lunch on board.
The captain stopped in different places in the fjord to let us snorkel. It was regrettably a little disappointing. Brown corals, only small fishes etc. We had read that it should be very good to snorkel in Musandam, but for us there were nothing impressing. I don’t know, if it was the weather, or whether we simply have seen so many other beautiful places that we are hard to impress.
Anyway it was a wonderful trip. Our captain was very clever to attract dolphins, and get them to swim a race with the boat, jumping up etc.. It was so entertaining. And although the fish and corals could not impress us, so could the beautiful scenery.
Some places we could see deserted located houses, which could only be reached by boat.
Our captain told that he was born in one of the houses, and that his mother still lived there and was one of those women, who wore a masque. Interesting.