Today marks the four month anniversary of my arrival to Dubai, and what better way to commemorate such an occasion than with another VISA renewal run to Oman? As you may recall from last time I had to do this (two months ago to the day) I rented a shitty Renault, drove to the Hatta border checkpoint, and on the way back got stuck in sand in the middle of nowhere ... you get the drift, it blew. Since two months later I am still without a vehicle of my own I had to rent another car, but this time I decided to go in style.
Yesterday morning I picked up a pimped out 2006 Audi A6 from the rental agency and it was off to Oman. This time instead of just crossing the border to get a new visa and then turning around to come home I figured since I was already driving that far I'd keep going and hit up the capital city, Muscat, which is about 3.5 hours drive from Dubai at a speedy 160km/h. I had no idea the mountains here were that big. Sure, it's not the Alps, but Dubai is so flat it's nice to look at anything different. Once I got to the coast (the Indian Ocean, that is) the road that runs down to Muskat is pretty boring - straight, flat, and kind of ugly. Fortunately the rental car had a booming stereo system with a sub and a shiny new in-dash control system that was good for hours of deafening entertainment - and you really haven't lived until you've driven through the Omani mountains listing to AC/DC at full volume. Now there are stationary traffic cameras on the highways here to "discourage" speeding, but they're so easy to spot that everyone just blasts along at 160 km/h + and then just taps the breaks whenever they one of the big ugly boxes.
Muscat itself is great - a real change from cosmopolitan Dubai. The architecture is much more traditional and the apparent pace of life there is much slower. Perched on a narrow strip of land along the coast and surrounded by mountains, pretty much anywhere you look there's a nice view to be had. While I was there I also checked out some of the finer hotels including this insane resort called The Chedi, which with its warm, post-modern design is the middle east equivalent of Le Germain in Montreal.
The last thing I have to say in this story that now seems to be pointlessly rambling on is an important lesson that I learned while on my drive back. DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET COFFEE AT A ROADSIDE STOP IN OMAN. 'Yeah yeah' you think, we've all had shitty gas station coffee before. Well let me tell you, I don't know what this shit was, but it wasn't coffee. I had one sip of it and nearly puked all over the aforementioned bangin' stereo system, and if that happened it would've been a seriously long drive home.
Yesterday morning I picked up a pimped out 2006 Audi A6 from the rental agency and it was off to Oman. This time instead of just crossing the border to get a new visa and then turning around to come home I figured since I was already driving that far I'd keep going and hit up the capital city, Muscat, which is about 3.5 hours drive from Dubai at a speedy 160km/h. I had no idea the mountains here were that big. Sure, it's not the Alps, but Dubai is so flat it's nice to look at anything different. Once I got to the coast (the Indian Ocean, that is) the road that runs down to Muskat is pretty boring - straight, flat, and kind of ugly. Fortunately the rental car had a booming stereo system with a sub and a shiny new in-dash control system that was good for hours of deafening entertainment - and you really haven't lived until you've driven through the Omani mountains listing to AC/DC at full volume. Now there are stationary traffic cameras on the highways here to "discourage" speeding, but they're so easy to spot that everyone just blasts along at 160 km/h + and then just taps the breaks whenever they one of the big ugly boxes.
Muscat itself is great - a real change from cosmopolitan Dubai. The architecture is much more traditional and the apparent pace of life there is much slower. Perched on a narrow strip of land along the coast and surrounded by mountains, pretty much anywhere you look there's a nice view to be had. While I was there I also checked out some of the finer hotels including this insane resort called The Chedi, which with its warm, post-modern design is the middle east equivalent of Le Germain in Montreal.
The last thing I have to say in this story that now seems to be pointlessly rambling on is an important lesson that I learned while on my drive back. DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET COFFEE AT A ROADSIDE STOP IN OMAN. 'Yeah yeah' you think, we've all had shitty gas station coffee before. Well let me tell you, I don't know what this shit was, but it wasn't coffee. I had one sip of it and nearly puked all over the aforementioned bangin' stereo system, and if that happened it would've been a seriously long drive home.
bruce sez:
Jason,
glad you could see Muscat, it's an amazing city. When I was there, that mosque was still under construction. Drop me a line when you get a moment.
posted Friday July 28, 2006 at 03:44 PM EDT
nzm sez:
Oman is a wonderful country and such a contrast to the UAE. We love going there and have been up and down mountain tracks into remote villages and met some super friendly Omanis. We had great coffee with them and their goats! :-)
Our blog has some posts about it in the Archives section - November and December.
http://mandjadventures.blogspot.com
posted Sunday July 30, 2006 at 01:55 PM EDT