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Part 3: Sharjah, Khasab (Oman), Ras Al
Khaimah
20-21.12: Munich -> Dubai
22.12: Dubai
23.12: Dubai
24.12: Dubai -> Sharjah -> Khasab
25.12: Musandam fjords -> Khasab
26.12: Khasab -> Ras Al Khaimah
27.12: Ras Al Khaimah -> Dibba -> Fujairah
28.12: Fujairah -> Al Ain
29.12: Al Ain
30.12: Al Ain
31.12: Al Ain -> Liwa oasis
1.1: Liwa oasis -> Abu Dhabi
2.1: Abu Dhabi
3.1: Abu Dhabi
4.1: Abu Dhabi
5.1: Abu Dhabi -> Istanbul -> Munich
24.12: Dubai ->
Sharjah ->
Khasab (Oman)
Esraa
Hotel
Apartment, Khasab (Oman). 103 Euro for an apartment with two
bedrooms, a kitchen and two toilets. By far not as flashy and elegant
as the Welcome hotel in Dubai, but more space. Two TVs, A/C, fan,
furniture in each bedroom (tables, chairs, cupboards). Few A/C power
plugs. Toilet with bathtub/shower combo, electrical water boiler
system, no hairdryer, no A/C power plug.
The kitchen is relatively basic: a fridge, a
microwave oven, kitchen stove. No dishwasher, no washing machine for
clothes. The hotel is a bit out of town. Ok if you have a car, but if
you don't, it gets complicated.
WLAN is free, available in the room, but the
line is bad: I cannot manage to connect with the notebook PC, while the
Android tablets have a weak connection.
Weather: sunny, blue sky
with some
clouds, windy, but less than yesterday. A bit fresh.
I
get up at 8:30am, but we only manage to leave the hotel and start
driving towards Sharjah around 11am. Then it takes longer than expected
to reach Sharjah, because the Sygic car navigation system sucks. It
gives me the wrong directions and makes me go in circles. After a while
I start screening very critically the driving instructions it gives,
skipping instructions which do not seem plausible. After 45 minutes of
driving, at 11:45am, we are finally in Sharjah at the Hisn fort.
Parking by the way costs AED 2 for one hour, AED 5 for two hours, AED 8
for three hours and so on.
We leave the car and start exploring the area. The fort is undergoing
restorations and can't be visited. It's sort of cute, but is surrounded
by tall skyscrapers, which make it look a bit funny and out of place.
Also, the fort is isolated from the Sharjah heritage area. Instead of
having one contiguous historic district, the old buildings are mixed
with skyscrapers and separated from each other.
It's almost 12pm and we start looking for a restaurant. No such thing
here. It seems Sharjah doesn't like tourists, or doesn't know how a
tourist place should look like. It should be all tourist attractions in
one
area and hotels and restaurants located conveniently next to it. We
have to ask a local for directions and he tells us that the restaurants
are all in a certain area.
We walk to this area and finally find the main heritage area. This
seems to be a work in progress, with restoration and construction
ongoing. It could be sort of interesting if the city planners
had arranged things better and not mixed old with new. But like this,
the heritage area leaves quite a bit to be desired.
We use Google maps to locate the restaurants in the area, then head to
a
KFC restaurant for some quick lunch at 1pm. At 1:30pm I give a call to
the Sharjah desert park and hear that on Tuesdays (today) it's closed.
The original plan was to visit this place, then drive to Oman at 5pm.
So, around 2pm we walk back to the car and start driving towards Oman.
While in Sharjah we make a couple of photo stops around the blue souk,
which is very photogenic.
It takes a while to get out of Sharjah and reach the motorway. This is
due to the outdated Sygic maps and to the fact that lots of roads are
being rearranged all the time and roadworks block the road here and
there. And the closest motorway junction is closed.
Anyway, at 3 something pm we finally are on the motorway towards Oman.
The
motorway is not bad (three or more lanes). The speed limit is 120km/h.
It's almost 5pm when we reach the border. Quite complex procedure.
First we have to get out of the UAE and they charge us a total of 114
AED for
this. Quite weird, why would you have to pay some money to get out of a
country?
Then we have to enter Oman. We have to fill in application forms for
all of us and finally they ask us to pay 200 AED. I explain that with
the "Common visa facility with the Emirate of Dubai" we don't have to
pay a fee, and even show the website of the Royal Oman police. The
border officers pretend to know nothing and insist that we have to pay.
Then they claim that the free border crossing is another one, further
south between the emirate of Dubai and Oman.
This explanation sounds almost plausible, but if so, why doesn't the
website of the Royal Oman police mention this restriction?
Anyway, we have lost one hour with border crossing
formalities. It's 6pm and we start driving the last 45km of the
journey. This part of the trip takes about one hour. A
couple of km after the border there is a checkpoint of the Omani
police. Then the road is very curvy, which limits the maximum driving
speed.
Shortly before 7pm we reach the outskirts of Khasab. Once there we make
a stop at
the Lulu supermarket where we buy some food. Delicious, freshly cooked
take-away, very cheap food in this supermarket: choice of chicken
curries, beef dishes, fish dishes, fried rice and more.
We reach the hotel around 8pm. There the staff tell us that they
need the hotel voucher of Agoda printed out on a piece of paper. The
problem
however is that Agoda, brilliant as they are, have only issued the
voucher three days ago and sent it by email.
Perhaps Agoda should send these vouchers, which apparently are needed
for checking in, immediately when somebody makes a booking. Or Agoda
could adopt the booking.com mechanism, with which vouchers are not
needed for checking in.
In any case it's quite a mess to retrieve the voucher and ultimately it
only works because I travel with a notebook computer and have access to
the Internet all the time.
I could imagine that other tourists,
who do not carry so much IT infrastructure with themselves, end up
running into trouble with Agoda, if for instance Agoda only issues
these vouchers very late.
25.12: Boat trip
to
Musandam fjords
-> Khasab
Esraa Hotel
Apartment, Khasab (Oman). The water boiler in the toilets doesn't have
enough hot water for one shower (unless you restart the heater
immediately before taking one shower and wait).
Weather: sunny, blue
sky, quite
fresh. On the sea a mix of cold and warm, mainly due to the strong
wind.
The highlight of the day and perhaps of the entire trip is the boat
trip to the Musandam fjords. Best day so far, first real holiday
feeling.
We leave the hotel shortly after 9:30am, then get lost and cannot
manage to find the boat. In the end, after a few phone calls (luckily
we have a local phone number), we are escorted to the small harbour
where the tour boats are located.
The tour boats are wooden boats in different sizes, with a tent roof as
a sun protection. Ours has a carpet and pillows at the edges on which
you can sit and relax.
The boat staff hands over hot tea, water and
soft drinks, fresh fruits and a meal at noon (chicken biryani, steamed
rice, salad, hummus). The chicken is not bad, but far too dry and hard.
It has probably been cooked too much.
On the boat we meet a couple of Malaysians (hello, my wife is Malaysian
too) with kids. They work in Dubai and came in as a short trip. Later
speedboats will add two Italian guys and two German women to the boat.
Apparently these travellers didn't manage to be at the pier by 10am and
joined the boat with some sort of a water taxi service.
Anyway, at 10:10am we leave the harbour. The sea is initially a bit
rough, but becomes very quiet as soon as we enter the fjord. At 10:28am
we spot the first dolphin. A white animal following our boat, emerging
and diving again next to the boat. All tourists on the boat, but
especially the kids, as very excited.
There will be many more dolphin sightings today. After the failed
dolphin sighting trip in Malaysia in 2010 I'm not too optimistic about
spotting dolphins today. Needless to say I'm completely overwhelmed by
groups of dolphins following our boats and jumping around like dogs
following their master. I used to think these sightings of dolphins
only happen in the movies, but no, here they happen today.
I set up the camera to the 10 frames per second high-speed mode and end
up shooting over 700 frames today. I fill one 16GB memory card and 2/3
of the second one. Lots of time spent out in the evening sorting out
the bad shots.
The scenery is very nice, although not as spectacular as I was
expecting it. No 1000 metres tall cliffs plunging straight into the
sea, not like a Norwegian fjord scenario. There is one small village,
actually consisting of only a few houses, mostly of fishermen, in the
fjord area. Then we see some other houses here and there. Otherwise
there is not much of a human presence, except for the boats of the tour
operators.
At 11:20am we stop in front of what must be Telegraph island. Other
tour boats are also stopping here. Some tourists brave the cold winds
and jump into the sea for some snorkelling. The sea water is actually
not that cold, it's the cold wind which is the problem. We are not that
tough, so don't jump into the sea.
At 12pm lunch is served, at 12:40pm the trip continues. There will be
one more snorkelling stop, otherwise it's navigating around a bit and
spotting dolphins all the time.
We do not go on land, which surprises me a bit, because from the
various trio reports I got the impression that these boat trips
include landings on the coast.
At 4:15pm we are back at the harbour. I wonder if it makes sense to
spend the last hour of daylight exploring a bit Khasab, but Khasab is
already completely in the shadow, no sun is shining on the city. Also,
a quick check shows that there is not much to do in Khasab. So we just
go to the Lulu supermarket, buy some dinner for tonight, then head back
to the hotel.
26.12: Khasab
-> Ras Al Khaimah
Hotel Mangrove by Bin
Majid, Ras Al
Khaimah. 400 AED or a large room, very elegant, with lots of furniture.
Two queen size beds, sleeping sofa, LCD TV, fridge, A/C, phone,
electronic safe, attached bathroom with hairdryer, bathtub+shower,
breakfast included. The room actually costs 450 AED, but they discount
it to 400 AED (see below). WLAN available, but not free. Good
restaurant (international; there is also a Chinese restaurant). Four
star hotel, best hotel so far on this trip. Lots of European tourists.
Buffet style breakfast, quite good, although not top level.
Weather:
sunny, much warmer
than yesterday, spotless blue sky. I wish we had had this weather
yesterday when doing the cruise.
We pack our stuff and leave the hotel at 10:50am. The idea would be to
have a look at the mountains behind Khasab. The hotel staff
suggests to drive to Khor Najed (also spelled as "Khur" and "Najid"),
where there is something like a lake. Later I realise that Khor Najid
is not a lake, but a fjord.
To get to Khor Najed we drive out of Khasab on the road to Dibba, then
turn left after about 15km (army/police checkpoint along the
way). Here there is an unpaved road which climbs up the mountain to a
pass. From this pass there is a great view of the fjord. Then the road
goes steeply down to the sea level. A 4WD car is not necessary because
the road surface is smooth enough (no big stones on the street). Road
construction is ongoing, so probably in the future this road will be
paved.
In Khur Najid there is nothing, except for a number of private boats
and several cars, most of which are 4WD. Perhaps Khor Najed will be
developed as a harbour for private boats.
We spend perhaps 10-15 minutes down at the sea level, then start
driving back to Khasab at 12:15pm. Shortly before 1pm we are back in
Khasab. We check out briefly the centre of Khasab, then visit the
castle.
This is a fort which has been renovated and converted into a museum
(ticket: 0.5 OR). Inside there are some exhibits about the life in
Musandam in the past. All in all moderately interesting.
At 1:15pm we start driving towards Ras Al Khaimah. Along the way we
stop in a number of spots, where there is a nice view of the coast. At
2pm we stop at a beautiful sandy beach, completely undeveloped, next to
the road. We spend 25 minutes there, then continue driving.
At 3:20pm then reach the border. This time there are no fees to pay and
getting through only takes half an hour ("only" in relative terms,
because crossing a border shouldn't take more than a few minutes).
Once back in the Emirates, the road become much more straight and
motorway-like. Still there is a speed limit of 80 km/h, which is very
hard to understand and which in fact few people follow.
Around 4:30pm we reach Ras Al Khaimah and should turn right according
to the navigation system. But we can't because on the right side there
are
roadworks. Big detour around the bay to make it to central Ras Al
Khaimah.
On the way we stop at the Sheikh Zayed mosque, which stands out in this
late aftenoon light in the skyline of Ras Al Khaimah. After some
searching (the Mangrove hotel is not in the Sygic navigation system) we
reach the hotel shortly before 5pm.
Checking in takes a while, because for some reason the hotel staff are
very busy. Then they can't find our booking, and later it turns out
that they have no connecting rooms and that the two rooms we have
booked would be on different floors.
Some discussion follows. The only reason I had booked two rooms is that
apparently one room only sleeps two people. But they tell me a room can
sleep two adults and two kids. So we check out the standard room and
see that there are two queen size beds. So two adults could sleep with
two kids, but it's a bit narrow.
We ask if there is a bigger room, and yes, they have the executive room
for 450 AED (vs 300 AED for the standard room). We check that and ok,
we'll take that. The guy suggests if we want to add a breakfast for an
additional 100 AED. Ok, let's splurge it, we'll take also the
breakfast. Total cost should be 550 AED.
Back down in the reception I cancel one of the two rooms I've booked.
Then surprise, surprise, the guy upgrades us from the standard to the
executive room at no charge, i.e. we pay AED 300 for the executive room
+ AED 100 for the breakfast. Sounds like a pretty good deal for the UAE.
In the evening we have a dinner in the hotel restaurant. Usually we eat
in external restaurants, but I'm thinking that it's less complicated if
we have a
dinner here. The dinner is not cheap (AED 242 for the four of us), but
very delicious and plentiful.
Copyright
2014
Alfred Molon
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