Taking advantage of a 4 day holiday weekend, Brian and I decided to do a road trip to Muscat, Oman. We did a little internet research and found turn by turn directions on someone else's blog - complete with instructions for navigating the Omani/UAE border crossing - sweet! So, off we went on Tuesday morning anticipating a 6-hour drive to Muscat. And for once, things went almost exactly to our plan and expectations.
The drive was interesting as we passed lots of houses (palaces might be a more appropriate description), the city of Al Ain, which is beautiful, rolling sand dunes that then morphed into rocky "mountains" and along the coast of Oman to Muscat. I've included a few random photos of the trip below.
The border crossing was painless. First step is that you have to pay to get out of UAE ... yes, you read that right, pay to exit (so annoying), but it was easy and only about $20 for the two of us. Then you drive about 30 minutes before you come to the entry point for Oman. We wondered what would happen should you get a traffic ticket while in the 'no man's land' between the two countries, and figured you'd probably pay twice - once to Oman and then to UAE. We decided not to test the theory. The entry point to Oman was easy and required that we purchase visit visas. We also had to have valid Omani car insurance for the duration of our trip, which we purchased a few days before. Otherwise, just a matter of waiting in lines and handing over our money.
Back on the road and into Oman towards Muscat. More nice scenery and before we knew it, we were pulling into the Crowne Plaza, our home for the next 3 days. The trip took us just under 6 hours, as we expected, and was really pretty nice.
We were impressed by how green everything was. This road is over 100km long and has street lights and palms trees the whole way (like most of UAE actually). The second photo is in Oman and you can see the beautiful bougainvillea along the side of the road.
Just two of the MANY roundabout art we saw in both UAE and Oman. I think I'll do a separate post of all the roundabout photos I have.
We passed many trucks with cows, goats and even camels in the back - cracked us up every time.
One of the many beautiful houses we passed on the way into Muscat. This is one of the better ones - I'm not so good at shooting great photos when the car is moving at 130km/hour. :)
The drive was interesting as we passed lots of houses (palaces might be a more appropriate description), the city of Al Ain, which is beautiful, rolling sand dunes that then morphed into rocky "mountains" and along the coast of Oman to Muscat. I've included a few random photos of the trip below.
The border crossing was painless. First step is that you have to pay to get out of UAE ... yes, you read that right, pay to exit (so annoying), but it was easy and only about $20 for the two of us. Then you drive about 30 minutes before you come to the entry point for Oman. We wondered what would happen should you get a traffic ticket while in the 'no man's land' between the two countries, and figured you'd probably pay twice - once to Oman and then to UAE. We decided not to test the theory. The entry point to Oman was easy and required that we purchase visit visas. We also had to have valid Omani car insurance for the duration of our trip, which we purchased a few days before. Otherwise, just a matter of waiting in lines and handing over our money.
Back on the road and into Oman towards Muscat. More nice scenery and before we knew it, we were pulling into the Crowne Plaza, our home for the next 3 days. The trip took us just under 6 hours, as we expected, and was really pretty nice.
Hi Renee,
ReplyDeleteliked reading your blog; in fact was the first one I read when I decided to come to Abu Dhabi for work. I am planning to go to Muscat on a road trip during the coming Eid holidays. Could you please forward me the turn by turn directions that you had found to anna0109@hotmail.com?
thanks