Tag Archives: sea

Camping trip from Dubai to Musandam, Oman

Long weekends are hard to find in the UAE. And with the weather getting better for a change, it was just the right time for camping. As amateurs, Balan & I picked up the entire kit from Lulu and packed it in the trunk. Yes, the camping list is planned for another post.

After a lazy start, we set on the road to Khasab via Ras Al Khaimah. We got a bit lost and instead landed on the road to Jabal Jais – the highest mountain in the UAE. It’s a 30 min detour that goes uphill through rocky mountains and serves a view from the not-so-high summit.

View from Jabal Jais
View from Jabal Jais
I love bakeries!
I love bakeries!

We headed back to RAK to join the coastal road and stopped by at a local bakery for a quick bite. The freshly baked pizza & assorted fatayer were just delectable – only to release that the delivery boy had baked them in absence of the chef 😉

Next stop was the border. On the UAE side, we had to park to get exit stamps. This is where they verify that the visa is eligible for visa-on-arrival in Oman. There’s an exit fee of 35Dh per head, only accepted via the e-Dirham card. So if you have one, carry it along. We were given a slip mentioning the number of people & vehicle number which we had to give at the UAE border exit.

Omani Border post
Omani Border post

We stopped again in about 100m at the Omani border to get our visas. Lucky for us, there were no queues. The visa fee of OMR 5  (~50Dh) is not accepted in Riyals, so we paid by card. A 30 day permit was stamped in exchange for the fee and a small form. Back in the car, Omani customs took a quick peep in the boot and let us go. 5 minutes in to Oman and the views were heavenly. We were just in time for sunset.

Sunset at the border
Sunset at the border

We kept driving on the coastal road for the next 40 kms and kept finding camping spots that we’d marked on GPS. We thought Continue reading Camping trip from Dubai to Musandam, Oman

Day 7: Saddened by Izmir’s refugee death boats

On the train from Selcuk, I was reading about how close Greece was to Izmir. With daily coast-to-coast ferries, I regretted not  planning a trip despite of a valid Schengen visa. On arriving, we were all extremely hungry and headed to a cafe on the main street connecting Basmane station with the coast.

Delicious lahmacun & pide with lentil soup

We noticed an unusual transition in the anthropological scene. Instead of an European influence, we noticed more Arabic features. We saw garment stores selling life jackets & tubes. Some suspicious men were walking in and out of the cafe. In a flash second, all dots connected in my head. Izmir was the starting point for refugee death boats headed to the Greek coast. The unraveling of facts and accompanying images only saddened us.

Shops selling life jackets & tubes
Shops selling life jackets & tubes

We woke up in the morning to go around the city, Continue reading Day 7: Saddened by Izmir’s refugee death boats