Mysterious Salalah

Salalah is Oman's second largest city. It probably has the most favoured location in the Arabian Peninsula,where you can experience light drizzles, mist covered mountains and palm-fringed  white sandy beaches, with the green Dhofar Mountains.

Muscat to salalah : Road Trip Trivia

Distance 1019 kms
Gas Filling Stations are far flung (Advisable to top up your petrol tank wherever you find a gas filling station)
You might encounter desert storms and camels rushing from either sides of the road , which are flanked by vast deserts.


Trip Plan:
Duration : 3 days
Expense : Petrol is cheap,Company's place to live and food.. we'll we are beasts sometimes [:)]
Places to visit :Mirbat,Taqa,Gravity Point,Wadi Darbat,Mugsail beach, Yemen border,Ayn Razaat
Mode of Travel : Car and Bus

Day 1: Muscat to Salalah
After office we rushed to catch the bus around 6 pm.which had no leg room and somehow I felt the seats were designed for school kids... we struggled to find places to rest our shoulders but the excitement and the company was there to ignore that.


Day 2: 1st Day at Salalah - 5:00 AM
We came out of the bus and "sudden shiver" was the first feeling, especially when you are used to the hot dry weather in the gulf region.It was drizzling and roads wore a cover of fog.

A small rest to straighten our backs and we left for breakfast.
Udipi Restaurant at 23rd July Street is a place with good food and hostile(yes this is not a typo , i did mean hostile not hospitable) service.

--- Trip to Mirbat : Mirbat (70 KM from Salalah) is a beautiful place with a beautiful beach , but do not attempt to swim as the underwater current can be hazardous.

--- Trip to Taqa : Taqa (35 KM from Salalah)
                                              The Haffa Palace on the way to beach

--- Anti Gravity Point : While coming back from Mirbat to Salalah, the drive through the mountains was a breathtaking experience.

We had heard about the Anti-Gravity point and we all were excited to experience this phenomena which defied laws which we studied all this years in Physics.

We finally reached the Anti Gravity Spot and we carried out a small drill to verify the tale.
We switched off the engine of the car and Gosh... we still were moving up the hill.

After that we happily moved back to Salalah, it was dark and drizzling and suddenly someone said " Guys let's drive up the mountain that leads to Job's Tomb ". We all stared at each other as we had a Mitsubishi Lancer(Manual) and the road had steep slopes and had become slippery ..thanks to the rain.

Reluctant(and scared) but we all decided to go ahead.The roads had near ZERO visibility and drizzle made it worse to add to the woes.. the Arabs with 4WDs were zipping from the mountain top with fog lights on.Somehow we reached and point(not at the peak) and decided it was unsafe to go ahead without a 4WD.
The drizzle,the fog and chilled winds squeezed out the kids within us.. jumping around,taking snaps.

Day 3: 2nd Day at Salalah
The agenda for the day (yeah as we normally speak in office and it had traversed back into our lives !!) was ... well we were techie-tramps anyways , NO AGENDA this time and all we needed to do was switch on the Engine and GPS and " follow the course of the road".

---Trip to Mugsail:

mugsail beach

We headed for Mugsail beach, which reveals a violent sea lashing onto the rocks and the water pumping out of the sink holes and roaring like an anaconda.The caves, the fog covered rocky shores are things to experience.

rocky shores of mugsail beach

---Trip to Yemen Border:
After Mugsail beach we left for the Yemen Border  which people say is a breathtaking view from the top..We came across heavy artillery guns but polite army personnel who stopped us at the check posts which is regular activity around the border area. Unfortunately we couldn't see much as the fog cover was too thick,but the drive was certainly amazing.


Day 4: Leaving Salalah 5:00 am
As planned we had to start off early and reach Muscat by late afternoon.Wwe were all set to hit the roads... 1019 Kms drive through the desert flanked roads...  but before that we had to cross the foggy mountains of  Tumrait.

Around 10 am , after 5 hours of drive , we had almost covered 600 kms .. so in short avg speed was 120 kms/hr. We were upto upto something... yes!!!  we were trying to touch the MAX SPEED on the open highway. We finally managed to touch 180 kms/hr on the odometer.

180 kms/hr

Happy and content with what we achieved... we settled down for some music,talked for a while and clicking anything that came our way.Suddenly we realized we were in the middle of a desert sand storm, we hardly managed to drive at 40kms/hr and we realized the temperature inside was rising.The temperature inside the car was around 21 deg and slowly it was rising to 32 deg.

a desert storm

By 2 pm we were in Nizwa , which means we should be reaching Muscat in another 2-3 hours.We had lunch at a food joint.We finally reached Muscat at 4 pm.9 hours drive and hot desert storm had the obvious effect.