For the second day in a row I had my alarm set for 6:00am this morning. The reason was that today’s main task was to undertake the long drive from Muscat to Khasab, the largest town in Musandum. Musandam is “Oman’s Alaska”, part of the country that is separated from ‘mainland Oman’ (by the UAE rather than by Canada, of course), situated across from Iran on the Strait of Hormuz.
The statistics of the trip illustrate the need to start early on this winter day with short daylight hours – the drive (with stops for fuel and border crossings) took 7 hours 50 minutes, and the distance travelled was 548 kilometres. Given that my rental car contract (like all car rentals in Oman) only includes a daily allowance of 250 kilometres, my cumulative total of 995 kilometres from yesterday’s and today’s drive may become the subject of an interesting conversation when I return the car in Muscat in a few days time – which will be after I do the return trip and cover another 550 or so kilometres.
I had a final fabulous breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, checked out, and I was on my way by 8:20am. The scenery for most of my drive across Oman to the border crossing at Khatmat Milaha (just south of the UAE border city of Kalba) was quite unremarkable, so the prohibition on stopping at the side of the excellent 8-lane expressway was not a hardship. The quality of the road was equal to the best in the world, and travelling constantly at the speed limit of 120 kilometres per hour almost felt like standing still.
There was, however, one quite stressful experience. I knew I needed to buy petrol fairly early on the trip as the car’s computer was showing that I had fuel in the tank for only 150 kilometres or so. However, the petrol stations were surprisingly few and far apart. A complicating factor was that small signs advertising petrol stations at (typically) either 3km or 10km ahead only explained in Arabic that these stations required an exit or turnoff from the expressway, and by the time I realised this important detail it was another 20 or 30 (and sometimes 40) kilometres before the next exit – which usually did not have any petrol stations.
The car was getting unnerving low on fuel, and with the car’s computer saying I had just 46 kilometres range remaining and with warning lights flashing, I (illegally) pulled over to the side of the expressway to check Google Maps. It showed the nearest petrol station was just off the expressway 47 kilometres ahead.
That was a bit close for comfort, but I thought a one kilometre walk would be possible if necessary. I drove at a slower speed (100 kmh) and drove as smoothly as possible to conserve fuel. To my relief, Google Map’s ‘remaining distance’ declined at a faster rate than the fuel range displayed by the car’s computer. It all worked – I was able to drive all the way into the petrol station, and I calculated that I probably had about 700 metres more range to use had I needed it. The service station attendant filled the tank – 54 litres for 12 rials, which is $Aust 43.68, or $Aust 0.84 per litre.
Refuelled, I continued my drive and reached the Oman-UAE border at Khatmat Milaha at 11:50am. The border crossing was fairly straightforward, and I had cleared both Omani and Emirati processes by 12:25. It was immediately obvious that driving in the UAE is quite different from Oman, being far more aggressive and less ordered in the UAE. The route I followed through the UAE took me through the border city of Kalba northwards to skirt around the city centre of Fujairah, then west across the mountains before turning north along Kadra Road, around the eastern side of Ras Al-Khaimah and north to the Al Dara border crossing, which I reached at 2:45pm.
Once again, the immigration and customs crossing processes were fairly smooth on both sides of the border, and I was on my way at 3:10pm, returning to a gentler driving environment. The distance from the border to my hotel in Khasab was only 42 kilometres, but the drive took me a full hour, partly because the road twisted so much, and partly because I kept stopping to take photos. The road followed the almost non-existent sliver of a coastal plain between the waters of the Straits of Hormuz and the steep mountains that plunge steeply down to the water. Quite simply, this short dramatic drive is one of the great sights of the Gulf Region.
I arrived at my hotel, the Atana Khasab Hotel at 4:10pm and checked in. The hotel is just over two kilometres west from the town of Khasab – the Musandam Peninsula’s largest town with a population of 21,700 people.
As I had been sitting down all day in the car, not even being to get out at the border crossing from Oman to the UAE, I really felt the need for some exercise. Fortunately, there was about an hour of daylight remaining, so I decided to take the walk into Khasab and back again.
It was a very pleasant, if somewhat cool and breezy walk as far as Khasab Castle and back again, a distance of 5.86 kilometres, and a lovely refreshing finish to a long day. I’m already excited by the scenery I’ve seen since arriving in Musandam, and really looking forward to the two full days I have scheduled here.
