Marvelous Muscat

We never thought our visit to Oman would be very nice. It’s a great getaway from the hustle and bustle of Dubai.  Another great thing about it is that you don’t have to spend too much to have a relaxing Eid holiday. Here are few imaes of what we say in our overnight trip to Muscat. We will give tips too and an idea of how much it will cost.
On the way to Muscat, we first took the Buraimi road because we had to pass by my aunt who was visiting Al Ain. Border fees will cost you around 50 per person.

TIP #1: Check with the Omani Consulate if you have restrictions in your passport/visa. It is not worth it to drive there and get rejected. We were all sad when one of our travel companions was not given a visa to enter Oman.
It is around four to five hours from the UAE border to Muscat. When we reached Muscat proper, we found the city clean, green and traffic-less. There were no skyscrapers and fancy buildings but there were no extraordinary place to visit.

We followed a tourist map to the Old Muscat hoping to see something better and lo and behold, a white old town surrounded by rocky hills faced the Gulf of Oman. It was a sight to behold.

Next thing we did was look for a place to rest after the long drive. We didn’t want to stay too far from the Old Muscat so we found a good 4-star hotel, Al Falaj Hotel. They were able to give us a discount and we paid 45riyals for a double room. Including breakfast and use of amenities like the swimming pool.

This was the view from our room.

After a refreshing nap, we drove around the Old Muscat however we were not able to get a lot of good pictures because it was dark soon.

We went and visited the souq and had shawarmas in a street cafeteria.

Then we retired for the night.
I woke up around 6:30am all geared up to take more photos but none of my companions were ready to get up.  Arish didn’t want to get up too because he still had to drive for 5 hours on our way home so I went by myself. Here are few shots I took. 

I really wanted to take pictures of the locals and a few children but didn’t have the guts to approach them. I should try and practice people skills to get better travel photos. :-/
On our way to Dubai, we passed by the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. It is a must see when you visit Muscat. It boasts the largest handwoven single piece carpet and chandelier. However, we were not able to see that.

TIP # 2: The mosque is only open to visitors from 8am to 11am. Women should wear conservative clothing, no sleeveless and no shorts nor short skirts.
We also passed by the Sohar beach. Suprisingly, it was not crowded unlike the beaches of UAE.

We entered UAE through the Hatta border and saw the sands of Hatta. There was quite a queue in the border but we found the journey here better than that of Buraimi.

Well, definitely Muscat makes it to our list of cities we would visit again.