Or more like 30% of it.
Why Oman?
The main question we received constantly was:
Oh. Why are you going to Oman?
Now thats a fair enough question — my travel history is generally focused on tropical destinations (think Thailand, Zanzibar, Indonesia), but hasn’t exactly been the Middle East.
To be fair, Oman hadn’t even crossed my mind until Jean and I were thinking of where we could go on holiday. We needed:
Exciting nature and wildlife — vibrant culture — good food — relatively low cost — some options for nicer hotels — either beach or snow — we like to be active — we have no visa restrictions — no typical destinations such as Paris, New York, LA or similar — something special and uncommon
This is what we asked ChatGPT. Aaaaand out of the 5 options we received, Oman was there. So we thought “why not.”
And thats when I got to start working my magic (which frightened Jean). Basically, in the space of one hour I found:
- all hotels and flight details
- car rentals
- restaurants
- destinations
- excursions
All for the best prices because I hunt. Contact me if you need help planning!
Right. The trip.
For the first time ever, we flew with Turkish Airlines, with a layover in Istanbul. Overall, it was a good experience — flight was comfortable, the food was good, we had decent space. What was a slightly less good experience was the fact that we paid 30EUR for 1 McDonalds cheeseburger menu and 13EUR for an iced latte.
…
Moving on! We arrived in Muscat at around 1am and the general process at the airport was very smooth. We were worried about immigration: its a bit of a special scenario, because we were staying for less than 14 days we didn’t need a visa? So this seems sketch. But turns out this is actually the case and the immigration officer was incredibly kind.
Day one
So here’s the thing right. We arrived at our hotel at like 3am right — and because we absolutely find it important to make the most out of our hotel and the breakfast included, we forced ourselves awake at 9am and forced ourselves to have breakfast.
We did what any good travelers would do. Went back to the room to check out the TV channels and found one that played movies all day long. And then we walked about 10min to a nearby mall for lunch. And then we went to the pool.
You know.
The usual, high culture, immersing yourself into local life, kind of day.
That’s when we saw the Ikea and decided it would be one of our outings one day.
Ok ok. We saved the afternoon at least by going to Muttrah Souq and walking up Muttrah Fort.
Day two
You remember how we didn’t exactly get much sleep the first night? And you remember how I was so excited about having booked all the excursions, activities and what not ages ago and being proactive thinking that we could just rally?
WELL WELL WELL.
Day two was an 8am boat trip to the Daymaniyat islands to snorkel with the turtles.
A few notes here to my former self:
- A boat. Really? A boat? Considering how I nearly threw myself overboard on the one in Thailand because I felt so ill?
- Be on location at 8am. Why. When the port is at least a 30min drive away so that means waking up at 6.15am???
- Oh me gee, turtles! I love turtles.
The boat trip actually ended up being totally fine — I came #PREPARED. I had: gum, anti-nausea pills (of which I took plenty), ice cold water, and Jean who promised he wouldn’t start talking football to the captain.
We get closer to the islands when we start to see some turtles popping their heads above water. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the phone case protector to take the phone into the water so I don’t have any visuals on the turtles. You’ll just have to follow the sound of my voice as I explain it to you: imagine clear sky blue water, white sand, fish, colorful coral and. Turtles. Just. Turtles. Everywhere. Swimming. They will literally come up right to your face. It was awesome.
We found the boat excursion through GetYourGuide and we absolutely can recommend them: https://www.getyourguide.com/muscat-l233/muscat-daymaniat-islands-snorkeling-trip-with-lunch-t529891/.
The water was warm, the boat was comfortable, the fish were fish. The whole vibe felt like that scene in Finding Nemo where the fish use the turtles as a vehicle (because that did happen).
We were out for about 4ish hours after which we went back to the hotel to take it easy. Don’t forget, this is the Lazy Person’s Guide — key emphasis on “Lazy.”
In the evening we went to the Mumtaz Mahal Restaurant which was fantastic (thank you to Sam for the recommendation). The Indian food brought me back to life at my grandparents in Lucknow.
The best part of the whole evening: we walk in right after a tour group, and lo and behold, its a Belgian tour group from Flanders.
Because we can’t ever be too far from home of course.
Day 3
Can we sleep in a bit today?? No! And why is that? Because the Grand Mosque of Muscat is only open to non-Muslims from 8–10.30am and we wanted to avoid the crowds.
We got there for 8.30 and it was worth it.
One very important thing to note for women: you absolutely need to cover your hair, arms and ankles. Basically, just wear long pants, a shirt and cover your hair with a scarf. They’re strict, but also very understanding if you’re not accustomed to dressing that way.
The mosque was built in 2001 and is an impressive architectural feat. The buildings are fantastic — built with Indian sandstone, Swarovski crystals and precious stones — it was really beautifully built.
After the mosque it was a whopping 10am. Muscat doesn’t have many monuments to visit, as far as we had noticed or felt the need to visit.
We we’re feeling the heat and exhaustion from the last few days, so, naturally, we went to Ikea.
If there’s anything you take away from this trip is that there is an Ikea in Muscat. It looks exactly like any other Ikea. It behaves like any other Ikea. It has the meatballs (beef version) just like any other Ikea.
Honestly? 10 out of 10 experience.
In that same mall, there was (drumroll please): a Snow Oman (Snow-man?). Imagine this: you’re in the Middle East, its 30+ degrees, you need an escape. Where could you possibly go?
SNOW OMAN: An indoor skiing experience, just for you! Like I’m not joking — there was literally a mini ski slope available, complete with ski clothing.
Absolutely worth it.
For dinner, we headed to a restaurant recommended by Anthony Bourdain — Bait Al Luban — for authentic Omani food. Look, I can only say food is “insane” so many times but it was insane. We overate. We couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. We got mutton, chicken, starters and died.
Then we got dessert — a dark chocolate brownie.
“No don’t worry it’s small, just a slice” — waiter
*Dessert arrives*
**Dessert is larger than my face**
***Dessert comes on one of those heated plates and milk is poured over it making it into caramel***
****There is a big ball of ice cream. I’m going to die****
Beautiful.
Day four
Day four we picked up our rental car, a very, very, nice four by four that would allow us to go off-roading.
Our first stop was an attempt at the Royal Opera House. However, there was no parking, traffic (cars and people), a struggle. The outside looked beautiful, so I would recommend stopping by.
We drove down to As Sifah, to the little beach house we rented. I thought I had rented a room in a villa. Nope. Apparently I rented a house.
It was exactly what we needed. The pool came heated (yeah ok I know, its 30 degrees outside, why would you need a heated pool — I don’t do well in anything colder than 25 thank you) and there was a little community of restaurants, where we ate Turkish twice.
Day Five
On day five we drove 2 hours from Sifah down to Wadi Shab at around 6.30am (why don’t we sleep?).
A Wadi is a river valley that is only available when it has rained. The Wadi Shab is one of the most well-known Wadi’s in Oman. After a bit of a hike, (ok it was only a bit of a hike because we got lost on the hike, because we followed the arrows, which took us on a very sketchy, very very sketchy, path which ended up with us bouldering.) But hey, then we ended up here:
Okay so basically, you hike for about 45min, reach the river in the gorge, swim for about 10–15min and reach the tunnel to get into a cave.
Historically, I do not do well with very narrow cave entrances. I don’t do narrow cave entrances. And this one in particular, you had to put your head completely flat so you wouldn’t break your head going through.
It’s fine. I’m fine. Fine. Totally fine.
*Screams internally*
We made it through and the cave itself was really cool.
Oh right so on the drive back home, we obviously followed Google Maps as our gps. We’re happily driving along the highway when we see that in 2km we need to take a right. Thinking to ourselves “alright, surely there will be an exit, haven’t seen any signs, but surely it’ll be alright.”
1km — no sign.
500m — no sign.
200m — no sign.
100m — no sign.
TURN RIGHT RIGHT NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING TURN RIGHT
Yeah so we had to turn right onto a non-existent dirt road going 120km/h down the highway.
Thank you Google Maps.
There was no road. We literally drove on dirt for 45min trying to find a road.
Why didn’t we just turn back to the highway you ask?
Well. Where was the highway? We didn’t have much of a sense of direction.
Luckily we found a small village with something that kind of looked like a road and apparently, GMaps was happy enough with that.
Day six
It’s desert day!! We finally get to put Josie to the test!
Josie is the name we give all our rental cars. I don’t really remember why, but it has something to do with that song “Josie’s on a vacation far away”.
Anyway so Josie was about to enter the unknown. Or I guess it was just unknown to us? How to drive on sand?
Okay, so, we get out of Sifah and drive two hours towards the desert. And then we see that while the amount of KM’s left to drive has decreased significantly to 11km, the amount of time that had decreased according to the GPS was not quite proportional — 40min left for 10km?
Well alrighty then.
And thats when we realized. Oh. We need to drive on sand.
And then we realized. Oh right. We’re driving into the desert.
After a quick Google search on “how to drive in desert in Oman”, we were presented with:
- Drive at a continuous speed
- Drive on previously made tracks
- Reduce the tire pressure
Eh. Ok.
We made it to the Desert Nights Resort and it was one of the coolest experiences ever. We essentially slept in a very sturdy tent (it was a house but with a tent roof). The whole place was just so cool.
I’ve never really been to a desert before so this was all new to me. The dunes, the vastness, the emptiness of it all (barring camels here and there).
The hotel offered a few complimentary activities: a sunset drive up the dune and a 15min camel ride.
So. That’s exactly what we did.
I never really thought about how the cars actually drive up into the dunes. They just… drive really fast?
And then they have to make a U-turn at the top of the dune?
Fascinating.
The sunset was beautiful. I felt like I was in the Lion King. Except that it this wasn’t in Africa. And except that there are no wild animals. And except that this was a desert.
Day seven
The next morning we woke up bright and early (yeah we don’t sleep — it’s 6.21am currently as I’m writing this) to go on our camel ride. The camels rides are only available between 8–10, otherwise it becomes far too hot for them.
I was happy to see that they were well taken care of.
So, when I say “camel ride”, what I mean is: we were sat on the camel, we walked maybe 4min in one direction, the shepherd offered to take pictures of us on the camel, and then we walked back.
Camels are funky. Mine was obsessed with Jean.
So this camel ride brought us to around 8.30am.
Now bear in mind, we’re in the desert. The desert, which at 30 degrees in the full sun, does not offer many activities (unless you book excursions through the hotel but we weren’t really interested in dune buggy drives).
This meant that we’d need to find some source of entertainment until we go to bed that evening.
Eh.
Alright so it was 8.30am. We could go have breakfast. And then the next “activity” was dinner at 7pm.
We played some pool, we played foosball, there was a volleyball court so we asked for a ball — they did not have one, but they did have a basketball, but no basketball court. It makes sense.
That brought us to about 10.30am.
And it was hot.
Okay, so what else can we do.
Apparently, we can watch true crime documentaries. So that’s what we did.
That brought us to about 12ish when we decided to have lunch.
Okay so you get the picture. I struggle with doing nothing. I did bring a book, which I managed to finish so that’s a win. But this day was a test of my ability to do nothing.
We spent our last real night in Oman looking at the stars where I swear I saw 2 shooting stars.
I saw them ok.
They were NOT planes.
I started to feel a bit sad about it being our last night. The whole trip was just exactly what we needed, a true balance between doing nothing and doing things. It really was the epitome of “lazy” traveling.
Day eight
We had a full day for our last day. We needed to drop the car off by 7pm at the airport, so we had all the time in the world.
We took a little detour and went to Nizwa, an ancient city in northern Oman. It’s main point of attraction is Nizwa Fort which was built in the 17th century. Adjacent to it is the Souq.
The fort was interesting — smaller than I had anticipated it to be, very well maintained and provided a lot of key facts.
So, here’s the thing about the fort. It was definitely interesting to see because we had the extra time to visit the place. If we didn’t have the time, I’m not really sure it would be a ‘must-see’.
From here we decided to head to the airport early, thinking, because we had already done the online check-in that we’d at least be able to drop off our bags and head to the foodcourt past security.
Yeah. No. Apparently Turkish Airlines is the one airline that doesn’t do that and will only open the check-in gates 3 hours before departure.
That would have been fine, except that in the area before security, there was quite literally nothing to do.
Oh but they had a food court! It was more court than food, as the only food stall there was a Tim Hortons.
Why a Tim Hortons you ask? I wish I had the answer. There were so many random American fast food joints. Hardy’s? Carl’s Junior? All there.
So okay. It was 5pm. We had 6 hours to kill. We don’t really have a place to charge our phones, the wifi wasn’t working, we had 2gb of data left….
You know how I said the full day in the desert was a test in my ability to do nothing?
Oh no. This was the real test. This was the strugglebus.
But alright, we made it! We got to put our luggage away at precisely 11.20pm! Just 3 more hours to go before we could get on the plane. But surely there would be more to do at the gates.
Ah well. There was some food, a gift store.
…
It’s fine. We survived, we made it onto the flight, got onto the second flight and made it back in time to celebrate my fathers birthday.
All in all, this was a lesson in patience, forced relaxation and managing boredom.
Recommendations
So here’s what I would recommend if you decide to go to Oman:
Must dos:
- Rent a car
- Visit the Turtle Islands
- Stay in the desert
- Visit the Wadis
- Visit the Grand Mosque
- Eat all the Indian food you can get
- Drink all the juices
- Nothing — do nothing, its your holiday, you absolutely can afford to just do nothing
Could dos:
- Visit the beach (we didn’t really do that this time, but there are some nice ones)
- Visit Muttrah Fort and Souq
- Visit the malls (because why not?)
- Visit the Royal Opera House
Nice to dos:
- Visit Nizwa Fort
- Take home kittens
- Visit Ikea (although lets be honest, this should be a ‘must do’)
