A trip to Muscat (Oman) from Dubai (UAE)

These pictures published in this article are taken during my trip to Oman (Muscat) from Dubai by bus. I wanted to spend the weekend with my cousin and family, who live in Mucat. Almost all of these pictures are taken while the vehicle was on move, and through the window glass pane of the vehicle. The movement of vehicle and the obstruction of the glass reduced the quality of these photographs. I started from EGHQ the DNATA building in Dubai around 4:00 pm. The journey was tiresome; I reached Muscat by 11:30pm.

When the bus reached the outskirts of Dubai, I saw true desert covered with red hot brown and golden sand for the first time in my life. The wavy lines produced by wind, and sand hills which forms only by the force of wind!!! I have sent them only in pictures and films till then. In some of the above pictures, you can see the wavy lines, and sand hills. If you watch the picture closely you can see the wind drifting near the top edge of the sand heaps to reshape the whole land. These sand only hills are favorite destinations for enthusiasts for desert safari in Toyota land cruisers.

In the above picture, you can see a landscape of desert where only sand in golden color is visible, no soil, no water, no trees, not even a spot of hard rock. I would better call it an ocean of sand.

When the bus reached further towards the border of UAE and Oman, the land structure changed from that of completely sand covered. Hard rocks and small hills start appearing. Half dead trees or trees in sleeping stage ready to sprout again during a small shower at any time of year were visible.

After traveled through the sand desert for a while, I spotted some camels and cows, goats and sheep in the desert. Small green bushes and shrubs were uniformly spread over the land where these animals appeared.

When I closely inspected the Rock Mountains visible towards the border of UAE and Oman, I spotted strange holes or dens in the rock hills. I enquired about it with the fellow passengers, some of them claimed that those were formed by the rains that appeared in the form of GONU – the cyclone that killed many in Oman and caused wide natural destruction. But some one else claimed that those are made by various kinds of animals. I could not take the second one, since the dens were of widely varying sizes, and shapes, and numerous in numbers. But I could not spot a single creature out there.

When the bus reached almost the border around 6:00pm the geography completely changed. Sand deserts totally disappeared; there are no more rock hills, but Rock Mountains, dry mountains without a single spot of chlorophyll.

It took almost 2 and half hours to complete the procedures in the border to get the exit stamped from UAE officials, to get the luggage checked for safety and security and smuggling, and for getting the visit Visa to Oman. After a manual checking of the bags by officials, we were asked to arrange the entire bags in our vehicle in a line on the road, and keep away from it. Then a trained dog came and sniffed all the bags. Extra security!!! But these procedures were not repeated when I traveled back after two days back to UAE – Dubai.

When we crossed the UAE-Oman border it was twilight. The landscape and mountains were amazing, and when we were out of the vehicle for the exit/entry procedures of the two nations, could not photograph the beautiful scenes since photography was prohibited in those areas due to security reasons.

In the above picture, you can see a vehicle abandoned in the desert; probably due to a break down, during a desert ride.

Above pictured is a small typical kind of town near Hatta. These kinds of towns were seen occasionally during the journey.