Drive to the city of Sindbad the Sailor

The best time to visit Muscat is between December to February, but we chose to drive to the Omani capital in the blistering heat of summer. According to a travel blog, the temperature in the neighbouring Gulf state at this time of the year ranges from 35 degree Celsius to a nice, sizzling 40 degrees! So we decided to leave early at 6am to escape the suffocating heat. But things never usually go according to plan. “It’s foggy outside,” whispered my wife in the morning as she left for work, so I fluffed my pillow and went back to sleep. I woke up at 9am and while hurrying to get ready, I proudly looked at the bags I had packed the night before. “Don’t over pack”, I would scream at my wife on our yearly visits home, as I had to lug four suitcases, full of all the contents of our closets, mosquito repellent and cereal boxes. For what was effectively two nights in Muscat I had packed a collapsible bag and a backpack that looked like there was a tent and sleeping bag inside. A quick drive to my friend’s place and after packing our luggage into his 4x4 it was nearly 10.30am. “Let’s pick up water,” said my friend, so we walked into a hypermarket. “We need sunscreen,” I said. “See, my hands are getting wrinkled from driving in the sun.” We picked up a sunblock and then wondered if we needed biscuits, chips or fruit. The drive to Oman from Dragon Mart, is a numbing 420 kilometres. “You can reach Muscat in five to six hours, if you travel at 110 to 120/kmph, said the travel blog. I had booked a hotel in Muscat through a website as the price was amazing (Dh527 for two nights), but that needed a credit card. (It’s another story that the hotel was using the name of an international chain. And I suspect the breakfast buffet was what gave me a bad case of runs). I had finally cut up my credit card after paying off the huge balance and had shouted, “I am freeee.” My friend also does not believe in credit cards, so I asked my wife to apply for a supplementary card from her bank. I had driven to Salalah, the “Ooty of Oman”, from Dubai three years ago, for a newspaper report on why so many people perish on the roads during the Eid holidays. Gulf News had the headline ‘Dodge the death road and take flight instead’, for my piece and I wondered if the Omani border guards would be nice to me. “We will pick up a sandwich at a petrol station on the way,” said my friend, who had driven to Hatta many times as his friend works in a rural town overlooking the Hajjar mountain range. “I will write a blog about our trip,” I said and noted, “Off to Muscat 11.08am” and the mileage on the vehicle’s odometer. As we approached Hatta, the sands turned reddish brown and we could see the silhouette of the mountains in the distance. “Leaving UAE,” I jotted down. We were now in Oman and passed a checkpoint. After a while, we were back again in the UAE. A few minutes later we were in no-man’s land. I stopped making notes with all these border changes going on and decided to enjoy the trip instead. Seven hours later, we were in Muscat after making a detour at Sohar, the city of the legendary Sindbad the Sailor. “We have to do this again,” said my friend. So we decided to do a repeat trip during the “kharif” (harvest) season as the first showers from the Monsoon in Kerala, India, make the mountainside lush green there. Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.