MUSCAT: With international travel still with its own caveats of mandatory quarantine and uncertainties, the residents and citizens of Oman are grateful for the misty southern coast of Oman. The unique monsoon phenomenon renders the mountains verdant, while bringing down the temperature to a salubrious degree.
Though the monsoon rains make its landfall in July, the month of June heralds the nippy weather. Many from various parts of Oman drive to Salalah to enjoy an extended weekend and come back recharged.
Hotel promotions
Muscat residents Vipin and Aishwarya, are on a short break to Salalah. “We have taken two additional days with the weekend for our trip to Salalah. The hotels have good offer now as part of pre-Khareef package and we didn’t want to miss out on this. July will see Khareef package that are premium priced. Since we both drive, we decided to take a road trip. The distance is a little more than 1,000 kilometres from Muscat and with breaks it took us nearly 12 hours to reach Salalah.”
Mughsail beach
While young travellers prefer the road trip, there are good many package options from airlines that combine the air ticket with a good hotel stay. Says Ghanim, a tour operator from Salalah that airlines from GCC countries have special offers for those wish to fly to Salalah.
Oman’s premium tour guide and blogger, Ali Mohammedi (Oman Tripper) makes a special mention of the Mughsail beach. “The beaches in Salalah and surrounding coastline are very rough and Mughsail is no exception. What is unique is that the waves crash through naturally formed blowholes in the limestone formations and spurt up water plumes with a thundering noise up to several meters in the air! If you are brave enough you should take a picture right next to the water jet spurting through the blowholes but you will most likely get completely wet!”