August 5, 2008

• Holidaying at Home 4 - Salalah

  Well, in this case, "at home" means in Oman.  Even though I've lived in Oman for two years now, I've never been to Salalah, on the southern coast of Oman, next to Yemen. Salalah gets the tail end of the monsoon rains (called "Khareef" in Arabic) and is therefore considerably cooler than the rest of Oman. For this reason, it's an extremely popular holiday destination for Omanis and Gulf Arabs at this time of year. The drive from Nizwa to Salalah is 860 km, and the road looks basically like this all the way. You can fit in quite a few CDs and podcasts while driving 860 km, I tell you.

  

  After about 800 km of listening to music and podcasts, the Khareef suddenly became visible. It looked like fog basically.

  

  I drove right into the Khareef and suddenly the road looked like this!

  

  After driving extremely slowly on windy roads up the Dhofar Mountains (the area around Salalah is called Dhofar), it cleared up a bit and the Omani landscape was just completely different from anything I've seen before. This is Oman, can you believe it?! It was like I suddenly had to change the colour settings for my eyes - it was almost too green.

  

  Once I'd driven down the windy roads on the other side of the Dhofar Mountains (these 60 km took over an hour!), most of the greenery was gone, but the temperature had dropped nearly 20C in little more than an hour. It was unreal.  During the Khareef season, it's around 26C in Salalah - compared to 45C in Nizwa. No wonder everybody wants to visit Salalah in the summer. Salalah is a sprawling city with lots of motorways criss-crossing it. It actually reminded me of downtown Muscat (i.e. Ruwi) and I was surprised that it was so big. There are also some great views of the sea.

  

  However, I quickly discovered that the sea is actually really rough because of the monsoon season. Virtually nobody was swimming.

  

  Except for a few brave souls.

  

  Driving around Salalah, I quickly discovered that you don't have to swim to enjoy the sea.  This photo was taken by the sea front in central Salalah, near to the traditional souk (market). Lots of people were standing around, just waiting for the waves to wash over them.

  

  Many people arrived by car. Basically, they parked their car next to the sea, got out, got wet and then drove off.  Like a family outing. The girls in this picture might be more sensible than their mums or aunts, hiding behind the car.

  

  Ooops! I think this wave was a bit too much for this lot.

  

  Getting soaked, this family laughed for a bit and then drove off. Meanwhile, I might add, I stood at a safe distance on the other side of the road, using my zoom.  Though a couple of times, water actually splashed over all the way to my side of the road. I'm such a coward.  I just did not want my camera to get wet - at least that was my excuse.

  

  There were also lots of people not arriving by car. They seemed more seasoned and from what I could work out - they were kind of just hanging out here at the sea front. These two Indian guys seemed to have more of an I dare you attitude, just sitting down on the pavement.

  

  Ooops! Here we go. And, yes, I do like what my new camera is able to do. I doubt my old 1.3 megapixel Kodak camera could have caught this wall of water with this definition. Apparently, my new camera uses shutter speeds of up to 1/2000. If you want to know what camera I bought, click here.

  

  I think this wall of water was a bit too much even for these seasoned wave viewers.

  

  I had decided that my Salalah trip would be a camping holiday. Hotel prices soar in Salalah over the summer, with even one-star hotels charging from $80 a night - which is a rip-off in my opinion.  You can get a hotel room by the sea front in Muttrah in Muscat for $32 a night. Anyway, I've got a good tent and I enjoy camping so that was not a problem for me. 

  I drove around a lot while in Salalah, visiting a lot of the villages and towns in the area, and I also drove up into the mountains a few times. Pictures of this to follow shortly. 

  • 2:09 am
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