The Mists of Salalah

Our second day in lovely Salalah began with breakfast in the only restaurant open in the resort. I must report that because it was the beginning of Ramadan, the restaurant was already out of a lot of the regular things you get on the menu – our choices were quite limited. But none the less, the coffee was great!

The tour guide rocked up at 9am ready for our trip. Yet again we were starting with the 80km drive to the other side of Salalah… I would love to tell you about the first part of the trip, but I was motion sick – oh joy. Curled up in the foetal position on the back seat, deep breathing, praying that the motion sick tablet would kick in soon and that we’d arrive at our first destination asap.

I am pleased to say we did, I made it!!

Our first stop was at Job’s Tomb. What I found most interesting about this first stop was that our guide – Salim – was explaining the prophets of Muslim to us. Did you know that many of the Muslim prophets are also saints in Christianity? Yeah, bit of a head spin. Well, it was for me at least!

Oh, and here are the female ‘facilities’ at the Tomb. I chose to hold it…

I won’t tell you about every bit of the tour because there was a whole lot of driving!

The next stop was at these amazing blowholes. It was basically the coast/cliff edge which the waves crash up against and force air and water through holes in the rock. It reminded me a lot of the Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road in Australia. The landscape was just beautiful, I was more than amazed by it all.

This is a grate over one of the blowholes.



We then went onto a wadi that had a cave with it that apparently people lived in once upon a time. Actually there was one spot that still had pens for cows or goats (see picture below)! And we drove passed a goat herder on the way there and saw another one up in the hills next to the wadi. Oman is a contrast of the modern with the antique, it’s intriguing and mystical.



We visited a few other spots such as another wadi, a 70-year old frankincense tree, the Hilton in Salalah for lunch (our guide was fasting so he didn’t join us) and then headed back towards the resort. There was a museum fort that we were supposed to visit but unfortunately it was closed – my partner was very disappointed by that. I should mention that at the Hilton, we had to have lunch behind curtained windows yet again. It was quite interesting actually – there were about 3 other parties other than us, all Westener’s (for obvious reasons). You can see each person covertly checking out the other people, trying to work out what accent they have, see if they are a fellow Aussie or Frenchmen or where ever it is they are from… And if you get busted looking at another person, there is the sheepish smile and understanding nod.

Anyway, we went to an archaeological site – the Queen of Sheba’s Temple. We were actually able to walk around in the site and touch things. This would have been roped off in Australia – look but do not even think about touching, for your own protection of course. Interesting to note there was no graffiti or vandalism of any sort here, only a bit of rubbish (probably due to the lack of garbage bins).

Our final stop was at the fishing village of Mirbat. The most amazing part of this village was the backstreets which we did a quick drive through – passed the original souq, some beautiful old doors, kids playing in the street… It had a bit romance to it all – until you reached the fishing part of town and then the smell permeated your nostrils.

You might be wondering why I called this entry ‘The Mists of Salalah’, well rather then me explain it, I’ll leave you with this picture…