Travelling Around Britain and the World

Friday, 16 November 2018

Oman (3): Wadi Bani Khalid and the Wahiba Sands

Swimming in a Wadi and Glamping in the Sands

Leaving Ras al Hadd

Oman

The breakfast buffet provided further support for Y’s statement that Europeans sit out in the heat while Omanis sit inside in the air-conditioning. It also allowed us to look along the start of the turtle beach which swings right at the horizon and continues for another hundred desolate kilometres.

From Ras Al Hadd the turtle beach strecthes into the distance

At check-out I was presented with the 4 rial (£8) bill for last night’s beers, for which I had paid cash. I pointed out the error and asked for my 5 rial room deposit, which, I was told, had been given to Y.

Outside Y agreed that his 10 rial deposit (two rooms, his and ours) had been returned, but I remembered paying a deposit, too. I counted my money – the only cash I had spent thus far was on lunch and beer yesterday and I was definitely 5 rials short. Back in reception they agreed the bar bill had been settled but were adamant that I had paid no deposit. Y arrived and he too was sceptical - ‘paying deposits is my job’. I stood my ground, I had a clear memory of taking the money from my wallet. The receptionist suggested we look at the CCTV – whose existence I had not even noticed. "That'll prove me right," I thought. Standing in the backroom with Y and the receptionist, I watched as we arrived. In crystal clear pictures I saw myself hand over our passports and take them back once they had been photocopied. Y took the deposit money from his wallet and then I was given a key and left. I had handed over no money. I still distinctly remembered doing so, but had to accept what I saw. Fortunately, I had remained calm and polite, so I could back down without total humiliation, but I left with the worrying thought that I had a clearly recollection of something that had not happened – was I losing it? A milder concern was that my cash supply was 5 rials short.

Through Sur and into the Interior

We drove back over the stony desert and crossed the neck of the lagoon into Sur.

The new bridge into Sur meant we did not have to drive all the way round the lagoon

This time we encountered something resembling a town centre...

Sur

...Before heading into the interior towards our destination for the day, the Wahiba Sands.

From Ras Al Hadd, through Sur then down to the Wahiba Sands

Our journey started on Highway 23, yet another sparsely travelled six-lane dual-carriage way. Less stony and desolate here, the softer landscape allowed scrubby vegetation to eke out a precarious existence.

Highway 23 from Sur

Highway 23 will eventually be like this all the way to Ibra, but for moment the section nearest to Sur is complete and the next under construction. We were soon on a two-lane road and even passed through the occasional village.

Village on Highway 23

Then we turned off and headed into the hills towards Wadi Bani Khalid.

The road to Wadi Bani Khalid

Wadi Bani Khalid

You know you are nearing the wadi when you find the road lined with parked cars, particularly on a Friday, the first day of the weekend

Y parked and we walked along the concrete edge of the canalised stream, though the concrete was not continuous and a little jumping, and occasional paddling was required.

Reaching the main swimming area, we walked to the far end where there was a bridge and café. Few were swimming (none in my photo, though there were some later) perhaps because modesty is the rule here. An official from the Ministry of Tourism sits in his little gazebo (right, far end of pool in picture) waiting to take offence at the slightest glimpse of female flesh - the perfect job for a pervert.

The main swimming area, Wadi Bani Khalid

The wadi enters the pool through a deep-water channel where swimming is not permitted.

Deep-water channel above the main swimming area, Wadi Bani Khalid

Following the channel upstream involves a clamber over the rocks (hard work in the hot sun), but eventually leads to an alternative pool where European style swimming costumes are acceptable.

Standing above the alternative swimming pool, Wadi Bani Khalid

Here too swimmers were thin on the ground - or in the water. Several local lads were jumping in from the rocks but there was also one young man who was fully dressed and with no intention of swimming. Perhaps he had come to watch European women in skimpy bathing suits, but if so he was only an amateur pervert, not a professional like the chap in the gazebo downstream. He was not having much luck and declined to watch me floating in the pool, but more people were arriving by the minute.

As I float in the Wadi Bani Khalid the ogler turns away in digust

Another deep-water channel came in from the right and I swam some fifteen metres along it before rounding a bend and meeting a rock wall. To its right the stream entered the channel in a tinkling rapid, even its greatest fan could not call a waterfall. By the time I returned to the main pool it was crowded and there was plenty for the ogler to ogle.

I had been dried by the sun long before we re-joined Y at the café. He suggested we eat there but they offered only a buffet so we asked about alternatives. Y looked please and said,‘I know a much better place.’

It was after one when we left the wadi and started our descent back to Highway 23. On the way up we had not noticed the greenery marking the line of the wadi, even where there was no surface water.

Spotting the line of the wadi on the descent to Highway 23

Bidiyah

Y had failed to mention that his chosen restaurant was over an hour away and we were hungry by the time we reached the village of Bidiyah (spellings vary). There is little to see on the main road, but we could hardly miss the restaurant bedecked in National Day bunting.

The restauarnt in Bidiyah

Again two portions between three was more than adequate, and again biryani rice was the main staple. In place of yesterday’s tuna we had chicken, pleasingly immersed in an Omani curry sauce. Southern Pakistan and the Indian state of Gujarat are just across the Gulf of Oman/Arabian Sea and the trade winds have been enabling commerce since the invention of the sail, so Oman inevitably picked up a curry habit. Omani curries are less complex than the best of India, and a little lighter on the chilli, though a bottle of chilli sauce sits on every table for the desperate. Omani lunch usually also includes a salad – mild red onions, tomatoes, cucumber and a wedge of lemon – similar to salads we would later encountered in Gujarat, though nowhere else in India. Chapatis and the inevitable dish of dates completed our repast.

While paying the modest bill, I discovered the missing 5 rial note that had concerned me in the morning, stuck between our passports in my ‘inner wallet’. Further proof I had a memory of an event that never happened

Omani chicken curry in Bidiyah

Well fed Y drove us off the main road and into the village which is more nucleated than most Arab settlements. Bidiyah is on the edge of the Wahiba Sands and before venturing off-road we stopped to have the tyre pressures lowered.

Getting the right tyre pressure for driving on sand, Bidiyah

Into the Wahiba Sands

South of central Bidiyah the tarmac comes to a stop. The village continues for a while…

The last gasp of Bidiyah village

…and then we were out in the sands.

Into the Wahiba sands

The Wahiba (or Sharqiyah) Sands, 50km wide and 150km long, are a system of parallel dunes running NE-SW. We were heading for the 1000 Night's camp, one of Wahiba's ten or so permanent camps and the deepest into the desert.

We made good speed, the sand shushing away from the tyres generally gave a comfortable ride, but occasionally the mass of tracks going one way creates a series of narrow, lateral indentations (as in the photo above) which shake the car about. We endured the same phenomenon in the very different surroundings of the Mongolian steppe in 2007.

We encountered an impromptu dune bashing contest. Two cars were involved, accelerating in turn towards the base of the dune and competing to get as high as possible before forward motion ceased and their spinning wheels did nothing but throw sand into the air. We watched four attempts and all petered out roughly where the gulley on the left joins the ‘piste’. On one attempt the car slewed round as it stopped and came closer to tumbling down the gulley than was comfortable.

Dune bashing in the Wahiba Sands

At Bidiyah a sign to the camp had pointed into the desert and we followed the designated groove between two dunes for several miles until the tracks swung left and zigzagged up the side of the dune. No road existed as such, but the sand here was hard-packed and half way up there was another sign.

There is no road, but there is a road sign
On the way to the 1000 Night's camp, Wahiba Sands

Once over the top we continued along the next groove. I began to wonder if it was just a matter of following the tracks; Y had done this journey many times before but could anybody do it? I would not, I decided, like to try. Tracks lead in all sorts of directions, wild camping is popular and you could find yourself following tracks to a camp site deserted days before. Unless accompanied by someone with Y’s expertise, I would not attempt this without GPS.

1000 Night's Camp, Wahiba Sands

The camp had a stone-built reception area, dining room and pool, and a collection of huts tricked out to almost resemble a tented encampment. We were shown into a ‘tent’ that was as hot as an oven. The windows and shutters were thrown open and with a through breeze the temperature soon started to drop. At night, we were told, it would be cool and comfortable without air-conditioning - and so it was.

Not quite a tent, 1000 Nights Camp, Wahiba Sands

We went to inspect the camp’s oryx. The Arabian Oryx once roamed all over the Arabian Peninsula but overhunting led to it being declared extinct in the wild in 1972. There are now some 7,000 breeding in captivity and releases have allowed the wild population to top 1,000 - with every prospect of increasing further. It is, so far, the only species to have its threat level downgraded from ‘extinct in the wild’ to ‘vulnerable’.

Arabian Oryx, 1000 Nights Camp, Wahiba Desert

It was suggested we might like to climb the dune and watch the sun set into the desert. After wading through deep sand in pursuit of turtles last night and clambering over the rocks at Wadi Bani Khalid this morning, our legs wanted a rest so we gave it a miss this time.

Dinner was the hotel buffet – there really was nowhere else to go and anyway it was already paid for.  Lynne had fish, vegetables and a pappad, I went for a vegetarian curry with biryani rice, pickles and a chapati. It was pleasant enough but the desserts were spectacular and I tried all three (glutton!). Gulab Jamun (always my favourite Indian dessert), Umm Ali (an Egyptian version of bread and butter pudding, but so much better) and Omani Halva (an extraordinarily sweet, red, gelatinous grain rather than nut based halva.)

With a clear sky and minimal light pollution we had been looking forward to viewing the stars, and wandered out to find a spot well-hidden from what little artificial light there was. Sadly, we had forgotten to check the phases of the moon when booking this trip and the waxing moon was far too bright for star-gazing.

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Location: Wahiba Sands, Oman

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