Recently I went on a camping trip with the Meetup Group 'Escape Dubai'. We drove to Oman, then took a Dhow cruise to a beach (only accessible by boat) where we camped overnight.
Here's a map of where we went. Though I'm not really sure exactly where... If you look to the bottom left hand side, you can see the arrow pointing to Dubai.
It was a really good trip! Amazingly, 80 people went! None of which I knew. But the people I met were really nice :)
The organiser arranged people to drive and others to get a lift, so I got a lift (as no car). We met up early-ish on Friday morning (as our weekends here are Friday and Saturday). The guy driving was an American and the other passenger a woman from Turkey. Both nice.
We left with a reasonable amount of time, but got lost on the way to the UAE/Oman border and SOMEONE wouldn't ask for directions. Someone MALE. Which meant that when he finally asked for directions and we were going the right way, we were also running late.
We arrived at the meet up location in Khasab (in Oman) late and missed the boats to the beach we were camping at. Luckily, there were other late people and so Fajer (the organiser, who does this for a living now!) arranged for another Dhow boat for us late people.
A Dhow boat is a traditional boat. Here's us late people on our boat:
So we take the 4-ish hour cruise through a fjord area. It was pretty impressive! Someone who lived in Norway said it really did remind her of Norway.
It was a lovely trip. We stopped at Telegraph Island where the British had put up a repeater station to boost telegraphic messages along the Persian Gulf submarine cable, which was part of the London to Karachi telegraphic cable.
Here's some info on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_Island
It was really nice cos we stopped and got to have a swim and do some snorkelling. Amazing fishies!! Lots of different colours and very pretty :)
Here's a picture of the other Dhow boats in our group pulled up alongside Telegraph Island.
Another highlight of the trip was seeing DOLPHINS while on the boat ride!!! Didn't get to swim with them and they didn't come as close as I would've liked for as long but still - DOLPHINS!! There were baby dophins too. Awww! (More dolphin pics in my FB album)
Eventually though, we made it to the beach where we were camping - just in time for sunset.
I bought a popup tent from Carrefour (one of the big supermarkets here). It's one of those ones that you just open and it pops out and voila! It's great!!! And after watching a tutorial on YouTube, I can put it back down again too :) It was only $30!!!!! So cheap!!
So me and the people I drove in the car with set up tent together. We were right at the end, which was very convenient for going to the toilet - behind the rocks. No toilets!
That night, after we each did our own dinner, the organiser had arranged for a bonfire and one guy had a guitar, so there was a sing-a-long. I had brought marshmallows for toasting.
AND there was bioluminescent plankton in the sea which shone everytime it got disturbed. It wasn't a surf beach, but when the wave broke on the beach it shone. If you threw stones or sand or splashed water into the sea, it would light up. SO COOL!! Me and a few other girls went for a night swim and it was great! We thrashed around to make it glow. And then when you stood up out of the water, little dots were all over you, like that old Britney Spears video where she's covered in diamonds. It was great - up until I got stung by a jellyfish :( Man that STUNG!!! Seriously. The American driving my car is a doctor, but he said that the two things for a jellyfish sting are water as hot as you can stand and vinegar. Neither of which we had. We could heat some water, but by the time it was hot the sting would've improved. So just had to tough it out. Went back into the water a bit later - still awesome. No jellyfish was gonna ruin it for me!
One guy did some long exposure photos
After I left the bonfire I stayed up for a while reading on the beach. It was so nice!! Heaps of stars, warm evening, nice waves etc
In the morning I got up and swam with the Turkish girl from my car (Demet). I saw a jellyfish, but went round it.
Then we took the boat 5 mins back to Khasab (as we went the long way to the beach the day before) and then drove back to Dubai. :)
The beach where we stayed:
Interesting things:
On the drive to and from Khasab, we saw some crazy stuff.
First - Camels:
Second - Goats! Running around like dogs do and eating rubbish out of rubbish bins! No owners in sight! This was all over Oman:
Third: Cattle all over the place! Just sitting there. In the middle of the intersection. On the side of the road. Crazy! And like the goats, no apparent owners in sight. This wasn't Oman, but I think the place is called RAK?
See my Facebook for more pictures - I'll put some up there :D
