1. Intro
2. Recap of week 82 to 83
3. Entering a new world in the remote Omani exclave of Musandam
4. Getting close to the ocean by doing beach camping again
5. Spending many nights on Bassa Beach
6. What to do if you get stuck in Khasab waiting for your ferry to depart
7. Think twice about coming here on your biketour of Oman

Rugged mountain landscape and coastal roads. Small rural settlements tucked away above steep mountains and in narrow coastal valleys. Some of these villages are only reachable by boat. Go here if you seek a feeling of remoteness and want to explore a small piece of a Norway-like fjord landscape.

It was a happy farewell with Dubai. I had a good long break and the batteries were all fully charged. The skyscrapers had only amazed me the first couple of days. Left was a bustling city not meant for cycletourism. I headed straight north wanting to escape the big highways as quick as possible. On the second day I passed the Al Dara Border Crossing and I was already in Oman. I spent many days camping on beaches in the Musandam exlave waiting for the ferry to mainland Oman.

It felt like entering a new world. After spending along time in Dubai I had gotten used to a constant noise buzzing all around me. Cars everywhere and tall buildings competing to be closest to the stars in the sky. On my second day on the road after leaving Dubai, I was at the Al Dara Border Crossing. It was like flicking a switch. It was like night and day, like sun and dark thunderclouds. The first thing I noticed after entering the exclave was the complete silence. Left behind were the world’s tallest building and largest shopping mall, 6 lanes roads and indoor skislopes. Ahead of me, a blissfull calmness.

The small Omani exclave of Musandam is everything Dubai is not. From the moment I had crossed the border, I was cycling on almost empty roads. To my left the ocean. To my right the rugged and steep greyish mountains forming a dramatic landscape on the very tip of the Arabian peninsula. Only small settlements popped up along the way to Khasab, the main town of the exclave.

Just off the coastal road were frequent beaches, each one with their own gathering of small fishing boats. Naturally, alot of local people here are living off the rich bounty of the ocean. The dry mountain landscape does not provide much opportunity for keeping livestock or do any farming of the land. Here you basically just got rocks and water. However, a small community of Bedouins have managed to settle down in this mountaineaous region herding their goats. I guess there must be some patches of trees hidden in a secret oasis in between the mountains.

Contrary to UAE where you can get big fines for camping on the beach, it is perfectly normal for Omani people to spread out their carpets, set up a windshield and spend the night close to the sound of the ocean. For me, this is a favourite location to pitch my tent.

So each time I passed a beach on my way to Khasab, I scouted for good spots to spend the night. However, many beaches are either filled with small fishing boats or are very close to the road. Eventhough the roads are not busy, it takes away some of the charm when the noise of a car tries to compete with the sound of the ocean. Since the coastal stretch from the UAE border to Khasab is not more than 45km, there is not that many options to choose from.

Luckily, for me, there are some hard-to-reach beaches along the coastline which you can access by steep gravel roads. There are a couple of these just before you reach Khasab and I wanted my first night in Oman to be a good one and I was willing to put in an effort to reach a secluded beach. As I was cycling up a smaller mountain, I spotted a cove just below me and said to myself how sweet it would be if I could reach it. At the nearby village, I asked for directions and there just happened to be a gravel road I could follow.

The beach was a stone beach. It was like a narrow piece of mountain had been sliced away to create this isolated and secluded place. Perfect for a quiet night with just me and the beach and the sound of ocean stones rolling up and down as the waves kept washing up on shore. However, the next day I would pay the price when I spent a good half hour pushing the bike up fighting to get a good grip on the loose gravel surface. Ever so often would my foot slide backwards and I had to spend alot of energy to get up to the main road again. But it was all worth it.

From my secret beach, I only had 15 km to go, so it was a short day on the bike when I rolled into Khasab. First item on my list was to secure a ticket on the ferry leaving Khasab to Shinas. Accurate info are sparse about the ferry schedule but I had solid intel about a departure time in two day’s time. I purchased my ticket at the ferry port and left for the center of town to get a SIM card. I soon realized Khasab is a really small town with very little going on. There’s a main strip with some basic shops and eateries. A somewhat busy harbor with fishermen sorting out the catch of the day. That is pretty much it besides an airport placed in direct continuation of the town.

Actually, a town where everthing happens in slow motion was a good thing after hectic Dubai. I sat down at a local eatery next to some Arab men which all smiled, waved and said hello to me. I ate my food in calm sourroundings and cherished every moment of it.

Bassa Beach is a big and popular beach with the locals. It is located very close to Khasab. Every night, the beach would fill up with people coming in their cars at sunset. Food trucks would sell tea, sweets and basic fast food. Very polite and helpful kids would run from the food trucks to the parked cars bringing their order. To get served the locals would honk their horns until someone would attend to them. It all was an orderly chaos and very fun to watch. For some reason, the locals just love their car so much they absolutely don’t want to leave it. I guess ths is drive-through the Omani way.

At one end of the beach, far away from a new construction site that takes claim to half of the beach area, I found a spot under a big tree giving me some shade from the midday sun. I was quite happy with the idea of having a relaxed beach day doing nothing but reading a book. However, my one beach day turned into many when I got a phone call from the ferry company telling me they had cancelled my Saturday ferry due to bad weather and high waves out in the Gulf. I naturally assumed that the ferry would sail at first opportunity but that’s not how they do things here. When you cancel a ferry on Saturday it will of course leave on the next scheduled departure and not before. Next scheduled departure was Wednesday. That was four more days of waiting I really didn’t wanted as I had already started using my 30 visa days.

Thinking back on it, I should have optimized my visa strategy. Most nationalities get a visa free period of 14 days. When I entered Masundam, I should have hidden my 30 days eVisa and gone for the visa free entry. Once I had reached Shinas and the mainland of Oman, I would do a quick visa run at the nearby border and used my eVisa. That’s a solid good visa hack I wished I had known about.

So it happened that I ended up spending many nights at Bassa Beach. Each day after biking around town and doing whatever activites I could think of, I would end up back at the beach for the night. I got familiar with the families running the food trucks and had more local tea than I can count. A vanlife couple from Germany came one night and we spent the evening talking. Life was good at the beach but I actually had wanted to spend a week traveling the mainland instead. I actaully only came here to catch ferry and get a view of the coastline from the ocean. Should you be in a similar situation like me, being trapped in Khasab waiting for your ferry, there are other things to do than hang around beaches.

Once you reach Khasab, you have more or less reached the end of the road. You could do an adventurous mountain ride to Rawdah and Jebel al Harim. If you like steep mountain roads you do it by bike. Otherwise you rent a car and drive 120ish km back and forth in a day.

There is also dolphin watching and dhow cruises that takes you around the fjord landscapes to see the hidden village of Kumzar and to climb ‘The View of Two Seas’ where you at the same time can see both the Arabian Gulf and the Oman Sea. You need to rent a boat for this and it is affordable if you are a group.

I just discovered this last minute but would have loved to do it. There is a PADI divecenter in Khasab and just off the tip of the peninsula you should have some decent divespots.

Of course, you can also just kick it back at your favourite beach spot and read a book which was my preferred option. I just got a bit bored in the end knowing that I rather would have done some biketouring on the mainland reaching farther away destinations.

So if you do decide to include the Musandam Peninsula on your biketour of Oman, think twice about the potential days of waiting due to cancelled ferries. You easily get trapped here unless you want to double back alot of kilometers on your bike. The area is interesting and beautiful due to its mountains and fjord landscape, but you really can be done with it all in a day or two. If you are all happy doing beach camping, dolphin tours and visiting remote villages by boat for a week, then this is a good place for you. If not, then you might want to use your visa days traveling the mainland of Oman.

For me, it was the longest wait. Now, I need to settle with a light version of a northern loop in Oman before I head towards The Empty Quarters of Saudi Arabia.

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