Forts of Gulf Arabia, Part 2

Bukha Fort, Musandam, Oman – Notice that little fort in the distance dwarfed by the towering hills behind? That’s the Al Qala’a Fort according to Google Maps. I thought it was just an extension of this Bukha Fort, and even labelled as such in an earlier post, ahem… But heck, no one's gonna notice, hehe…

Another express photo-post coming up! Busy month this January. Committed to finishing big chunks of work before the end of this month, and then there’s Chinese New Year next week. So here goes.

Continuing from the previous post (where I featured the Al Jazirah Al Hamra Fort in Ras Al-Khaimah), here’re more forts we visited not too long ago, if you're into these kinda things. The kids sure are. And so’s the old man, hahaha. Shhhh… don’t tell the missus, she’s not very keen on forts or museums. She’s more of a nature-type of person.


First off the list – Bukha Fort in Musandam Oman. This is a fort I’ve featured before in my first 'Forts of Gulf Arabia' post a long time ago (in 2009), and also in more recent posts in 2019 & 2022. It’s a small but picturesque fort, surrounded by the towering barren mountains of Musandam (ain’t it? Especially in Anu’s photo in my 2009 post?)


Hazel and Jayden looking at something in the depths of that bottomless pit… Nah, just kidding


Justin, exploring the ramparts of the Bukha Fort – the mosque beside blends in nicely




Next up, Khasab Fort, in Musandam’s capital, Khasab. Didn’t visit it on our first visit in 2008. We finally visited, with Dad and Hazel in 2019 – Khasab, Musandam, Oman




Exploring the castle grounds… The fort features traditional boats. And here's a link to a photo of Jayden in one of the huts in the castle


Finally, the little visited Falaj Al Mualla Fort in Umm Al Quwain, UAE


We decided to just stop by, on our way past this town, a little visited area of the UAE. There were no visitors, and an attendant had to open the museum just for us ‘privileged’ visitors, ahem…


See, that’s our car, a lone, solitary car in the fort’s car park, surrounded by empty roads and sand dunes


The fort-museum has creepy mannequins in it. Wouldn’t wanna be trapped here overnight


OK, time to go – Falaj Al Mualla Fort, Umm Al-Quwain, UAE


Hey, this is a nice place for hide and seek! Boys are boys. I’ve posted a few photos of this place in my earlier posts in 2021 and 2022

There you go, express photo post done!

The Horn of Arabia

Whew! We went on a long road trip to Salalah, Oman last weekend. It was a 4-day weekend to commemorate UAE’s National Day, so we decided to finally do what we’ve put off doing for so many years. Driving the unthinkable 1,250 km to Salalah, and back!! And we did it! Longest drive I’ve ever had in my life in a day. And there’s next to nothing along the way – the 800+ km between Ibri and Thumrait in Oman is a flat and featureless expanse of dry land, with nothing much, no hills, no tree, no bushes… Only a road, on empty land as far as the eye can see! Anyway, pictures of our adventures in Salalah will have to wait till I’ve downloaded all the friggin photos. For the time being, here’re photos of another part of Oman, the Musandam Peninsula, which we visited on a similar road trip during the UAE National Day holidays in 2019, with Dad and Hazel. This is an extension of my earlier Musandam Post.


Khasab, Musandam, Oman

Musandam is a piece of land at the North-Eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula that pokes into the Gulf (of Arabia, or, of Persia, depending on which side of the Gulf you’re on). It is an Omani exclave (separated from the rest of Oman) and accessible by land only from the UAE. It’s like a friggin horn poking at the belly of Iran, and it forms the gateway to the Gulf. Enjoy!


Smile! Hazel & Anu, just after crossing the UAE-Oman border, at Tibat, Musandam, Oman


The layered hills of Musandam at Tibat


The town of Bukha


Dad, at Bukha Fort


One of the coves of Musandam – this is at the Harf Viewpoint


Finally reached Khasab – let’s have lunch!


Winding down with a mug of coffee at our hotel in Khasab, the Diwan Al Amir Hotel


Let’s explore the place… It’s getting dark, time for a ‘satay’ break, Omani style, at the road leading out of town, south of Khasab’s airport


The kids at Khasab’s fort – see how little Justin still is at that time. He was 10 then!


A view of Khasab from atop Khasab Fort

We were in Musandam for 2 days. Apart from exploring the town, we did a dhow cruise to Telegraph Island (which I’ve posted earlier).


OK, time to go home! The Cliff Viewpoint, Musandam at dusk, on our way out…

A Different Type of Sound

Another photo post coming up! Bear with me willya!



Just for a comparison with my last post’s theme, here’s a ‘Sound’ with completely different features from Milford Sound, NZ.


This is Khor Ash-Sham (Elphinstone Inlet) in the Musandam Peninsula of Oman. Call it what you want, a fjord, a creek, a sound or an inlet, these are basically water bodies that extend into the land flanked by steep hills or mountains. A fjord is actually an inlet created by a glacier cutting through land. Khor Ash-Sham, being in a hot, barren desert, would not be a fjord in the geographical sense. (There’s no friggin ice, is there?) But neither should Milford Sound be called a Sound as sounds in geography are usually used for a small channel or straits between two pieces of land. But what the heck, who cares?! Enough of the geography lessons! Let’s get on with life and the pictures!

This was the second time we visited Musandam. The first time was in Dec 2008, before we had kids. We went with a Malaysian friend and his family. Unknown to us at that time, Anu was suffering from Hepatitis… (of the E variety, luckily, curable). Still remember, she couldn’t eat anything during the trip. Her condition became worse after the trip, she would be very sleepy, and couldn’t eat anything, especially anything oily. The doctors initially diagnosed gastric, but the medication did nothing. We would eventually find out after I noticed one day, that her urine was unusually dark (she’s a prolific water drinker). I checked her nails and eyes, and saw that they were yellowish (indicating that she probably had jaundice). We insisted to the next doctor we met (which so happened to be at a government hospital), that it was more than gastric (he was gonna prescribe friggin painkillers)! The liver function test that came out told the whole story. She was immediately admitted, and whatever money we paid for visiting the doctor and doing the blood test was returned to us. (That was Dubai government hospitals’ policy at that time. All emergency cases were free). She wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital till she was OK! And we end up staying a couple of weeks in the hospital!!

Anyway, here’re the rest of the photos of our Khor Ash-Sham boat ride.


Here’s the jetty (and we didn’t miss our trip this time, haha, because we were with dad and Hazel probably…)


Our cruise on a dhow (Arabian fishing boat). (Do you see Jayden?)


Dad and Anu enjoying the cruise


Sleepy already, Justin?!? Your Jiko (Hazel) doesn’t seem so…


You can be like Jayden, fooling around with a new found friend! I dunno the little girl’s name but she and her family so happened to be Malaysians, living in Dubai! Fancy meeting a fellow countryman who was staying in the same city as us, on some remote sea inlet, faraway from civilization!


Another friend, yeah it can get quite sleepy, huh?




Khor Ash-Sham (Elphinstone Inlet) – this hidden inlet used to be a haven for pirates to launch attacks on unsuspecting vessels, and for them to hide if pursued by more powerful ships, such as the British. (That may be why one of the names of this area and the adjoining UAE used to be ‘Pirate Coast’!)


Setting foot on Telegraph Island – I didn’t do it the first time we came. Can’t miss it this time round, hehe! Justin and I swam there. If you look closely, you’d see us! Telegraph Island has a story of its own. Click on that link to find out


Dolphin spotting is one of the highlights of a Musandam cruise – a boat chasing dolphins!


There, caught you on camera!!


Khor Ash-Sham, Musandam Governorate, Oman – Dec 2019

Crossing Borders in COVID Times

The Emirati wilderness, …or is this Oman?? From Google Maps, it looks more like the latter. This was where we camped for the night in Oct 2020, our first of many camping trips to come since the pandemic started.

I got it finally. Blasted COVID. From the son, and he from school. That’s the problem of relaxing your guard, heck! (Not me, but the others out there, not wearing masks, etc, etc, etc). But it ain’t that serious, just like a bad bout of flu for me. Today’s my first day of work after nearly 2 weeks of isolation! While I was out of action from the office, I’ve collected some photos of our first excursion into the UAE wilderness since COVID started.

This was in October 2020. After months of not getting out of our home city of Dubai, we finally decided that enough was enough, and headed out into the Emirati wilderness, for Jayden’s birthday. We found out that Sharjah had just opened a new road through the mountains connecting directly to its enclave of Khor Fakkan in the east coast, so…, what the heck! Let’s go check it out. We packed our tent and the barbecue stuff and headed out as I was pretty sure that there’d be some camping ground on the way. After all, it’s a new road! (But boy, was I wrong…) Here’s the story.


Wow, beautiful new road across the mountains – the Khor Fakkan Road! This is the ermmmm… 4th road across the mountains that I could count in my head, 1) Masafi Road, 2) Hatta Road, 3) Kalba Road and now this one. No complaints for roads, after all I’m in the road construction business, haha!


There’re a series of tunnels on this road… as it cuts across the Hajar Mountains

Hey, why don’t we explore this route through Madha and Nahwa? It looks really interesting in the map. Madha is an Omani territory (enclave) surrounded completely by the UAE. But what makes it even more interesting is that, in the middle of this enclave (or exclave), sits the village of Nahwa, which is UAE territory, completely surrounded by the Omani enclave of Madha. It’s an enclave within and enclave, or what you call, a double-enclave!! We had actually brought along our passports just to find out whether we could drive into this bizarre area. It turns out that there’re no border controls, just drive in and out as you like!

And so, we turned off the Khor Fakkan Road at Wadi Shees (which is an interesting mountain village which we would eventually visit a few trips later), and headed into Madha.


Wadi Shees Road – hey, there’s water in the gap below, cool!


Uh-oh, dirt track ahead! The sealed road’s gone… (This photo was actually taken the next day in the morning, which explains the sunny conditions. At the first time we reached here, it was almost dusk as we started late)


I think we’re in Omani territory now… Really scary road, is that soil gonna collapse? And it’s getting dark, didn’t really see any camping ground, shit!


Hey, we reached a cave! I recognized this as the Nahwa Cave (from pictures in Google), meaning we’ve gone past the Omani parts and entered the UAE territory of Nahwa! Could we camp here?? Nah, don’t think it’s a good idea. Let’s go on, before we lose all the daylight!!

And so, we drove on, past Nahwa, re-entered Omani Madha, went past that and came out onto Khor Fakkan on the east coast of the UAE. Nope, still no place suitable. Hey, how about checking out this place labelled ‘Al Sadah Picnic Point’ inside Madha, Oman? And back we went, into Madha Oman again. Shit, the park is closed! Now, what do we do in the night? I remember a somewhat suitable point further back past the cave, and so drove on. Nope, not here either. It's under a tree but there're lots of rocks, and some trash nearby. Let’s head back towards the cave. And finally, Anu (bless her) chose a spot in the dark and we set up camp! In Omani territory.


Anu’s picnic meal! Yummy! Complete with decorative lights! Happy 6th Birthday Jayden! Here we were, all alone, with no one near us for miles. This was a weekday, as I took the day off for Jayden’s birthday and it was not a particularly busy road. We set up camp on a ledge beside the dirt road. The whole night thru, we were worried about bandits, wild animals, security forces, etc… (Heck, we’re in Omani territory sez Google Maps, and we don’t know whether we’re allowed to camp, or whether this is a dangerous place or not, etc, etc, etc). From the night till day break, I think a total of 3 cars drove past the road below, but none stopped luckily.


Rise and shine. WE MADE IT! See our camp, all by ourselves, in the middle of nowhere. Bliss!


What a wonderful view! View from our camp site, Madha Enclave, Oman. The gap on the left, is the road, the one on the right is a friggin dried up wadi. Just imagine if there’s a rain, the road would be a river!


Here’s Nahwa Cave again! In the morning! See that small UAE flag painted on the wall! We’re back in UAE territory!


Those date palms mark the entrance of Nahwa Village, coming from Shees


Driving past Nahwa… We would head to Khor Fakkan from here but that is another story. In total, we crossed the UAE-Omani border 9 times in 2 days! Talk about border controls. Heck, it was more difficult for us to go into Abu Dhabi than this place!

Here’re some photos of a second drive thru of the Madha Area when we finally visited Wadi Shees Village in March 2021.


Coming from Wadi Shees, instead of taking the left turn towards Nahwa, we turned right into a green plantation area called Hajar Bani Humayd, which would eventually emerge into the main road to Madha


Here’s the Madha Mosque, Oman

Before I go off, if you have some time, please pray for Assam, North East India and Bangladesh. It’s been raining heavily and the rivers have overflown their banks, flooding, …worse, submerging entire villages, killing hundreds and making millions homeless… Water also entered our home in Silchar, but it is not as bad as some other homes… Silchar city is completely waterlogged and cut off, and so are many cities, towns and villages in the region. Pray for the water to recede and for people to be saved.