TravTalk India Online Magazine
If you are planning to visit Oman, do not forget to include Wahiba Sands in your itinerary. A two-hour drive from Muscat, this desert region not just offers you a serene escape from the humdrums of life, but provides an experience of a lifetime. You can enjoy dune bashing, quad biking, sandboarding, camel riding, desert trekking, sunset drives and more.
Inder Raj Ahluwalia
All you need to do is take a two-hour drive from Muscat to immerse yourself in a different, exotic place that is a world distinctly apart. Resembling something that has stepped right out of the pages of the Arabian Nights, Wahiba Sands personifies desert scenery and charm. No matter what your personal perspective, this is certainly not your run-of-the-mill type of destination.
It’s a place that engenders poetry. Sand dunes stand as silent sentinels guarding vast tracts of desert and scrubland, and there is not a soul in sight, and not a sound to disturb the senses.
While essentially, this is a place to chill, a short stay reveals there is plenty to do. One can climb up to the top of the sand dunes, feel his feet sink into the soft sand, walk around as far as one can, and, significantly, watch the sunrise and sunset.
The primary local attraction are the dunes that entice one to climb to their top, and pose a few challenges. Though they look like a cakewalk, they turn out to be higher, softer, and more difficult to climb than imagined. But the effort brings ample rewards in the form of pristine sunset views, and bracing winds.
An absolute delight is Desert Nights Camp, a good place to bed down, which sprawls between sand dunes, close to a city named Bidiya, and has all the trappings of a desert holiday centre. Servicing guests is a spacious dining room, accommodation in both rooms and tents; and a host of activities like trekking, desert walks, dune-buggy rides, safaris, and camel rides.
Dinners are a highlight here, and present an experience in themselves. A large, varied buffet spread with a ‘live’ kitchen, serving staff scurrying about, and a band singing ballads make for memorable evenings to be cherished. And if all this isn’t enough, a mere glance up to the heavens, reveals hundreds of twinkling stars that seem to be part of a giant mosaic.
Everything here is slow-paced, with the exception of time, which seems to pass by in a blur.
