Today is the day we’ve really been waiting for, post-World Cup of course. Time to go to Khasab! Now you may not have heard of Khasab before, but now you’ll be able to tell everyone that you know this random Omani fact. Oman is not a contiguous country, it has exclaves that are surrounded by the United Arab Emirates, and Musandam is one, of which Khasab is a town. You can see it in this map here. 

So, we will be honest. We REALLY wanted to go by ferry. There’s supposed to be a ferry from Muscat to Khasab, or at the very least from Shinas (another Omani city) to Khasab, but the online booking site never worked for us. It just kept saying that there weren’t ferries, no matter what day we chose. So it either didn’t work for us or every single day was sold out. And the email address on the site failed when we tried to contact the company. So… instead we have to fly. There is one flight in and one out a day. Not sure if that’s just now that it’s the “low” season or if it’s always this way. We say “low” because when we told immigration that we were going to Khasab they looked at us as if we were crazy because it’s “so cold. You won’t be able to swim or anything”. Well…. Let’s hope not. 

But! Before we go, we may as well take a walk. We left in a direction we haven’t gone before because our maps told us it would be faster. We got lost. Sweet. Not much faster then. Great to waste time when time is limited before the airport.

But, eventually, we made it to the mosque again. 

We didn’t have enough time to go inside today, so it was just a quick walk around the outside. Then, our plan was to catch a taxi back to the hotel because there are always taxis sitting outside of the mosque waiting to take tourists back to their hotels/onwards on their adventures, and then maybe we could use them to then get back for the bus to the airport. Noooope. The taxis were charging 5 OMR for a 5 minute trip. Literally 5 minutes, we put it into an app to double check. And yesterday we took a longer trip for about 0.300 OMR. Feels like a rip off, so, my partner walked back to the hotel real quick. I mean, it wasn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, and should’ve probably just agreed… but it’s the principle of knowing that it’s not worth even close to that, ha.

Quickly grab all of the information we need to get to Khasab, and off we go again. Take one last look out of our hotel with the nice view. 

As I just mentioned, a passing taxi van picked us up and dropped us off across the street from where we needed to take the bus to the metro. 300 baisa. So we weren’t crazy that the taxis at the mosque were outrageously priced. We then patiently waited until the A1 bus came by and took us to the airport. 500 baisa. Nice and easy and cheap and direct and everything you could want. 

Then it was time for some mandatory airport selfies so that everyone knows that we’re travelling. 

And then we had a bit of time to kill, so we just walked around the airport looking at everything slowly. A small but nice airport. 

They even celebrate Christmas in the airport, haha. 

Then it was onto the plane, and get ready for take off!

My partner gets comfortable, turns his movie on, and everything is ready. And everything is ready. And everything is ready. And then it’s not. We were delayed. And then ready for take off. And then “sorry ladies and gentlemen, the flight has been cancelled”. That was pretty much it. And then we had to sit there for another 30 ish minutes without any additional information. Eventually we were told we had to get off of the plane and we would be led back to arrivals where we could collect our bags and people from Oman Air would tell us what is happening. Definitely not the way we wanted to be spending our day. And, to make things worse, what are we supposed to do now??

We get off the plane, go get our bag, go see the ground staff for Oman Air. They tell us the same thing as the pilot, the flight has been cancelled because of weather. But no one will tell my partner what weather. We ask about compensation, accommodation, rebooking, cancellation, etc. There will be nothing and we will be automatically rebooked by Oman Air and we need to check my partner’s email tonight to see for when. We had only planned on staying two nights in Khasab and then leaving the country, we can’t exactly just hang about… Well, we talked to the ticketing agent upstairs, no way to refund the ticket. Just have to wait and see when Oman Air reschedules us. But, one of the agents told us that this always happens with flights to Khasab because of the geography of the airport which is between mountains. At least one of them helped us get wifi at the airport so that we could book another hotel in Muscat. Not ideal. And what will happen with our flight out of Oman and our hotel in Khasab… what a headache. I was still smiling, but my partner was not. Thankfully the hotel was easy, the hotel in Khasab cancelled without a penalty (they must be used to this), and the flight out of Oman is allowing us to reschedule if necessary as it is more than 24 hours before the flight. Pfew. Now just wait and see if we can leave on time to keep to what we told immigration for our visa application. Ooof.

[Also, a little side note, we did notice that everyone dressed in traditional Omani clothing (so we assume locals) went to the gate agent, asked if it would be rescheduled, and calmly left. They must be used to this. It was only the foreigners that were not impressed.]

So, with our deep knowledge of Muscat, we booked a hotel right on the main road. That way we can take the A1 back into the city, get off the bus, and walk a grand total of 2 minutes to our hotel. Could not be easier. At least that’s one small victory for today. See? You’re learning that we tell you the good with the bad. We won’t just sugarcoat it all.

At least the evening was still nice, and we felt cheated by spending the majority of the day at the airport, so we went out immediately. We stayed close to the Natural History Museum, but it was closed at this hour so we just explored the area.

And then we tried going to the beach. Our map said there was one about 15 minutes away from us, so off we went. Walked through a construction site, by a club, and then to a giant sign that essentially said “private beach”. We don’t want to commit any crimes, so… let’s not trespass. We turned around, back across the main road where the traffic is nonstop.

And from this vantage point we could take in the sight of this mosque. Like our taxi driver said, there are mosques all over Oman. Everywhere. The call to prayer is amazing, it just reverberates across the city from all the mosques, quite something.

Then we wanted some groceries/food. We had seen a mall from the bus, so we decided to go in that direction.

We eventually made it to the Muscat Grand Mall.

They also celebrate Christmas in the mall.

The mall did have a hypermarket for my partner to get some food. However, something more interesting than that was this. We don’t entirely remember the exact title, but it was essentially a honey convention in the mall. There were a variety of people selling and talking about the honey they produce and it was from a variety of geographies across Oman. It must have been so interesting! And delicious! If only we were going straight home from here we could’ve gotten some honey to take home. (Is that even allowed through customs?). But alas, we aren’t, nor do we wish to be. So instead, looking at these beekeepers is the most we can do.

And then it was back to our hotel. Goodnight from Muscat (unfortunately)! We did eventually get the rescheduling email, our flight is booked for tomorrow. Let’s cross our fingers.