on the Dubai DO with Points Summary and Travel Summary (and someone else who doesn’t summarize)
so you want to drive from the UAE to Oman? here are some tips. we crossed over east of Al Ain (UAE) on the way to Sohar (Oman) on highway 7.
leaving the uae
the first stop is the UAE exit. you will get an exit stamp and be required to pay 35 dirhams ($9.53). yes, just like New Jersey, you have to pay to leave. you’ll also get a blank customs form (all in Arabic) but we were not sure what to do with it — as it turns out, do nothing.
entering oman
the distance between the UAE border control and the Oman checkpoint is quite far — i thought we were done with everything after paying to leave the UAE (maybe they magically just didn’t care about entry visas/stamps? lol) but nope, after about 10 minutes we came to another set of guard posts. we were directed to park and go into a large building, which we discovered functions as a sort of welcome center.
there are ATMs, a tourist information booth, toilets (squat, mind you), an Omantel SIM card kiosk (which was closed when we went), and most importantly, a visa counter.
you will need to get a form from the counter — easy enough to fill out, with your passport details and your address in Oman. return it and pay the visa fee (5 rial, $12.99, for visits of 10 days or less). NOTE NOTE NOTE they only take credit card. also, the rial is so highly valued they use three decimal places, so your credit card slip will say 5.000 — that’s not 5,000 rial, that’s just 5.
Oman, where the currency is so valued that they need three decimal places. pic.twitter.com/ppF2ELvoSD
— Jonathan Khoo (@jonk) August 16, 2014
you will also get some sort of official form that indicates you got your visa(?). as you drive off you’ll pass through two more stations where you’ll need to show it — a (hopeully) cursory examination of your trunk contents and then a booth where they will ask you if you have insurance for Oman. uhh sure we do. (*wave on through*).
sidebar: Omantel SIM cards we got SIM cards at an Omantel kiosk at a mall and while it was cheap — 2 rial including 2 rial of credit, the data plan is problematic. a 1 GB/1 day plan is 1 rial, a 1 GB/1 week plan is 3 rial (so you’ll need to add a rial of value to your card if you want this one). unfortunately, while voice and SMS service seem to be working, the data plan has yet to activate despite getting a confirmation text message and the quota showing up when you check your balance, so beware.
UPDATE: if it doesn’t work, your APN probably needs to be manually set. it’s APN taif, Username taif, and Password taif.
@wanderlusty
aaah the ubquitous APN issues.
when did make it to the gulf? thought you were still in ibiza lol
Lolol I’ve been here almost a week now. Ibiza was forever ago!
touche!
they got airbnb in oman lol?
more photos?
Haha no we stayed in a crowne plaza lol. I mean, there may be airbnbs? Heh
lol gotcha
decent price?
I think so! Thanks to points summary (@jamucsb) and his hotel-deal-hunting skillz!
btw, actually just used airbnb for the 1st time last week in kiev.. success
also hit up the родина мать monument
oh yes!!!! yay! 😀 how is kiev doing nowadays?
and the hotels were not bad at all. i don’t know exact prices but i think per person for four people in two rooms it came out to be ~$350 for an entire week including car.
kiev’s cool. cheap. lots of skinnies. lotta hills make for difficult walking tours. occasional fake bomb threat due to political unrest. the usual. i got to climb through the service hatch in the shield of the родина мать monument. about 300ft up. looks like this:
bit.ly/1pE6lP2
$16. pretty wicked.
hotel came with car? wtf lol. thats cool. muscat?
Oh that’s amazing!!!
Oh no no we drove, in Sharjah or something lol. Not Muscat.
oh, lol.
so you drove from shrjah to oman & back? i imagine its hard to do a 1-way rental there. any more photos of oman. i heard it was interesting compared to opulent gulf countires, which are not interesting
lol shouldve known you & points summary had an asian team goin on. where to next?
hahahaha i think it just ended up that way (asian). anyways, we rented and returned at DXB. so we drove from dubai to abu dhabi to al ain to suhar to fujairah and then back to dubai with a quick stop in sharjah.
yeahhhh hmm. there really is nothing special about oman, at least where we went. i didn’t take many pictures but yeah, nothing fancy. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonk/tags/oman
that seems like a cool little road trip! surprised youre saying that it was nothing special.
Oh! No no the road trip itself was great! Oman (or at least the part we saw) was less than impressive. I do want to go to Muscat though!
i hear you. i wanna hit oman too.
rental car from DBX seems like a cool option
And cheap too!
yeah.. just checked kayak. $35/day for “intermediate”. pretty good.
so you got more photos of the UAE drive?
ah i think the rate we had was $150 for a week with a chevy cruze, but we returned a day early which bumped it higher (i know, blech). heh only photo i have is at oman border (which was on flickr). i didn’t take many pictures this trip! 🙁
haters.
gotcha. which emirates are worth visiting in your opinion?
Abu Dhabi for sure. And I really liked Sharjah a lot! Worlds away from Dubai despite being so close!
interesting.
dubai doesnt interest me personally at all.
al ain, suhar, fujairah were probably pretty sleepy?
yeah, not much going on in any of those unless you like old forts!
turns out i took more pictures than i thought! https://plus.google.com/+JonathanKhoo1977/stories/0dd0d8de-7443-3cb8-9d4c-7a677e04df55147fc962f02?authkey=CNqygJzTlrWz-wE
good shit,
any interesting award redemption for this trip?
i did a standard UA award redemption, stopped in Sarajevo on the way over to Dubai (really loved long-haul Austrian, better than long-haul Lufty, imho). everyone else did Etihad F on the way there LOL.
lol spoiled over here with EY.. AA miles?
did you do a simple 1way or did you do something like usa-euro(stopover)-dubai(dest)-usa round trip?
yeah i think they all used AA miles. i did a roundtrip with a stopover. i originally was scheduled for US-Jordan-Dubai-US but changed it to US-Ethiopia-Dubai-US a couple days before leaving and then changed it to US-Sarajevo-Dubai-US like 2 days before departure LOL. all for the same price (80k round trip in Y)
pretty sick.
i changed mine 2 days before departure also. UA change fees are annoying. do you have star alliance status?
i’m a 1k this year and will be platinum next year, due to the PQD requirements. i am probably not going to have anything on UA the year after next — i’m going to miss these free award changes! i use them a LOOOOTTTTT.
i feel you.
have you considered doing the “~$1k worth of UA domestic 1st class flights credited to Aegean to receive star alliance gold for 3 yrs” trick?
Yeah I’ll probably do that once I lose status. Can’t pass up the bonus miles I get as an elite!
that means you fly on revenue tix?
i only fly awards.
for me, the biggest bene is the reduced change fees
Ah yeah I don’t manufacture spend.
didn’t realize you took a pic of me taking a pic of the border even though the signs said “no photography” LOL
Oh lol oops! Lol I can take it down!