Travel Blog 45: Wild Camping in Oman & Horrifying Car Stranded In Soft Sand Experience

After traveling to so many cities, there is always a time when we crave for something more laid back and relaxed to calm down the overwhelming thrill from the skyscrapers and the hustle bustle city. In order to satisfy our desire, the closest flight and the easiest to reach-destination from Dubai is possibly Oman.

Being a neighboring country to the dazzling city of Dubai, Oman offers a more scenic and laid back vibe. By comparing both cities with their landscapes, Oman is the crown jewel of the Middle Eastern country. Oman is forced to be recognized for its natural deserts, craggy mountains, oceanic islands, and everything that is in between. While the best part, everyone can pitch their tents anywhere from the striking view of mountains to the endless spread of desert but, promise that you'll leave the residents out of it. As long as it's a public land and you're camping not too close to the local houses or villages, you're good to go.

In the last articles, I've talked about how we picked out our four wheelers and bought a bunch of camping gears to hit the road for our first camping on a cliff facing the beautiful pristine beach. After camping at the off-beaten track, we figured out that it's time to reward us with the one last adventure by unspoiled the beach.

There are two reasons why we've chosen camping over any luxury glamping or five-star hotel stays to end our trip in Oman. First, we would really want to make use of this opportunity to surrounded and immerse ourself with the natural landscapes, knowing that we will be back in the city life soon after the trip. Secondly, there is nothing better compares to camping in the wild as it offers a completely different view of the country from the typical tourists' attractions that tour boards proclaimed. However, do allow me to explain what happened to our vehicle as I walk you through our camping experience and how we end up in a ditch.

The story goes by when we decided to camp by the beach, not knowing where is the best place to camp and the overwhelming choices to choose from. After driving along the coastline two hours away from Muscat through the secluded paths, we finally found an article online about 'As Sifah' claiming that it has one of the most pristine beaches in Oman. Without any hesitation, we hit the road directly to the destination through the winding road through the tunnels and often over the precipitous constructing roadway.

Honestly, I am not very good at riding over these curvy roads. At times, I had to stuff myself with sweet and sour snacks to stop me from having the feeling the throw-up. For us not knowing how long the path continues and how long our petrol is going to last for us going up the hill without any chance of petrol supply by the road it the worst nightmare that we could have on the road.

This is the best shot that I could possibly get, considering that I was almost like a dead fish in the car. But, seriously, the road is really crazy and I feel a little dizzy thinking about it. After a good twenty-minutes drive up and down the road, we made it to a small fishing village where we can count the houses there by our fingers combined. We can feel the sea breezes through our car windows as we proceed down the cobbled path that leads us to a split road where the navigation ends.

We continue on the path which is more likely to bring us to the beach as we saw a trail on the soft sands. As we drove, we into the soft sand, there's a kink that hit me where I pray that we better not to be ditched in the sand. Thank god, we made it there safe and sound and even able to found a really nice spot for us to camp.

We parked our vehicle and took off our shoe to feel the warm sand brushes against our feet. That was like the best achievement that we can possibly get after a long and thrilling drive. The sand is soft and powdery and the beach is calm and gorgeous. This is like a really rare find and also absolutely a true gem to be discovered. Although we are not the first one to be at the beach, we are definitely the second to be on this long and beautiful coastline, behind the majestic view of the rocky mountains.

You wouldn't believe what was the first thing I did was to move out the beautiful beach chair we picked up from the local supermarket. Quickly to place myself on the chair, soaking up the beautiful sun, enjoying the mild sea breeze brushing through my hair and to clear my mind out for the occasion. For a moment, I thought that I was on a beach vacation in a tropical country with a coconut in my hand.

We spent a good few hours sitting on the chair, snacking, chatting and enjoying music by the beach, never realize that the day is already catching up as the sun slowly disappearing and the wind died down a little bit. We looked back to our car, notice that we haven't had our tent set up nor had the fireplace ready for the night.

So, we started setting up our tent and here's the time-lapse. If you are wondering why we had our bags and sleeping bag brought into the tent before it's done is because we needed some weight to balance the blasting wind that is trying to blow off our tent. As time passes by we had our fire set up and cooking pots and tools ready for dinner while enjoying the perfect night over the fire.

As the fire died down, we clear things up and went to our dreamland.The next day, we woke up early to enjoy the view one last time and slowly get ready to hit the road for our next destination. This is the time when we realize that our car was stuck in the soft sand!

After we had everything packed in and fire up the engine to get out of the sand, we realized that no matter how hard we pedal on the accelerator or trying different gears, the car remains stagnant and it has absolutely no movement at all. This is the time where we both got panic and the thing that we fear the most for making a decision to camp by the beach.

We've read a lot of tips and tricks to prevent the car stuck in the sand before we traveled, knowing that we might encounter a situation like this. With all the tips and tricks, we knew that there shouldn't be any problem for our vehicle to be stuck in the sand and we thought that it might because of the car's problem. So, we spent good hours googling and researching online, trying to figure out a way to get the car out from the sand but, there is not the slightest chance for the car to move no matter how hard we tried.

With so many ways we tried, ranging from destruction woods and branches to stuck under the tires to make a friction, deflating the tires and attempt to push the car, it wouldn't work at all. For the worst part, our car started to sink deeper into the sand. At that time I was totally in the panic zone as we couldn't see anyone around us to give some help or finding any cars to tow our vehicle.

Well, then thank god, we found a group of men playing around the beach and approached for help. Apparently, it was our gearbox that gave us the problem. All we had to do was just to push the gear to neutral for a moment and a shift in into different gear and the vehicle works in a miracle. We learned that the group of guys encountered the same experience before and they learned it in a hard way and so does us.

Overall, I guess this is one of the trips that I'll never forget in my entire life!

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