The Ade Tour – Day 6

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This morning saw us leave the joys of the Al Aqqa beach resort. We headed down to the views reception before we left to partake of a wonderful breakfast. In fact the breakfast was so wonderful that we basically rolled out of the restaurant to the car.

Now the car. I have to talk about the Jeep. Yesterday the Jeep threw up a warning light on the dash and mum made a joke that maybe the car was just too dirty and was feeling sorry for itself. So when we got to the hotel last night I asked the valet parkers if they could possibly find somewhere to clean the car for us as it was sooooo dirty. The guy said that it would cost about AED 35 so I gave him a 50, and he toddled off to find a way to clean the car. He returned later on to ma and pa Ade’s room with AED 35 of change having said that the car was only AED 15 to clean. Now when we had told him to clean the car I told him to only clean the outside and not to worry about the inside.

So I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I walked outside the hotel to find the cleanest car on the face of the planet. It didn’t look that good when we bought it new! They had even polished the wheels. I have never ever seen the outside of the car look that clean. And then the even bigger surprise was when I hopped into the car to find that they had cleaned that as well, to the point where they have put little pieces of paper on the foot wells. And all for AED15!!!! That is about NZ$5.

Well we just had to go and find the valet parking guy and give him a massive tip.

So the Ade family circus set off today for their journey to Sohar in the cleanest car imaginable. We sadly left the Al Aqqa beach resort, where we had been treated so well, and headed onto the coast highway for a leisurely drive down to Fujairah.

Now in Fujairah I had fully intended on taking the Jeep into the service center to get the funny light on the dash looked out. But as things would turn out, the light on the dash was not lit today. We can only figure that the car just loved its little clean so much that it sorted itself out.

The coast on the way down to Fujairah was just lovely. We passed through Khor Fakkan, which was gorgeous, and then through the industrial zone of Fujairah and then the city itself and onto Kabla. Kabla and Khor Fakkan were just gorgeous. Beautiful corniches that are all planted and landscaped with wonderful views of the sea. They are both good places to go diving from so in the new year I think I will have to start taking some weekend trips out there to savour the delights of the east coast diving.

One of my favourite events of the day was when in Fujairah a car just stopped in front on me in the left hand most lane, put on its hazard lights and proceeded to let a lady get out of the back seat of the car, so she could waddle her way over the other side of the road to the shops. The car then started off again and proceeded to do a u-turn at the next turning. Presumably to go pick up the lady again from the shop that she had waddled into.

At Khor Kabla we turned inland and headed towards Hatta. We had decided to take a slightly less known road over to Hatta from Khor Kabla. We did this as if we had proceeded through Khor Kabla and then up the main road to Hatta we would have ended up crossing the border three times in one day and we figured that was going to be a little bit silly.

However the hitch in the devious plan to only do one border crossing was the fact that this was an old wadi road that had been paved, and is obviously not so well used by tourists, and is therefore not sign posted in English. After a false turning that saw the jeep doing a little bit of off roading over the median strip of the highway we finally got onto what we thought was the right road. However we decided to be sensible and stop for directions at the local RAK Bank. I was about to head into the bank when I realised that I was wearing a singlet top and that maybe this was a small conservative town and that perhaps dad should go in instead. So off dad toddled into the bank to check if we were on the right road. About five minutes later he reappeared after having had a great little conversation about NZ, the cricket, being offered a cup of coffee and given some chocolates for the trip. In amongst all of that he also managed to confirm that we were on the correct road.

So off we pottled again towards Hatta. When we reached Hatta we headed straight for the Hatta Fort Hotel for a spot of lunch. This was a lovely place to stop for lunch as we ate in the Gazebo Café which over looks the pool. It was made even more lovely when I received a text from Dave saying that it was freezing and foggy in the south of France. Our massive lunches arrived and after saying at breakfast that we never needed to eat again, we somehow managed to put all the food away, declaring that we were going to roll off the end of this holiday.

To help wear off the lunch we headed over to the Hatta heritage village for a wander. This wasn’t the most exciting place to visit, but Ma Ade certainly perked up once she saw the gift shop. A whole half hour was spent inside the gift shop making purchases for the lucky people back home.

From Hatta we headed back down the hills towards the coast, through the border crossing with the rude guard, and into Oman. At this point in time in the day I was getting a little bit tired of driving so I can’t really comment too much on the scenery as I was focussing mostly on the road. I did however notice and awful lot of houses and mosques. Oman seems to be a lot more built up than the UAE. However it is all low rise. And everything seems to be very green as well. It is just beautiful. It has lovely landscaping and the roundabouts here are just gorgeous. We tried to get a couple of photos but failed with the traffic. Will try again tomorrow.

We finally arrived at our destination for the night, The Sohar Beach Hotel, and it is just lovely. Not as luxurious as last night, but lovely just the same. The staff here were locals (which makes a change from Philopinos and Indians) and were so friendly. The young guy, Hasim, who showed me to my room told me that I made his hotel a more beautiful place, when I commented how lovely it was. I was quite bashful. He was a young guy as well as he then proceeded to tell me that he had just finished high school. Goodness only knows how old he thought I was. But there was even better to come, when later on in the evening as I was walking out of reception he said that I was very lovely and that he liked me!

Ma Ade has turned her room into a Christmas wonderland in anticipation of tomorrow’s festivities.

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Photos

Sandy the camel
at the Hatta Fort Hotel

The hatta fort hotel
Chelle and Sandy

The pool
at the Hatta Fort Hotel

Graham and Chelle
at lunch at Hatta