Mo2w #64 - One Of My Favourite Places For Bikepacking

In the last episode I continued cycling from Islamabad to Karachi and met many many good people on that way. Got invited plenty times, experienced the Pakistani hospitality, did plenty of selfie sessions, pushed through intense traffic, ended up being escorted by the police and then was forced to take a bus from Multan to Karachi due to political tensions. And here the story goes on. My initial plan was to go to Iran next, but since I just couldn't get the necessary documents to continue my way to the border and the political tension in Iran was about to shift, I made a spontaneous decision and came up with an alternative plan and bought a plane ticket to Oman instead. Once I had touched down on Omani soil I had first to put back my bike together. Off we go. I have no plan. I mean like I have a route kind of in mind, but for now for today I have really like no plan. So I just go with the flow. So first that flow brought me to Muscat, the capital of Oman. And here we are already. I cycled like 7km about and I'm already entering Muscat, so I'm in the capital already. But since I came to see nice nature I didn't spend much time here in the city and followed the big road directly out again. It was the first place where I camped in Oman, like super good, I had like really good company last night. I met one person from Iran, one from Bangladesh and two from India and we had such good conversations that was amazing. I didn't even cook anything because I was just busy like socializing, which was wow, really cool. And yeah, just down there is a town and yeah, it's like super safe here in Oman and I also met like a lot of people who go camping themselves. So camping here is really like deeply embedded into the culture. So you can camp anywhere for free, it's totally legal, totally fine, it's amazing. I've left now that big road and I'm following now somewhat of a gravel track here. I'm not sure how that road is going to turn out, if it's rideable or not, but I will find out. I'm really excited because the nature here is like absolutely beautiful. You have like these mini mountains, which are like super cool and then you have these like green parts and if I'm lucky, I find even some water, that would be really cool. And by the way, for those who are curious, the name of that body is Wadi Shgeri. I don't know how to pronounce it correctly, but you can read it here. It's actually crazy that this is actually my first proper day of cycling here in Oman and I've got already this like super beautiful landscape. I mean, really, it's really cool here. Those mountains here, they look like some sort of miniature mountains, which is kind of cool. And that road here is actually good. I mean, it has this washboard style sometimes, which is a bit annoying, but so far it's actually quite good to ride here. I made a dam on top, I guess so. But yeah, let me show you where I came from. It's freaking beautiful. Look at this. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Wow. Just wow, just wow, there's nothing else I can say. Okay, let's go down and then let's go to the beach. I want to swim today, maybe that would be great. And here we are, back on the asphalt. But yeah, that gravel road was really beautiful. So I'm definitely looking for some more of that type of roads, but for now, I keep following that road and go to the beach. At least that's the plan. Let's see if it works out. Let's go! I have reached the coast now. Yeah, but the sun is gone. It's behind the mountain. I will not swim today, I will do that tomorrow. For now, I need to get some food for tonight. I need to get water and then I will find a nice place to camp. Hello friends. Hello, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? I'm good, too. Where are you from? Germany. Oh, Germany is a good country, nice. More or less. From Bangladesh. So many from Bangladesh are here working, huh? Yes, yes. In the shops, huh? Yes. Good people. Next door I can get chai? Yes, yes. Nice. You need tea? Yes, tea, fast food or beer. Karachay? Yes. Perfect. Black coffee, Nescafe. I like the milk tea. Yes, no problem. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Bye. That night I ended up camping directly in front of the sea and I started the day with testing my latest road find. That flimsy foam boomerang was just laying next to the road and I decided to make it fly. The first few attempts didn't really work out but eventually the wind conditions were just right and I had the right angle and so with a little bit of extra effort I managed to catch it. With that mission complete I now could continue cycling. The mission for today is to find an actually good spot to swim. Just as I mentioned my plan to go to swim I actually found something that looks pretty good. Let's check it out. Okay, so I think I will park my bike here and just walk. Of course I'm not prepared. I don't have any like swimming pants so I just swim in my underwear. It's really good water temperature. I'm not a fan of cold water to be honest. Absolutely not. But this here is great. There was something under my feet. What the ****? Holy ----, I just felt like something wiggling very fast. Okay, let's go. So I'm reaching a town called Tiwi which is also the entrance for Wadi Shab which is probably one of the most touristic places here in Oman. So let's see how this goes. Here I had the idea that it would be very nice to sleep inside the so-called Wadi Shab but in order to get there you first have to kind of take a boat across that water but unfortunately that plan didn't really work out. So apparently they don't want to let me enter that Wadi because if there's rain I would be fucked. So they don't want that risk basically for me and there's no other way to get out apart from this boat. So yeah, that means I will go now for plan B. That will be Wadi Tiwi. And I can also enter that Wadi by bike and I don't need to take a boat. So in case there's rain I could just pack my stuff and leave. But yeah, according to Google it's gonna be dry the next days. I think chances for rain are really slim. So I followed the signs to enter the Wadi but I didn't really check the details about the road that is ahead. All I knew is that it started beautiful. I should have checked the map before. It's actually quite a lot uphill. It's like 500 meters up. I'm not sure if I will be able to do that because it's getting dark soon. So let's see how far I can get. Ridiculous Steve, look at this. Wow, I don't think I will make it to the top today. It's too steep here. It's impossible. I need a guy like him to give me a lift. But yeah, look at how steep that is. And apparently it's like three kilometers like this until I could maybe, maybe only maybe swim. So yeah, I don't know. Because it was getting dark very soon, I decided to turn around and head back to the beach in order to find a decent place for the night. This area here is marked on the map as a camping area. Let's see if I can find a place for me. It's kind of flat. It's a little bit rocky the ground, but it's like I can do it. I can sleep there. So awesome. And the next day I kept following the big road more towards south. But here things became a bit unspectacular and therefore I didn't film much on that road. So I pushed on until it was time to set up camp again. I have to follow this gravel road here. So I followed that gravel road until the end and ended up getting very close to the sea where I then spent the night. As I then woke up in the morning, the wind had reached just another level of intensity. And the pants that I had bought on Muscat had just developed a big hole in my crotch. Due to that wind, the sea had turned into a quite violent place. Waves smashed with plenty force against the rocks. And after thinking for a while if I should try to go for a swim or not, I decided to abandon the plan. So I packed my few things together and started heading back to the asphalt. I am back on the tarmac and the wind today is insane. I'm lucky that I have a tailwind because if I would have that against me, that would be like really exhausting. Let's hope the wind condition will be stable and I will have tailwind all the time today. My plan today was actually to go to the turtle beach. But since the wind is like insane, the water will be like kind of dangerous. I don't see any point in going there. So I will skip that and I will just follow the coast here. Use the tailwind. Doing right now 40 kilometers per hour and I can still feel the wind on my back. Can you see that sand moving on the road? A good demonstration for how fast the wind is. With the wind pushing me, I keep rolling on the smooth Omani asphalt roads and soon I would see the first signs of the desert coming closer. And all I had to do now was to follow this highway for a little more until I would reach the sand dunes. And a few hours later I made it and I was actually hoping to find some pure nature. But then when I was walking around a little bit, I got surprised by how much actually garbage I would find in those dunes. I mean, yes, I didn't went far inside, but still it's sad to see so many plastic bottles just in that small radius around myself. Down there is a road. So I just basically pushed the bike off into the dunes because yeah, it's really hard work to push my bike here through the sand. Anyways, I took some funny photos with the sun in the background and I've managed to make my bike stand without any support from a bike stand or kickstand or anything. Just balanced it in the sand. Pretty cool. Anyways, after spending here some time in the sand, I decided to go back to the road and continue pedaling. Yeah, it's quite hot today. I mean, like yesterday as well, got around 30 degrees, but there's not so much wind. So it feels a bit more warm. And there's just a camel here blocking the road. Quite relaxed, I think. So one thing in Oman is really cool. You've got near the mosque always these water taps where you can just refill your water. And especially when you have like a thermos bottle like me, it's awesome because the water is like ice cold. So good. When it's really hot, you have some cold water. It's like liquid gold. So I'm on my way to Nizwa and I just cycled a quite long stretch of nothingness and I'm just reaching now a junction and here's a Pakistani restaurant. So I'm really looking forward to eat some dalmash with roti. Let's go. Let's find that restaurant and hope it's open. Oh, yes, there it's written. Restaurant, coffee shop, Pakistani foods. Hello. Do you have dalmash? Dalmash? Okay. Is there without meat? So this is the first time that I'm getting off from the main road since, I don't know, quite a while to be honest. And yeah, it's quite an adventurous road as you can see here. It's like a washboard road and I hope there's not much like sand or like, I don't know, very loose gravel because with my weight I would just sink in and it's really difficult to push on in that situation then. So let's see. And here's a car coming with a lot of dust creating. Very dusty here. Especially when those cars drive past. The bumpy road doesn't end. I'm back on the asphalt. I keep following that road. Eventually we get back to the main road. Very just this silence here. Sun went just down. It's time to camp. And the easy part is in Oman you can just roll off the road, go anywhere. Camping here is like super legal. People do it all the time so it's like super widely accepted. So I just follow this gravel road for a little while until I see a nice little place where I think like, oh yeah, that's my spot. Then I go there, set up my camp. Easy. So good night. See you tomorrow. Good morning. I'm back on the bike and I'm going now towards Nizwa today and it's gonna be a windy day. So let's hope that wind will be like on my side and not against me. But yeah, you never know. First I need to get back to the road. I'm a little bit here lost. I chose not to follow the gravel tracks. I chose to go like GTA character like just somewhere. And now I need to find the road again. On the road again. Okay, let's go. Not long into today's riding and I'm already reaching the outskirts of the city. So I'm approaching Nizwa. Traffic is getting a lot more busy and I somehow managed to lose my sunglasses. I don't know what happened but I don't have them anymore. But they were like very very scratched already anyway. So I think it's just time to get some new sunglasses. Let's see if I can find some here. If not, yeah, I don't know. I would just have to squeeze my eyes a bit. I found something. It's called Nizwa Grand Mall. So I'm pretty sure there will be sunglasses inside. Let's go and let's have a look. Okay, I'm in some sort of super big shopping mall. Just a challenge will be to find sunglasses here. But just as expected, finding sunglasses here wasn't very difficult. After a few minutes, I found a shop with a decent selection. So these are my new glasses. I think they're quite good and it's amazing to have like clear glass again that's not scratched because my old glasses, boy, you couldn't see a thing anymore actually. So yeah, I'm actually glad I lost it. I paid 28 dirham which equals about 65 euros. Not the cheapest but not the most expensive but yeah, I definitely need glasses here. So let's pass through Nizwa and then hopefully get to a Wadi soon. So the plan is to cycle now next to one of the most beautiful places on this planet. So let's go to Wadi Ghul or Ghul. I'm not sure how it's pronounced. I have no clue what's this supposed to mean but I think it has some meaning but I don't know which one. Anyways, I think if I continue, I would reach at some point another village. I think I would just pitch my tent. I just saw a nice rock over there which was a kind of flat. I think I could sleep on top of this. So I'll park my bike here on the side and just explore a little bit what's going on here. I marked my territory. Look at the mountains here. Stunning, just stunning. So I think it just carries on like this. Super scenic, super beautiful. I mean, check this. My bike is somewhere down there. And yeah, so I think I will just choose that rock which I saw earlier which was kind of flat. Just put my mattress on that and sleep there. Wow, crazy. Okay, let's figure out where that rock is because there's so many rocks here. I might lose the vision of where I was, where I wanted to go. Let's see. I'll take my helmet, mark that spot and then I carry my bike to there which is gonna be tricky because yeah, as you can see, it's very hard terrain. I think that's a good rock here actually. I think it's a potential spot to sleep on top. Yeah, it's actually not bad. I think that's gonna be my spot. Let me put my helmet here in case you didn't know. My star sign is the mountain goat. I don't know what to say. Capricorn. So yeah, this is my place, you know. This is my home. I don't believe in that but it's just cool. Just for the moment I choose to believe in that and say I belong here. Because I really feel like that's my place. I think that way would have been easier but I chose this. Not too late. The damage is done too late. Okay, easy. Eventually I reach that rock that I will call home for tonight and set up my bed for another night under the stars. The next day I'm heading back. The same stunning way as I came yesterday but with the plan to go now up to Jebel Shams. It's really like easy to cycle for like 10 seconds and then it's like really hard to push on. Actually this place is probably one of my favorite places on planet earth which I've visited so far. It's just, I don't know, so surreal here. Beautiful. So peaceful. Yeah, so much to discover here. Wherever you go, you do a turn, landscape is changing. I mean it's basically the same. It's a canyon but it looks different. It's got different characteristics. It's like really worth visiting this place here. Wadi Ghul. So if you ever come to Oman, come here. And once I left the wadi, I made it back to Tarmac. I was now starting to climb up the infamous Grand Canyon of Oman. I'm going to try to cycle up to Jebel Shams now. Not to the top of the summit but at least to the like higher platform where I can look into the canyon. It's a 25 kilometer climb from here and 1,400 meter up. So there will be some quite steep sections. Probably some of the steepest I've ever cycled to be honest. Let's see. Jebel Shams cold. Cold, yeah. I see like snow, huh? Sleep. Jebel Shams? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just me? Just one? You go up Jebel Shams? Yeah, no, no. No, okay. Maybe. I go up Jebel Shams, yeah. What's your name? Mohamed. Mohamed and you? What's your name? How old are you guys? How many years? What's your age? Age. How old are you? 14. Okay. Nice, nice. Bye, bye, bye, bye. I mean just in case someone will come and offer me a lift to get up to there. I maybe won't refuse. Maybe we'll take that offer. But maybe not. I'm not sure yet. But I don't know if it's gonna happen. Last time I was here it actually did happen. So yeah, chances are not zero. The road is extremely steep here but since the road condition is actually very good I decided to go up without any cheating and cycle the whole way. And I don't usually use the zigzag technique when going uphill but here it felt that it was the only way to make my way up those steep roads. As I pushed on the road become more of a gravel road for some kilometers which was fine to me but some of the fancy cars they were just not made for these conditions and decided to start heading back. I finished a gravel section. There's one little climb ahead and then yeah it will be kind of easy to get to the ridge of this canyon. Yeah, I'm excited. And then eventually after hours of cycling uphill I finally reached the edge of the canyon. And yes, what you see down there is exactly the place where I spent the night before. So and here we are. That's the spot and I want to show you here that view. Look at this. That's pretty deep. If that stone now decides to break I'm definitely dead. So I better go back. So just a few meter away from that massive drop I set up my tent for the night and in the next morning I was surprised to see so many cars parked because everyone came to see the sunrise from above the clouds which was to be honest quite a big view especially with the clouds being pushed up by the thermodynamics. So before I go down one last glimpse into the canyon. Check this. You can't see anything. It's just clouds. Yeah, you can see a little bit here but they're very cloudy. Very, very cloudy. So I started riding down again but before descending completely I stopped at the little shop which is located close to the viewing platform just for a quick karak chai. You cold? Germany very cold. Here it's okay. After that little delicious treat it was now time to roll down again what I had just cycled up on the day before. But halfway down I then choose to follow a different path to get back to the asphalt and that downhill turned out to be a really fun one. Once I made it back to the main road I just followed it straight until the Arab Emirates and here not so much happened so I didn't film anything during those days. I've crossed now the border and I am now in UAE also called Modern Mordor. For now I have to go to Al Ain find a currency exchange because I still have Omani Rials. And yeah, it's going to be a long evening because there will be like, I don't know, 30 kilometers more to go until I would get out of this urban area again. Got already 91 kilometer on the clock so long day. That day I cycled quite far into the night just to get out of Al Ain and to be honest roads in UAE are not really fun to cycle. The traffic here is just insane. Roads are just purely built for cars only. It was quite a hard day yesterday. I did 140 kilometer in total. So from the place where I camped yesterday to the border it was like 85 kilometer and then I did another 55 kilometer to get out of Al Ain of the urban area and I really appreciate the time that I spent in Oman because I can feel here the vibe is quite different. I mean it appears kind of to be the same or similar but people are way more distant, way more, how do you say, cocky you could say. At least car drivers really don't have any respect towards cyclists and I already got asked by some Indian guys if I have German rupees that would help them. That's like an indication for how the situation here is towards the workers. Also I tried to get a sim card and internet but it's ridiculously expensive. So a 4 gigabyte plan would be 50 euro for one month which is like not sufficient to be honest. Nowadays there's no way I'm going to pay this. So therefore I would just go without internet and hope I will find here and then some wi-fi which I can use. But it's also tricky because you have to put in your phone number or your email address to receive a code. None of this actually works for me. I can't receive an email without internet you know. Tricky but yeah. Let's continue cycling to Dubai. There I've got an accommodation. So it's another 120 kilometers to there. Maybe I will do it all the way today or I split it up in two days. Let's see. I'm rolling through a very strange place. The whole city or urban area is like super like square type designed and there are a lot of camels. Like a lot. Like thousands probably. Hello. What are the camels? So many. Is the camel market? Ah. Wow. Nice to meet you too. Germany. So many camels. There's a camel souk. No, there's a camel market. Wow. So all those camels are kept here in the place for camel races and looks like those they just came back from some sort of training. So as it's getting dark soon I'm gonna find a place to camp and I also wanted to get off from that huge highway. So I found a road that kind of links me to another road which will lead me eventually to Dubai. But I'm not sure if that road's gonna stay like, you know, with tarmac or if it's gonna turn into a sand road. So let's see. For now it actually looks pretty good. Just don't have any evidence. I can't check. Only on my offline map I can see there is a road. And apparently, fingers crossed, it will bring me to somewhere. Not into the sandy dead end. Well, let's see. For now it's okay. Kind of. I just gotta keep the handlebar straight. Otherwise I will just kind of lose control. But it's all right. Sand is quite hard. It's quite compressed here. So good morning. This is the spot where I was camping last night. Just very lazy again without a tent here in the desert. Dubai is over there behind the cloud of dust. It's funny. I put sand yesterday onto my ground sheet, you could say. And here are little traces from different bugs or other small animals. I don't know who was there, but somebody was here. But yeah, I had breakfast. Now I'm packing my stuff. As I was spending the last days here cycling long straight roads through the desert, I started thinking of what I should do next. And I had two options. Either to continue the next two months cycling through deserts, straight roads, or to return to Europe already two months earlier than I had planned, catch a ferry to Tenerife and spend the last two months with like-minded people living in caves at the beach playing music, or I have somewhat holidays from the cycling. I am somewhat craving for musical exchange. And situations like this where the world was just extremely shitty designed for cycling drained my motivation to continue at this moment more and more. It's such a really, really bad, at least for a cyclist. So I entered Dubai and had made the decision to follow my intuition and booked a flight to Seville. Even though I spent only a short time here in Dubai, it drained me so hard that all I could think was to get out again. The flight I had booked was scheduled for in one week, so I chose to book myself a bed in the cheapest hostel that I could find, which turned out to be somewhat of a mass accommodation for workers from other countries. The people were really nice, but conditions not so much. About 40 of those little cells with mattresses were cramped into this little apartment with only two toilets. I can't even imagine being here during the hot period of the year. Eventually, that one week of waiting passed and I packed my bike in a box and ended this trip a little earlier than I'd initially anticipated. So stay tuned for what comes next and see you soon.