Sur & the Eastern Tip of Arabia

Sur, the Dhow City

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Sur, located roughly 100 miles southeast down the coast of the Gulf of Oman from Muscat, is an ancient port, which has seen traders and pirates, sailors and soldiers, pass through from Persia, India, East Africa, Portugal, Britain, and even the US. In the 6th century it was already the principal port on the Arab Peninsula that traded routinely with Zanzibar and Mombasa along the coast of East Africa. And except for a few decades in the 16th century, when the Portuguese controlled the coast of Oman, it saw no other foreign ruler. Later on, well into the 19th and the early years of the 20th centuries, it was a slave trading center. Today, Sur is gradually gaining some economic energy, ma...Read More

Sur, located roughly 100 miles southeast down the coast of the Gulf of Oman from Muscat, is an ancient port, which has seen traders and pirates, sailors and soldiers, pass through from Persia, India, East Africa, Portugal, Britain, and even the US. In the 6th century it was already the principal port on the Arab Peninsula that traded routinely with Zanzibar and Mombasa along the coast of East Africa. And except for a few decades in the 16th century, when the Portuguese controlled the coast of Oman, it saw no other foreign ruler. Later on, well into the 19th and the early years of the 20th centuries, it was a slave trading center.

Today, Sur is gradually gaining some economic energy, mainly through the establishment of an LNG terminal, which is just now coming on-line. Its other claim to fame is its role as the last center of dhow-building in the entire Arab world. These wooden ships, whose designs have changed but little in the past 400 years, are still being built in the quiet inlet that separates Sur from its sister town of Al-Ayja on the opposite shore.

Sur has received another shot in the arm in the form of a new highway that has just recently been finished that follows the coast down from Muscat and the Capital Area. This road, at a stroke, has cut the travel time between the two by two thirds. Instead of three and a half to four hours' driving time, it now takes barely an hour to cover the distance.
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A Long Weekend in January

Although my wife and I had been to Sur numerous times during our lengthy sojourn in Oman, we had never taken the coastal route from the Capital Area. Although technically doable for many years, it's only been in the past year and a half that a real highway has existed. Before, the coastal trip was a somewhat iffy proposition: in some places there was just a track, which sometimes was covered by sand if there had been a recent storm. Not only was a 4x4 essential, but navigation skills were needed as well if you didn't have a GPS system. Now, it's a whole different story.

We left our home in the western end of the long, narrow city that is Muscat and the Capital Area around mid-morning and headed towards the busy downtown business district. Soon we were on the highway leading to Qalhat and onwards down to the coast. Entering Wadi Adai, a narrow gorge that is locally infamous for flooding, we dealt with the craziness of the traffic and numerous detours due to highway construction that was not quite finished. Once we reached Qalhat, however, the road widened out and became a 4-lane expressway, which we hadn't actually been aware of. Suddenly it was smooth sailing, no more urban sprawl or narrow misses, just a beautifully engineered highway. Despite the sometimes rather tight turns around the flanks of mountains that plunge fairly precipitously into the sea, the well-cambered curves made driving a pleasure. In some ways, the road is almost too good because it's very easy to drive just that bit too fast if a curve pops up too suddenly.

In any event, in under an hour after leaving Al-Amerat in Wadi Adai, we were pulling into the parking lot of the Sur Beach Hotel, where we had made reservations. This was really quite stunning to us, since our last trip had taken nearly four hours going via the old highway that goes through, and then circles around, the narrow mountain range that lies between Muscat and Sur.

Just driving into town, we noticed significant changes since our last visit. Incredibly, there was both a movie theater and a Pizza Hut as well as a fairly respectable-sized shopping center. Before, there was hardly a shop worth walking into. As for fast food or a movie theater, those were things that weren't even worth thinking about. Sur was a backwater, and a pretty conservative one at that. I suppose it still is, but it's suddenly a lot more "modern" than what most old hands like us can imagine. It's just one more example of how swiftly things change in the Gulf. That previous trip was only about five years ago, after all! Even so, we scarcely recognized the place.

After checking in and a little unpacking, we went back to our little Daihatsu 4x4 and headed into town, where we found another surprise: unbeknownst to us, Sur's city fathers had built a corniche, a sort of esplanade, along the waterfront. Since the temperatures were just about idea -- around 24C or 75F -- many people were out and about. Some were locals, but most were Subcontinental expats, whether Indian, Pakistani, or Bangla Deshi. We were the only westerners, but that was no surprise. We're pretty thin on the ground in such places. And below the corniche, on the beach, there were at least two or three ad-hoc football -- soccer -- matches going on, which was where the real action was.

Further on down the corniche was the area where the dhows are built, but there was almost no activity at all, which was a bit of a shock. In the past there were always three or four dhows under construction; this time, we only saw one. Talking with someone at the hotel, I found out that none of the local boys want to follow the profession any longer, so when the current craftsmen hang up their tools, there goes the dhow industry, which had sustained the city for centuries. Read Less

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Ras Al-Hadd, a Village at the Tip of Arabia

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Old Fort and New Mosque Photo - Sur, Oman

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When the decision was made to build the coastal highway from Muscat to Sur, they didn’t stop there. They also built another new road between Sur to Ras Al-Hadd, which is located on the easternmost tip of the Arab Peninsula and continued it on to Al-Ashkara via Ras Al-Jinz. This served a dual purpose: it improved communications for the local population enormously, but it also meant that the region could be opened to foreign tourists. The reason? This is one of few stretches of coastline in the world where the giant Green Sea Turtle nests. Although July is the peak egg laying season, when upwards of a hundred of the creatures come ashore each night, it’s better to be there between Septe...Read More

When the decision was made to build the coastal highway from Muscat to Sur, they didn’t stop there. They also built another new road between Sur to Ras Al-Hadd, which is located on the easternmost tip of the Arab Peninsula and continued it on to Al-Ashkara via Ras Al-Jinz. This served a dual purpose: it improved communications for the local population enormously, but it also meant that the region could be opened to foreign tourists. The reason? This is one of few stretches of coastline in the world where the giant Green Sea Turtle nests.

Although July is the peak egg laying season, when upwards of a hundred of the creatures come ashore each night, it’s better to be there between September and November when there is both a fair amount of activity and much more pleasant weather conditions. Since the Omani government takes its responsibility to protect the nesting areas very seriously, you must have a permit, which is obtainable from the Omani Turtle Scientific and Visitor Center at Ras Al-Jinz. Around 9:30 groups of visitors assemble and, accompanied by a government guide, walk down to the beach to wait for the arrival of the turtles. There are strict regulations that forbid flash photography or the use of flashlights, for light both confuses the turtles and exposes their location to predators. This is especially important when the babies hatch. They must run a gauntlet of people, crabs, and sea birds, and use the reflection of light off the water to find their way to the sea. Therefore, artificial light sources such as flashguns and flashlights can really mess up their programs.

The road from Sur to Ras Al-Hadd is a delight. The 45 km stretch of excellent tarmac runs through rock desert, up and over rugged hills, and past stretches of pristine beach and deep, azure sea. After leaving Sur and Al-Ayjla, there is no sign of any habitation until you reach Ras Al-Hadd. All told, the trip takes under a half hour, which is in stark contrast to the first time I made the trip back in ‘89. Those same 45 kms took me nearly four hours back then, for the "road" was scarcely more than a sandy and rocky track fit only for 4x4 or four-legged beast.

The village itself has changed almost as much. In 1989, there was only one small, modest mosque. Now, there’s a big, brand new one that can probably accommodate everyone in town. The old fort, which lay in ruin back then, has been restored and refurbished – though it was closed by the time we got there this trip. Oddly enough, the thing that struck me most was the filling station. Back then, there was a small grocery store that sold gasoline, which they stored in 40 gallon barrels. The storekeeper would come out, attach a hose to a hand-cranked pump, and feed the other end into your gas tank. Because they had so little on hand at any given time, they wouldn’t allow you to buy more than 20 liters or about 5 gallon! Now, there’s a spiffy looking Oman Oil station with a small convenience store attached, just like its bigger siblings in the Capital Area.

If it weren’t for the turtles, there wouldn’t be a lot to see or do in Ras Al-Hadd. Probably the only reason anyone would bother to come would be to be able to say they’d been at the tip end of Arabia. The beach is nice enough, but there are no facilities for visitors. There's not even much shade of whatever type, so being in town in the summer would be, well, just about insufferable because the heat can be horrific. Restaurants? There’s one small Pakistani greasy spoon, and the new hotel, which is just opening, probably has one. Otherwise, you can forget food as entertainment, too. In the final analysis, you go down there to see the turtles or to see the tip end of Arabia and that’s about it. And what did we do? Well, there were no turtles that night, so I guess we just saw the tip of Arabia.

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Ras Al-Jinz & the Turtle Beach

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Ras Al-Jinz Scientific & Visitors' Centre Photo - Sur, Oman

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Ras Al-JinzThis headland – "ras" means "head" in Arabic – really has only one claim to fame: It’s the site of a beach where thousands of sea turtles of various species swim ashore to lay their eggs. Every night between June and February anywhere from just a handful to several hundred of them lumber up the beach, settle on a spot, and begin to dig their nests in the sand where they lay several dozen eggs each. This is, in fact, one of the world’s principal sea turtle nesting spots, which the Omani government is at pains to protect.Getting there was once a bit of an adventure, but nowadays this is no longer a problem. The new road down the coast from Ras Al-Hadd is as good as...Read More

Ras Al-Jinz

This headland – "ras" means "head" in Arabic – really has only one claim to fame: It’s the site of a beach where thousands of sea turtles of various species swim ashore to lay their eggs. Every night between June and February anywhere from just a handful to several hundred of them lumber up the beach, settle on a spot, and begin to dig their nests in the sand where they lay several dozen eggs each. This is, in fact, one of the world’s principal sea turtle nesting spots, which the Omani government is at pains to protect.

Getting there was once a bit of an adventure, but nowadays this is no longer a problem. The new road down the coast from Ras Al-Hadd is as good as any you’ll find in the West. Ten minutes or so after leaving Ras Al-Hadd, you’ll come to a sign for the Ras Al-Jinz Scientific and Visitors’ Centre. Follow that road up through a low pass and park in the parking lot in front of a wide, low building that effectively blocks access to the beach where the turtles congregate.

The Centre is quite new. According to its web site, it houses a marine museum to explain the life cycle and habits of the turtles, an archaeological museum to highlight recently discovered historical and cultural finds in the area, a small five-star hotel, and a restaurant. However, when we were there all we found was a restaurant that was only half open and a small gift shop, so I don’t honestly know where all the rest of the stuff is. No doubt it will materialize eventually – but emphasis must be placed on the "eventually." This of course is by no means an isolated incident here in the Gulf.

The restaurant at least was worth the stop at the Centre. I had a perfectly respectable Salade Niçoise, for example. And the coffee, according to my wife, was excellent (I stick with yellow-label tea myself; I’m never disappointed.). The other winning feature about the restaurant was the terrace overlooking the beach on beyond the building.

As for the turtles, well, we were rather disappointed. After making the reservations and paying for the tickets for the nightly "tour" and the permits the Ministry sells for viewing the turtles, we hung around the restaurant until 9:30 when everyone trooped out to the beach. After standing around in the dark for upwards of three hours and seeing nothing of the animals, the whole affair sort of collapsed with everyone turning around and heading back to their accommodations wherever they might have been. Some were planning to stay around for another try the following night. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that option. Maybe next time…
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An Evening with Turtles

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Waiting for Turtle Viewing Photo - Sur, Oman

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Observing nesting Green Sea Turtles really is one of Oman’s premiere tourist activities. Finally, last night, I had the opportunity to experience it for myself. It works like this:You show up at the Ras Al-Jinz Scientific and Visitors’ Center sometime around 8:00 or 8:30 in the evening. If you’re on your own, go straight to the desk at the entrance where, for a reasonably modest R.O. 3.000 (ca. US$8), you get a ticket just like in a movie theater. Gone are the days when you had to have a permit from the Ministry of the Environment – fortunately! Your ticket shows which group you have been assigned to (They seem to divide people up into lots of around 30 people.). You go into the wait...Read More

Observing nesting Green Sea Turtles really is one of Oman’s premiere tourist activities. Finally, last night, I had the opportunity to experience it for myself. It works like this:

You show up at the Ras Al-Jinz Scientific and Visitors’ Center sometime around 8:00 or 8:30 in the evening. If you’re on your own, go straight to the desk at the entrance where, for a reasonably modest R.O. 3.000 (ca. US$8), you get a ticket just like in a movie theater. Gone are the days when you had to have a permit from the Ministry of the Environment – fortunately! Your ticket shows which group you have been assigned to (They seem to divide people up into lots of around 30 people.). You go into the waiting room, which looks kind of like a departure lounge of a small airport terminal, and wait until your particular group is called. If, on the other hand, you have been brought to the Center by a guide or a hotel rep of some kind, he or she will get the tickets for you and then divvy them up as you wait in the lounge.

My group was finally called round about 9:00. Our guide, a young Omani turtle researcher who works for the ministry, gathered us together just outside the center on the beach side of the building. He gave us basic guidelines about how we should behave when near the turtles and also told us that if anyone had problems walking then a ride out would be provided. Among other things, we were told we should never stand in front of a turtle, make any sudden movements, or make any undo amount of noise. Photography and videography are both strictly forbidden – he mentioned that last year a girl took a grab shot of a turtle at the head end with a flash. It blinded the creature temporarily, so it went a little berserk and just managed to flounder its way back to the sea without having deposited any eggs at all.

After the little intro, we set off for the beach. Fortunately, we were close to a full moon and we had a cloudless sky, so it was pretty easy to get around even without a flashlight (torch). Even so, it was a twenty minute trek out to the point where the soft sand began. Once there, we had to wait for a phone call from one of the "turtle scouts" who were keeping tabs on the turtles that had come. You have to wait until the turtles have actually started to lay their eggs. If you don’t, and they sense the disturbance, they’re apt to head straight back out to sea without having laid any at all. We were, therefore, waiting for word that the one we would view had started the process.

The word finally came, and we plodded across the sand to the site. The turtle, whose shell was nearly a meter (39") long and 70cm wide, had dug a hole roughly half a meter deep plus an additional deeper cavity at the back and below where her eggs would be laid. Our guide allowed us to go up and watch in groups of five or six. Fortunately, the process takes at least an hour – average batches contain around 100 eggs – so there was no hurry. We then moved on to another turtle, and viewed some more being laid. Since they also wanted us to see the process of covering the eggs, they took us to yet another turtle which had finished. We stood around and waited for a good twenty minutes while nothing happened. One person commented that it was like watching paint dry, which wasn’t far off the mark. Finally, the guide got a bit frustrated and took us over to watch another who was doing her thing, sweeping her flippers back to push sand down into and over her hole.

At that point, a good hour and a half after we had left the building, we were about to return. However, as luck would have it, one of the Omani employees of the center spotted some babies which had dug themselves up onto the sand and were heading for the water. This created considerable excitement. The little guys are no more than 12cm or so long and cute as buttons. I actually saw two manage to make their way to the edge of the incoming tide and disappear into the water.

It was, in the end, a thoroughly unforgettable experience, and I’m delighted that I finally managed to see it.
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Sur Beach Hotel

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Hotel | "A Quirky Beach Hotel"

Hotel Marquee Photo - Sur Beach Hotel, Sur, Oman

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The Sur Beach Hotel is a pleasant enough place to stay. Located directly on the beach on the western side of town, it offers clean, comfortable rooms with the usual mod-cons: satellite TV, AC, coffee/tea facilities, a nice, spacious bath, and a great little balcony directly overlooking the beach. The bed was comfortable, and the black-out curtains seemed capable of keeping even the most blistering rays of the Gulf sun out. The restaurant, which is on a kind of mezzanine level above the lobby was adequate, though the western items on the menu were pretty dull, which is often the case of non-chain hotels in Oman. The cooks, who are almost always Indian, can never quite get it right, an ...Read More

Member Rating 2 out of 5 on February 11, 2010

Sur Beach Hotel

Sur, Oman
+968 2543 1616

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Al Naseem Camp

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Hotel | "Comfortable Camping in the Omani Desert"

Al-Naseem Camp Compound Photo - Al Naseem Camp, Sur, Oman

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My wife and I have just returned from a long weekend that included a night at the Al-Naseem Camp. We chose it primarily because it’s only a five-minute drive from the turtle beaches of Ras Al-Jinz. To be frank, we really weren’t expecting anything much from it. As it turned out, the stay was very enjoyable, indeed. Since check-in isn’t until 3:00 pm, we didn’t arrive until 4:30 or so. The owner/manager was on hand to greet us and to tell us what the procedures were. He explained where our hut was and that dinner would be served between 6:00 and 7:45, breakfast between 6:00 a.m. and whenever the last guest arrived. He also told us that the dining area, a sort of patio under a palm-fr...Read More

My wife and I have just returned from a long weekend that included a night at the Al-Naseem Camp. We chose it primarily because it’s only a five-minute drive from the turtle beaches of Ras Al-Jinz. To be frank, we really weren’t expecting anything much from it. As it turned out, the stay was very enjoyable, indeed.

Since check-in isn’t until 3:00 pm, we didn’t arrive until 4:30 or so. The owner/manager was on hand to greet us and to tell us what the procedures were. He explained where our hut was and that dinner would be served between 6:00 and 7:45, breakfast between 6:00 a.m. and whenever the last guest arrived. He also told us that the dining area, a sort of patio under a palm-frond roof, was open 24 hours and that guests were welcome to take whatever drinks or nibblies were on offer at the time. All was included. Now that WAS a switch. More usually, hotels of any ilk nickel-and-dime you to death. Well, we decided to take him up on his hospitality, so we went in, sat down at one of the plastic patio tables, and had a couple of drinks before going to out hut around 5 o’clock. During that time, we had a chat with him and a couple of other employees who were hanging around. (No other guests had arrived yet at this time.)

The hut itself – see the photographs – were by no means luxurious, but everything was clean, there was power, and there was a small ceiling fan to keep the air moving. The windows were very small and pretty well covered by palm fronds on the outside. However, that is no bad thing because they are remarkably good at keeping interiors cool. There were, by the way, no bugs of any kind, no flies, no mosquitoes, and certainly no scorpions (which are not unknown in this part of the world, by the way). As for the beds, although they don’t look like much, they were surprisingly comfortable and both of us slept quite well.

Dinner was surprisingly good, though a bit cold because we didn’t get to the buffet table until well after 6:00 – more like 6:45, actually. Nevertheless, the chicken biryani was quite tasty as was the grilled snapper. My wife opted for the roasted lamb, which was also quite good. There were assorted "mezzes" – Arabic antipasti – consisting of humous, moutabbel, and various chopped vegetables with a decent vinaigrette. Dessert was quite simple – just slices of excellent Omani watermelon (The local variety is actually very small and more or less perfectly round, about the size of a volley ball, I’d say.).

Items on offer at breakfast included eggs scrambled with tomato, onion, and green peppers, yoghurt, labneh (an Arab variety of sour cream but based on yoghurt) corn flakes, bananas, pita bread, orange, juice, coffee, and tea. The management is so eager to please, however, that if you want something else, just ask. Chances are they’ll provide it. My wife requested some boiled eggs, which were not on the buffet table, and she got them with no questions asked and quickly, too.

We were, in a word, very, very well pleased even though we thought the price was a little high at first: R.O. 18 per person per night, so about US$95 for two. However, when one considers that dinner and breakfast alone would cost upwards of 15 rials per person at a 4 or 5-star hotel, it’s not bad at all.
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Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 17, 2010

Al Naseem Camp
Tutle Beach
Sur, Oman
968 2449 3232

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