Queen city of South
Beautiful memories have a tendency to always keep you yearning for experiencing them again. Even after a year of this trip it remains fresh in our minds and I thought of a revisiting it through words and images.
A spur of the moment discussion with my co-brother Vishal lead to a plan to visit Salalah, the southern port city of the Sultanate of Oman during the Khareef Season of 2018 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khareef).
Located in the Govenerate of Dhofar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhofar_Governorate), the place is blessed with natural greenery unlike the other parts of the Arabian peninsula. By road it’s around 1200km away from the current capital city of Muscat. Incidentally Salalah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salalah) was once the capital of the Sultanate.
One of the major concerns during the planning of our trip was getting a dependable person to guide us since we were new to the area. Also we had 3 young children with us the youngest being my 8 month old toddler.
Lot of research on Google & TripAdvisor led to shortlisting of few probable operators. After discussion through WhatsApp, email & phone calls we decided to go with Beautiful Salalah (https://www.beautifulsalalah.com/) a tour operator based out of the southern city.
Mr Hussain, the key contact person & his colleague Mr Ahmed quickly designed a package for us. We had two days to spend during the Eid holidays (2018). Considering the young ones in our team, the itinerary was designed with sufficient room for quick pit stops for food and cleaning up!!!.
What I loved about their arrangements was that they understood our requirements perfectly and tailored our itinerary accordingly.
The itinerary
Day 1
- Mughsayi Beach & Blowhole
- Marneef Cave
- Ittin mountain
- Ittin cave
- Ayn Jarzin
Day 2
- Wadi Darbat waterfalls & boating area
- Tawi attair
- Ayn tabruk
- Ayn athum
- Ayn razzat & razat garden
Actually there are lot more places to explore, but we were limited by the kids comfort factor to avoid anything too adventurous. And it was drizzling most of the time. Our guide cum driver Mr Ahmed (different person from the one mentioned above) did an awesome job and was an epitome of patience for addressing all our needs.
As always images speak better and so now the photos
Yummy stone chicken getting ready f/5.6 1/1500s ISO 3200 
Its hot hot stone chicken f/5.6 1/1500s ISO 3200
Over all we had a pretty good time enjoying the hospitality of The Hamdan Plaza Hotel ( http://hamdanplazahotel.com/ ) where our rooms were booked by our tour operator Mr Hussain (https://www.travelwithhussain.com/). Spacious & luxurious my family especially the kids where really happy with the warmth provided by the wooden flooring of the bedroom. We are actually looking forward to another trip shortly to explore some of the places which we had to miss due to potty breaks of the kiddos.
As always please remember to be responsible tourist & keep the places you visit neat & clean so that they remain a beautiful memory to all those who visit them. Let us not forget to preserve the beautiful world around us for the future generations, for we are only custodians for them.
I genuinely welcome feedback & criticism on the blog, please feel to speak out your heart so that I can improve further. Also do spare a few minutes of your precious time on my other blogs. Your visits, comments and likes would be inspiration for me. (And I have a few more pictures to upload so do visit maybe after a few days to check them out. Or you could subscribe to my blog channel to get updates.
Sujil Soman,
(Banker by profession, dreamer by choice)
National Geographic Yourshot Profile https://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/profile/1218306/
All photos for this blog have been taken on Canon 1200 D https://global.canon/
Travel Partner https://www.omanair.com/
For more information on Khareef Season in Salalah https://omantourism.gov.om/ & https://www.travelwithhussain.com
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