The East Coast

Went on a little adventure over the weekend to explore a bit of the East Coast of the UAE, and it was well worth the drive... Booked in for a night at The Oceanic Hotel, which is an older (and hence cheaper) alternative to some of the hotels along the coast. Main positives of it was the big rooms and when compared to the prices of hotels in the country, a bit of a bargain. Not the nicest beach, but still not a bad getaway.
So we headed off and drove straight up the middle of the UAE until we got to the turn off onto the Sharjah to Kalba road heading East. This is a recently completed mountain road to Khor Kalba; a great mountain-driving road with interesting scenery along the way. When you reach what is more or less the top there is this tunnel that heads down through one of the mountains. A little disconcerting is the fact that all you can see driving towards it is the road heading down and the sign that says “GOOD BYE”.

Once we hit the coast turned left and headed north through Fujairah up to Khor Fakkan, where the hotel was located. It is actually in Sharjah Emirate so no drinkies with dinner. We did the obligatory beach combing to collect shells, which we now seem to do whenever we hit a beach.
After room service breakfast (another of our must do’s whenever we stay anywhere now) we drove up the coast to the end of the country, across the Omani border to Dibba with it’s mountainous backdrop. Not really for any reason apart from to drive around and have a look. This is somewhere we plan on returning once we have a 4WD so we can explore further into the mountains.
Turned around and headed back down along the east coast towards Fujairah with a stop at at Bidiyah Mosque (Al Masjid Al Othmani) although recently renovated is thought to date back about 600 years.
From Fujairah we headed back towards the middle of the country via Masifi, then the long drive back to Al Ain.
So what do I make of the east coast… sleepy and peaceful. The ocean and mountains are really pretty spectacular, but I have yet to see a city here as nice as Al Ain.