It is a mark of my laziness that I have been in Dubai for over six months before I really left the city to explore the country or its neighbours. It was often discussed amongst me and the posse, but nothing ever got organised until mid April when four of us took a road trip to Musandan.

Musandam is a northern exclave^[1] of the Sultanate of Oman, separated from the country by the United Arab Emirates. It used to be only accessible by boat or by tracks through the Jebel Hajar^[2], but the construction of the coast road approximately five years ago has opened the region up for residents of the Emirates with weekends to kill, such myself and my friends.

My three companions -- two boys and a girl -- and I set out north from Dubai early on Friday morning, stopping off in the supermarket to buy food and drink.

The drive through the northern emirates is uneventful, but we expect some excitement in the border crossing. As it was, we are just waved through with just a glance at our passports and exit cards -- albeit after queuing at the Emirate booth for almost an hour.

The Musandam peninsular forms the northern tip of the Jebel Hajar, the mountains rising straight out of the water with only the valley floors and occassional beaches in the inlets providing any form of flat land.

This absence of flat land means that the winding coast road is alternatively carved out of the base of the mountains and built on reclaimed land. It is a slow drive -- as speeds must be kept low on the sharp curves and steep inclines -- but it is also a breathtaking one.

The road is of surprising quality after the crazy paved roads of Ras Al Khaimah^[3]. The transport planner in our group tells us that it is because they are designed to British standards rather than the American ones used in the Emirates. Whatever the reason, the roads are clean, new and, above all, quiet. They feel as if they were built just for you.

We stop at the Golden Tulip Hotel Resort for lunch. The hotel is perched on the cliff face a few miles short of Khasab. It is quiet, and feels empty. The staff mill around, used to having nothing to do.

It is busy by the pool, which our table in the restaurant overlooks. Looking at the people by the pool I cannot help but feel that it is an unusual choice of resort. As a base for the trekking, scuba diving, and other activities on offer in the region, it seems ideal, but to travel all that way just to sit by the pools seems perverse when you can do that in Dubai just as easily.

We proceed to Khasab, winding down the last few miles of the coast road. A group of Omanis congregate on the side of the road around their cars, looking bored. A couple of the cars are a lurid pink. One of the Omanis has what we hope is a toy gun. They look like the worst group of gangsters in the middle east, but we do not linger.

Khasab is the only town of any size up here, but as it is Friday afternoon it seems deserted. We see few people other than the gangster parodies on the road in and a group of unlikely bikers at one of the town's two petrol stations.

We visit one of the boat tour operators and arrange for a boat to drop us on one of the beaches and pick us up the following morning. We load up a large power boat with our camping gear (a surprisingly large amount). Our pilot pulls an angry face at the sea during the journey.

Here amongst the inlets there is little coast. There is no transition between mountain and sea. They call it the arabian fjords. It is an imposing, yet beautiful place.

We choose a small beach and unload our stuff. Stand watching our boat disappear and turn to set up our tents before it gets dark.

The beach is littered with fragments of coral and seaweed between the tide lines. The discarded water bottles and broken lobster pots suggest that the beach has been used by others. We clear an area for our tents.

My tent cost £3.40 from Carrefour in Dubai. Cheap but serviceable. It goes up without too much opposition.

We gather driftwood and the former scout in our group builds a campfire. As night falls we light the campfire, and lie staring up at the stars. We have not seen stars for some months -- Dubai is hideously light polluted -- and they provide ample distraction.

I am nudged awake. I have fallen asleep on my friend's air bed. It does not feel I have been under for that long.

'Kev, come look at this,' my friend says and disappears.

The waves are glowing as they break on our beach. I find my friends on the tideline, skipping stones into the water, watching the little neon splash as they bounce and land.

The glow is caused by millions of bioluminescent plankton, that light up when agitated.

'We're going for a swim,' one of them says. 'Are you coming?'

I forgot to pack my swimming shorts, but eventually bow to peer pressure and strip down to my boxers. We paddle at the trails our arms and legs make in the water.

We wake in the morning when the sun begins to bake our tents. We stagger into the daylight and break camp, realizing that before long there will not be any shade remaining on our cove.

We are nervous, not entirely sure if the boat man is going to return to pick us up at the appointed time. I sit and read in one of the last corners of shade, until the mounting presence of hornets force me back onto the beach. One of the guys mills around camp aimlessly. The other guy and the girl go swimming.

Shortly before pick up the girl returns in some distress, having been stung by a jellyfish. We have nothing with which to alleviate her discomfort -- no one being keen on the usual remedy to 'place urine on the affected area', and she is forced to wait until we can get to the pharmacy in Khasab.

The boat ride returns us to normality. The boat man continues to pull his angry face.

We travel inland to the Acacia Forest, located in a wadi^[4] in the mountains. The greenery is abundunt (for the middle east), and a cool breeze blows between the trees.

We stop to cook breakfast on the former scout's camp stove, finding a small area free of goats.

We intend to stop at Khasab only long enough to get an ice cream, but our travel take us past Khasab Castle, which has recently been renovated. We stop to investigate.

The idea runs along the same lines as Dubai Museum in that a museum has been set up in a fort or castle, except that Khasab does it better.

Where Dubai concentrates on the expansion and development of recent years, because it has little history or culture of its own, Musandam actually has some history. Where Dubai completly rebuilt its fort, Khasab has renovated their castle. The biggest surprise is that Omani's were involved in the renovation work. I find it hard to believe that any Emiratis had such a hands on experience with theirs. They do not strike me as having the necessary skills.

My small experience of Oman has shown me somewhere with an altogether more natural feel than Dubai. Khasab is allowed to develop at its own pace, rather than being forced up as fast as is possible.

It is smaller, but you cannot help but think that it will still be there long after Dubai's bubble has burst.

The differences between the two peoples are summed up best by our experience returning through the border. The Omani guard smiles at us, says hello, and bids us have a nice day. The Emirati guard only speaks to ask for our car registration.

The only welcome back to United Arab Emirates we received was a computer generated text message from the mobile phone service provider.

[1] Being a territory separated from the main body of the country by another country's land or waters.
[2] Arabic for Stone Mountains.
[3] Caused by the incessant stream of lorries on the roads from Mina Saqr port.
[4] A dry river bed, containing water only in times of heavy rain.