Oman Uncovered - Destination Special with Dina Macki

0:00Dina Macki: You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago? That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely, more engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation. We're Acast, and we put them right in front of you. Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results. Acast.

0:35Dina Macki: Acast.com slash advertise.

0:46guys. Hello and welcome to this very special destination edition of The Travel Diaries, where today we're heading off on a sensory journey to one of the Middle East's best-kept secrets, the spellbinding Sultanate of Oman. Oman is a land of striking contrasts where golden deserts meet dramatic mountains and turquoise seas and where a deep-rooted culture of warmth, hospitality and heritage leaves a lasting impression on all who visit. And who better to take us by the hand and guide us through Oman's many wonders than my guest today, Dina Mackey. Dina is a rising star of the culinary world. You may know her from BBC Saturday Kitchen and she's a chef and food writer whose work is a vibrant celebration of Omani cuisine and culture.

1:40British born with Omani heritage, Dina divides her time between the UK and Oman giving her a rare and intimate perspective on the country not just through its flavours but through its landscapes, its people and its soul. She's experienced Oman from coast to canyon, from ancient souks to sleek modern resorts, making her the perfect person to lead us through her Omani travel diaries. In this episode, Dina whisks us from the misty monsoon-swept hills of Salala in the far south to the rugged peaks of Jebel Akhtar, the green mountain with its rose gardens, deep waddies and sky-high plateaus. Along the way, she shares her favourite hotels, her go-to local restaurants, hidden gems and insider tips that only someone who calls Oman home could reveal.

2:28So whether you're a foodie, an adventurer, a nature lover or simply dreaming of a winter sun getaway, Oman promises something unforgettable for everyone. So are you ready to experience Oman? Here is Dina.

2:47Dina, welcome to the Travel Diaries. It is so lovely to meet you. How are you? I'm good, thank you. And thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm so excited to chat all things Oman with you today. And you're coming to me from Oman, which is amazing. So are you in Muscat? Yes, I'm currently in Muscat. And is that where you spend the most time, would you say? Yeah, the majority. All of my family is based in Muscat. It's where a lot of day-to-day life is happening. but otherwise I'm one person that tends to run around the whole country as much as I can. This is why Dina you are the absolute absolute perfect guest for today's episode because we're going to be going on a journey through your Oman travel diaries today and we are going to kick off with chapter one and that's the first place you fell in love with Oman it's obviously held such as an important pivotal place in your life where's the first place that comes to mind is somewhere that really captured your heart oh do you know what I think like aside from Muscat because obviously this is where family is one of the best places that always captures my heart and still does every time I go is Salala which is in the south um I remember first going there how much of a different world it was and ill forever I want to retire there it's just amazing really so how um how does it contrast to musket and what like how would you describe it um kind of visually as a destination okay i think so contrast completely differently in the sense that right now i'm in musket where it's 47 degrees and in salala it's about 30 degrees there's rain there's a huge monsoon happening um it's very humid beautiful waterfalls it's extremely tropical So for me, Salala mimics East Africa.

4:36And it's white sandy beaches, really blue waters. It's part of the Indian Ocean. It's also got coconut palms rather than date palms. But then it collides with these huge mountains, which during the winter months are really brown. And as soon as summer kicks in, they become green and lush and just full of waterfalls. Oh, my gosh, it sounds absolutely beautiful. so when you spend time there what is it that you most like to do oh okay so my favorite time of year to go to salala has to be september it's known as sarab season so this part of the year is known as harif harif translating to a monsoon season sarab season basically means this the time when the monsoon has finished and the clouds have gone away so you get this gorgeous weather so it's the best place to ever get a suntan you can be out there for just about two hours and you have this glowing golden skin at the end of it um one of my favorite things is to just road trip around the whole of the far region so salala is in a region called the far and we just love to like road trip all the way down there are stunning beaches all the way down um the history is just incredible there's always like shipwrecks to find and helicopter crashes to find like it's just all sorts of like history like bulked in there but when you go into the mountains you get to meet the people from the mountains and they're just some extraordinary humans so I love to explore the food that they're eating go climbing with them and just go on massive adventures sounds incredible is the is the food in Oman quite different regionally yes so I always say it's very hard to give Oman a national dish or to say Oman is represented by one dish it's not like when you say Italy instantly pizza and pasta comes to your head like no not for our mind just because we are made up of tribes and every tribe carries its own like story and history and background and so from the north to the south to the east to the west to the mountains it's completely different so there's no comparison so what would be a typical Salalin would you say I would say So they would class themselves as the whole region.

6:51And people from this part of the region, they love to make sure you know that they are from the far region because they're very, very proud of it. So I would say a very typical dish known from there, which not usually if you ask someone from the north, they won't know it. It's called ma 'ajin. Now, ma 'ajin is the dish that they have on Eid, on the first day of Eid. And it's basically they take their beef, they dry it out completely, they cut it into long strips and then they dry it out in the sun for about one to two days. They then take that beef, they cut off all of the fat, they then fry down the fat, then rehydrate the beef, the dried beef by putting it inside the fat.

7:35and then after that they make this like um milky kind of curry and it's like made up of milk turmeric pepper sugar um cardamom a bit of cumin and a bit of cinnamon but the milk they use comes straight from the mountain it's either camel milk or fresh cow's milk so it's unpasteurized it's really pure and thick it's all i guess the closest equivalent is like double cream um but like a really pure milk and then they serve that with rice and very fresh ghee as well from the mountains and it's probably the one of the most memorable dishes I've ever had there. Wow that sounds delicious. Is that something that you've ever experienced outside of Oman in like a restaurant or anywhere else so it's really like something that you would travel to that region to experience?

8:24And I think this is the one thing with Oman is we don't have a restaurant culture as such. So Salala in particular is also known for camel meat. We have an abundance of camels. They actually have too many camels to keep up with. So they eat a lot of camel meat. And so we're known for cooking camel in very different ways, whether we're stewing it, we're boiling it, grilling it. And there's a very special technique that comes from the far region known as mudhbi. And mudhbi is basically where they take these stones. but the stones have to come from wadi areas and wadi is a valley so they have to come from the valley areas where there is fresh water and they take these stones they heat them up really high and then they cook their meat on top of them and they say that these stones in particular able they take on a lot of heat but they also produce really good cooked meat um so you'll never find you'll find some and the thing is you'll find these all across the streets where the locals are eating or you just have to be friendly with your tour guides and ask them to take you to houses this is the only way you're going to experience it right okay well that's that's a really good tip I mean if you're if you're going to Muscat as your first um port of call then how how easy is it to then add on Salala as a kind of second stop so if I were going to Muscat if I was spending at least 10 days in Muscat to two weeks I would do Muscat and the north in the first half and then I would fly down to salala so it's a really quick flight it's like a 45 minute flight um because to drive it i've driven it a couple of times and it's like a 10 hour road trip it's essentially like driving all the way down from the south of england up to scotland it's a really big journey so it's much unless you've got time and it's fun to do the drive it's much easier to just jump on the plane and do you have anywhere that you particularly like to stay like are there like like hotels down there and airbnb is that kind of thing loads like now salala is just like popping off everyone wants to be there so really cool it's like everyone goes there now so you'll get direct there's actually direct flights when correct that comes from like Poland like the strangest of random locations yeah so not just internal in Oman no so now they've actually started just doing direct straight to Salala they redid the airport they knew that so many people just wanted to go to Salala and so they just started doing direct flights right there which is really cool my favorite hotels there so the Anantara in Salala is amazing and it's been there for so long now it must be at least 10 11 years it's beautiful it's right on the main beachfront uh which makes it a perfect location and then there's also another hotel which is actually in a different city to salala but in the same it's about half an hour away half an hour to an hour away it's called mirbat the area and it's an alila property and it's also in a really beautiful area so those two hotels are definitely my favorite you've obviously got other hotels at the crown plaza and there's also an area called Hawana Salala which is like a group of hotels and apartments and it's kind of like a whole resort places too but my hands down my favorite is always Anantara oh that's a really great tip and then there are amazing obviously hotels in Muscat as you say obviously your family are there so I and you've got your place although I do see on your Instagram that you have frequented a lot of lovely hotels there as well I love a staycation when I'm yeah and it's funny because like growing up in england we don't have this hotel culture like we're never interested to really go to a hotel i think here that's i've noticed the whole of like the middle east and the gulf especially it's created around like what new hotel it's out and where you should go and they've got the best restaurants and the best places to hang so for me at the moment like my two favorite places like my city hotel would be the mandarin it's newly opened opened about a year ago I say city it does technically have a beach but it's not a private beach and um is that mandarin oriental yeah the mandarin oriental so it's stunning it's in a good location um just beautifully done on the inside the pool is lovely the rooms are lovely everything about it is just gorgeous and but then my favorite kind of getaway hotel in muscat has to be the Jumeirah Musket Bay it's Jumeirah hotels in general stunning properties but this one is just in an area that's is technically considered musket but to get to it you kind of have to drive through some mountains um it's really easy to get to but once you get there it's kind of secluded so no beach in Oman is private but essentially anyone can rock up onto the beach if they want to but where Jumeirah is situated you could only get to it by coming through Jumeirah or taking a boat to it so it's pretty private it's got that privacy yeah and it's stunning and then also they have so many water sports and the area where you can do the water sports there is just the perfect condition weather-wise so I adore it and what would you what would you advise for somebody who is you're doing their first trip to the city beyond obviously spending time in the beautiful hotels and by the water to really kind of get a full flavor of the history and culture of the city?

13:34Like I personally always tell people if you're coming to Oman, especially if you're just coming for like a week, do not just stay in Muscat. The thing with Oman is everything is very spread out. So if you want to benefit the most and actually see places, ideally one, you want to be able to drive so that you can hire a car. It's going to be the easiest way to get around. We have great tour guides, don't get me wrong, but also you just have more freedom if you are just kind of jumping in a car and going yourself. I would always stay like one to two days in Muscat, just do a nice city tour, see the Grand Mosque, see the old souk and the old part of Muscat.

14:13I would then leave Muscat and then I would drive to the Dakhlia region where I would go to the old capital, which is Nizwa. um so this was known as the old capital on a friday they have like this very traditional animal souk which if you wake up at like 5 a.m you'll see uh everyone coming with their goats their cows bulls coming to sell them in the live kind of animal auction and then they have like a big fruit and veg market afterwards which is really nice and then there's the niswa fort which is also there so this is a really like important part of the country uh a lot of history again and the people of that particular city have built it up so much and done so much with it and they've become really great entrepreneurs and they've encouraged a lot of tourism too but then right next to nizwa is our green mountains known as jebel akhda so it's super high super beautiful the views from there are unmatched and we have now we have about four quite well-known hotel chains there but in general we have different seasons so it's called the green mountains because it's so lush in being green everything grows there we have a pomegranate season we have an olive season a walnut apricot you name it they're growing it inside the mountains so it's really precious to us and so people go there for camping they go there for these like amazing hikes in the old villages and the locals have been really good to take on and do different initiatives for people but I definitely recommend visiting there it's a climate very different from as you climb up much yeah you feel it like you feel it instantly so I was there last weekend so I went from being in Niswa where it was 45 degrees to climbing up the mountain and it being like 32 degrees and breezy and just gorgeous so and that's still not like it's funny because that's still not the ideal weather for the mountain that's still hot for them but it gets really really cold though so I've been there in January and at the end of December and the nights can get down to like zero degrees minus two and I went there like a typical British person like no it's fine we have cold weather in England no this was like no other being in a mountain with cold weather is like no other so um climate changes and so that's one of the reasons we love it because it's completely You've got that contrast.

16:36Yeah. I saw Jabal Akhtar on the Amazing Hotels series. Yes, the Alila Hotel. Was it the Alila that they featured a few years ago? And it really is such a strikingly kind of stark and bold and kind of dramatic landscape, isn't it? It is. Yeah, yeah. Such a beautiful, incredible place. and they've done so well with it and it's just growing and growing now it's another place actually they're looking to build an airport because they just have people that want to really they want to have people they want to go directly there but yeah but it is somewhere that's quite easy to add on isn't it to musket like it's not not like salala like where you'd have to fly yeah yeah so it's about literally from musket to right up into the mountain it's exactly like two hours so to get to the bottom of the mountain it's about just under an hour and a half and then if you're not a confident driver they are people you can pay to like take you up to the top or if you're staying in one of the hotels they will have people that can bring you to the top of the mountain yeah so there are options but I definitely make sure to add it onto your list and they're luxurious options aren't they luxury yeah so basically so you've got Alila which is obviously known as one of these like amazing elite hotels you've also got the Anantara you've also got um I think it's a Thai brand.

17:59It's called Dooset. Dooset D2. And that's kind of done as like a family hotel. It's got like a little adventure playground in there for kids. It's a lovely one, but it's also reasonably priced. And then I actually recently stayed in an IHG hotel, which is Hotel Indigo. And I actually thought it was meant to be more of the lower end. And it's a four-star hotel but it felt like a five-star hotel and it was amazing it was stunning and I stayed in the room that had um it was a suite and then I had a private pool that overlooked the canyon and wow incredible and there was a floating breakfast it was just amazing yeah yeah absolutely adored it so there are different options and there's loads of airbnbs stays there now too and there's also like if you're looking for a really authentic experience there are quite a few guest houses where um the locals have basically taken their old houses from like 300 like 300 years old have revamped them and made them into little guest houses for people to stay in oh that's so nice so if you were doing that um would you suggest then that you like go and buy your food at the market in nizwa essentially like if you were doing one of the guest houses i I would buy like some things from Niswa.

19:15I'd also, they've got a few little local shops up top, but essentially everything in Niswa. But then what the locals also do is they do offer kind of dining experiences. So they'll offer to do like little barbecues for you and cook locally and give you that option as well. Oh, that sounds so much better than cooking for myself. I have to say that sounds so much fun. Well, let's move on to chapter two, which is your all-time favorite destination. now because we're focusing in on all things I want to do a few different things so I'd love to know first of all overall when you think today what is your your overall favorite destination but also maybe then we could like go in on some details for maybe some restaurants and other experiences this is a hard one I would say another place that I cannot resist going whenever I get the chance is Daminiat Islands so Daminiat Islands are islands that are just off of the Muscat Coast so the north coast and by boat it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get to these islands and nobody lives on the islands the islands actually just it's a protected area by the environmental society and it's purely kept to let the birds have a breeding and mating time so during the summer actually you can't go on the island it's closed off because they have to leave it for birds to um to mate and reproduce and everything but which birds um every type the really it literally sees an amazing amount of different types of birds that all come there and settle and yeah yeah so it's an incredible place that they have to really look after but during the winter seasons up until april you can go there you can camp on the beach and it's again beautiful white beaches um but what's special is when you're going there your tour guides will always your boat guide will always take you snorkeling and so you get to swim with all of the turtles that are around the area and it's such a special place you see so many incredible fish um but if you miss that time of year and you come just after April into the summer you actually get to swim with whale sharks and so it's an incredible experience like no other and the reason that we all the whale sharks every summer will hover around the musket area because the what happens is because of the harif season in the south it makes the sea cooler for them so they come um all the way over and they basically stay there with their whole family of whales um and you get to go swimming with them and you can actually go snorkeling see them get really close with them they do not harm anyone and it's such an incredible experience that's so wonderful I mean I always love to hear about wildlife experiences and a destination and that sounds like a really unique opportunity to be able to get so close and obviously it sounds like if they go there every year that you've got a really strong chance of interacting with them as well and sometimes they will like last into September months as well so even if you're coming from when the weather is starting to cool down you will still find clusters of them um so How big are they?

22:26Huge. I cannot explain. The name seems to imply. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, they are huge. And you feel quite intimidated when you see them in the water. But they just, no.

22:38Dina Macki: You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago? That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely. More engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation. We're Acast, and we put them right in front of you. Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results. Acast.

23:14Dina Macki: Acast.com slash advertise. Love it. Do people come to that, to those islands specifically because, you know, wildlife enthusiasts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many. So we actually took some people that love bird watching. We took them there one time just because they got to see so many birds and they absolutely loved it. But just to be able to go swimming and you're guaranteed to always like see turtles, see all sorts of, you know, sometimes you might even see like baby sharks, not too close to you, but you'll find them like closer to the shallow areas and they don't harm you either. So there's so much opportunity.

23:51And everyone, I always recommend if you're coming to Muscat, you have to do a trip. Even if you're not a confident swimmer. Like my mum's not a confident swimmer. We gave her a life jacket and she was fine. Like you're going to float and you can still snorkel and see. Are there kind of lots of excursion type tours from that a hotel could arrange for you or whatever to get out there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. so there are quite there are quite a few um boat excursions boat companies that go out one of my favorites is known as a cruise oman and i just really enjoy them because they give you a really good barbecue when you get to the beach oh that sounds like their boats but we've even got boats now that have like glass bottoms so you can actually see as you're like um sailing through but all the hotels know every kind of company that sounds so fun okay amazing i'm definitely doing that when I visit 100 how about I mean this is the big question for you well I know you said that there's not so much of a restaurant culture but is do you have a favorite restaurant in Oman that you just keep going back to or keep recommending yeah so um I say we don't have a restaurant culture as such because you don't find lots of restaurants and we're still very new to that kind of scene but there are some whenever people ask when they're coming to Oman where can I go like find traditional food there are a handful that I will always like recommend so probably like my top one for good Omani food that tastes like tastes like it came out of a mother's kitchen has to be a place called Al-Mandus and Al-Mandus is basically situated very close to an area called Al-Muj the wave which is known to be kind of like a it's like a very big expat community area and it basically has its own life happening there but Alamandous is started by two boys who actually got their recipes from their mother and did it all off of that and they absolutely love it and the food is really good they do lunch and dinner and sometimes on the odd occasion they might do breakfasts on the weekend um then my second one if you wanted is something that had a bit more of a uh what's the word like a an experience and felt like you were in a very authentic ormani place would be a place called rosna so rosna has been built to look like an old fort and the owner is really passionate so he's always usually around to kind of tell tourists about the place and to give them that really authentic experience so that's a really great place if you want to get the authentic experience the food is Is that in Muscat as well?

26:28Yeah, yeah, also in Muscat. The food is also good, but I would say El Mondeuse is my favourite. So those two definitely. What do you always order on the menu when you go to these places? So I always order a soup called Pablo. So Pablo soup is actually like a curry. We treat it like a curry. It's very, very watery and thin. It's made with kingfish or tuna. It's very lemony. It's a very lemony broth. And I absolutely adore it. hands down and element douce and rosner do both very very well um so i definitely recommend going to those and i would also say um rosner does a very good shua and shua is basically a traditional dish that you have in the north during each time and it's meat that's covered in quite a few spices it's then wrapped in banana leaves and a date palm sack and then put in the ground for like one to two days and so when you come to online you have to experience it if you eat meat and rosner do that really well um so I definitely recommend that as well it's so good to get these recommendations because I would have absolutely no clue you know what would because it's so far removed from yeah I'm used to eat eating I haven't had any experience of Omani cuisine really yeah no no no it's um it's important it's hard with Omani food because nobody really does know what it is so you what you need someone to kind of explain it to you um and then there are two places like if you were in old musket there are two places i would go to if you were there really early in the morning there is a place called um al-ahli and al-ahli it's nothing beautiful to look at it's very very basic kind of place um and it's something the locals will kind of flock to but if you get there from like 8 a.m they make this soup called ab gosht now ab gosht comes from the buluchi communities in oman and it's basically a bone broth soup made with dried limes and then they serve it with this huge tanur uh flatbread and you just sit there and scoop it up and eat it and i'm obsessed with it i will wake up every morning just to go and have it um sounds amazing and then if i was there for lunchtime there's another place called alithani and alithani if you don't get there like 12 on the dot then you will miss out on lunch because it's all gone by like 12.

28:50Really? So it's so popular. So popular. It's loved by the locals. The guy has been there for years in that area. And like during COVID, he basically fed so many people in the community. So he's really loved. And his food is great. So yes. And what do they come to him for? So in particular, they come to him for a dish called mutafai. And mutafai is a dish made with tuna and tamarind and aubergines. And it's a curry, but it's a really great curry, which you don't find made anywhere else because it's specific to the people that grew up in the old part of musket so he's the only one that makes it and so i highly recommend having that there too that's like so special then to get a taste of that he's keeping that keeping that alive alive yeah i was interested about what you said about musket and in general being like a city break essentially because i think that like my impression of it obviously i know that it's a city but the hotels that i've been exposed to are very resorty I suppose and on the water so if you're wanting a kind of relaxing you know resort type holiday and you don't want to do a Dubai or an Abu Dhabi and you want to go somewhere that has a bit more you know history and heritage to experience do you think it would still fit that bill even if you didn't have time to do your dual center yeah no it definitely I call it city because out of the whole of the country it's the most place that looks like a concrete jungle and a concrete jungle and it's not even a typical concrete jungle because we don't have high rises everything's the same color and it's still very beautiful to look at when you're driving up and down the highway I so for me yes all of the whole like we definitely have this habit of building five-star hotels and making them feel like you're not in the city so there's a lot of them that you can go to like one of the older ones that is there which I don't go to as much but when I'm there I really enjoy being there it's the Chedi so to me the Chedi now is really it's it's it's very like compared to the others it's much much older it's been around I remember it being around when I was a child yeah so it's been there forever and it was always like it was always the number one place to go it was always in vogue and bizarre and everything so it is still a stunning property but personally for me like I feel there are more newer ones which are a lot better but like it has a great spa the Shedi I will always go there for their spa it's an amazing spa to go to it still feels luxurious when you go into it and it's built in a really interesting way that it doesn't go up but they have so much land that everything kind of looks like a villa so it's like you're walking around loads of villas and just covering palm trees and then you have the beach right in front of you so and because they've got three different pools and then like a an adult only pool it's designed really nicely so I think Chedi definitely goes on that list um obviously I mentioned Jumeirah which is a great more modern one you've got Shangri-La which is good for families I would say so if you've got children I always recommend a Shangri-La I find that one has become quite dated quickly even though it's got so it's got three hotels and you've got like husan which is like the most expensive part and it's adult only then you've got um the other two which allow for children but they have a great kind of kids pool area so i think it's always the best if you've got children with you and then um i would also say yeah mandarin is definitely high up there and bustan is the very famous one so it's a ritz carlton property the ele bustan and it's on the same way to Jumeirah and it's very secluded so that has a very regal and royal vibe so if you're looking for that I would always recommend it it also has the ladies only beach which is really nice for some people they just want to be away from men it's a great place to go um and you're women love to go there so we definitely I would say every kind of five-star hotel we have has made into that resort feel um so you're never too far away from one speaking of the the ladies only beach then for for people who haven't been to Oman you know and might have an expect or a preconception about um dress yeah yeah how modest um are tourists expected to dress would you say it's so like we've become so relaxed funny actually I had my wedding in February and I had to like congratulations thank you I had to put out like um advice and things and I was so bad at doing it all and I remember trying to think about this one in particular and I would just say it's very chill we're really lucky we're very relaxed Omani is a very easygoing if you're not Omani it's not too much of an issue but even if you are Omani it's fine so if you go into malls um shops supermarkets you need to make sure your shoulders and knees are always covered and that kind of goes the same for men like if men are in shorts and they're too short um it's actually not allowed and they see it's quite disrespectful so it kind of goes to both parties but then actually it's really easy going like if you're going down the beach um just like you can be in whatever you want but I will always say like if you come in a pair of like short shorts and you're walking on a public beach you will naturally just feel uncomfortable just because everyone else isn't and you won't find other people doing it um when you're in like hotels and everything doesn't matter what you do so it's completely fine yeah that's really good advice really good advice if you're in more interior areas outside of musket they are more conservative and they do not understand this culture as much but they're still easy going but i've noticed when i see tourists going around they usually have like very like loose linen clothing on it won't always be fully covered but they might always just bring like a light scarf if they're going into specific places um just just in case they get someone who's a bit off about it but it's really easy going otherwise and how about your favorite hidden gem I mean I well I follow you on Instagram and have done for a while so I've I see these like insider recommendations these restaurants that you've already mentioned are all amazing hidden gems but where would you say is your like number one place that you recommend because you know Oman so well I think for me like I love to spend time with the people I'm not a massive one of like staying in the city and I love to always discover something new for me a hidden gem would probably be going to a place called Wadi Mibam so we have lots of different wadis which are obviously valleys and they're all filled with water so people love to go on excursions to them and we have some very common ones like Wadi Shah, Wadi Bani Khalid and these are the typical tourist ones that tour guides also take you to.

35:39One of my favorites that a good friend of mine who's also a tour guide showed me was Wadi Mibam and it's kind of secluded and it's not too far away from Muska it's about an hour and 10 minutes or so and it's just a beautiful beautiful wadi with like three different pools and to get to it you kind of have to climb down a mountain but it's quite accessible for people who don't feel comfortable but it's just like a hidden enclave you feel like you're in paradise and I love going there and then I love spending time with the locals afterwards and eating with them just outside and they're all really welcoming to tourists I love it do they live by the wadi yeah yeah so they all live right next to it so the wadi once you get to the wadi point the entrance point you will see people going off to their houses to their houses like on the same level as the entrance point and they're all really welcoming and then even if you just go into their village you can actually walk through their village and they love to show people around because there's actually quite a few hidden gems in there historically so if you are into history they would they actually taught me recently when I went there that there was a lot of Portuguese that came in like the 1600s that nobody knew about and they found like key points in there there's actually people in that village who love to photograph and will take people to show good photography points too so I would say that's one of all my always favorite places to go and it's a wadi that people tend to miss out because to get to it to drive up to it the road isn't the best of roads it's like a little mountain but it's quite a scary one but if you just ask any local in the area they will drive your car up for you and I would recommend it because they know how to drive up those roads um but it's always missed out yeah yeah it's always missed out and it's a yeah I would definitely go there and when you spend the day there um are you swimming in the wadis yeah so you'll start off like climbing down the mountain then you start um kind of trekking through little pools and climbing over different rocks and then you can go swimming in the wadis and like i'm a confident swimmer but the wadis can be quite big they're deep and the wadis water is known to kind of pull you so i always recommend getting life jackets they're super super cheap from like supermarkets um and if you can bring water shoes because uh sometimes because you're walking on rocks and stuff yeah yeah you are so you want to have the water shoes always okay excellent tips and also like no one would know to go to buy a life jacket for example so that's a really good tip just to bring it with you just pop it in your bag literally i highly recommend it like i always think oh i'm confident great swimmer but sometimes you don't know how long the wadis are going to go on for because every time it rains the rock formations change so you don't know what you're going to cross and most of the time a lot of tourists will go with guides the guides can kind of help them out and the guides are all great when it comes to swimming and helping people um but yeah you just don't know what you're going to expect along the way because they're always so different fantastic well our final chapter dina is chapter four and that is the destination that's at the top of your bucket list to visit in oman that maybe you haven't made it to yet or one that you're like dying to return to i would say top of my list and i haven't visited yet has to be musandam so musandam is actually easier to get to from the uae because you can drive through to it but it belongs to oman and I never make it over because I always want to take the ferry over that is my dream destination and I know you can book these trips I'm just yet to book it yeah so when I visited we flew into Dubai and then drove I think it was about an hour and three quarters yeah to cross the border to get there I was reviewing the famous hotel there the six senses Ziggy Bay where you you paraglide into your into the into the beach on the like in front of the hotel which is obviously like an incredible experience and they are really fantastic at organizing these dow boat trips where you go along through that with it as you as i'm sure you know it's um like the the norway of the middle east is what it's kind of dubbed because the there are kind of fjords that go through the mountains there and um the water is so clear and there are dolphins and it's beautiful it's really actually one of my favorite hotels i've ever stayed in because the beach is very secluded because it's a bay and so it's like very still very safe for children like i now i've got a little one i feel as though it would be a wonderful place to take her and then to be able to dine right up on the mountain um and have those kind of epic views it's a it's a really cool place and and and quite accessible if you want to do it dual center with a dubai or dubai exactly so yeah it's a completely different experience it's like a completely different kind of principality of would you say principality like of of oman so it's like it's separated isn't it it's very different in lifestyle and everything it's a great place for adventure so if you are into adventure the whole of Oman is great for adventure um but Musandam is especially beautiful for it is there anywhere else that we haven't touched on that you'd really love my listeners to know about we definitely didn't touch on the desert and I think it's something that you should not miss out if you come um so we actually have a very famous tour company here known as Guide Oman I've never been with another tour company but if I were to recommend I would definitely say go with Guide Oman they are I haven't been for them in a while but the experience I had was like one of a kind because if you're really into experiencing the desert but also going June bashing it's incredible to experience however I do the thing is when you go June bashing you do rent your own vehicles or you can go in Guide Oman cars but obviously if you want to drive and kind of do on yourself you will have to take the risk that you may like bash up a car um but it was such an incredible experience when I went and you can actually pair it with uh meeting the locals from the desert and they give you like a very authentic desert experience and now you can stay in like really cool bubble hotels that have been done out really beautifully so you feel like you're in another world um but the June bashing experience one of a kind and they have two different experiences one in Wahiba Sands which is the desert that is closest probably to Muska it's about two hours away and then they have Rabbal Khali Rabbal Khali is the basically the biggest mass of sand that you have and it's huge and it's like never-ending and the peaks if you're like more adventurous and you're not scared of things these sand dune peaks there are insane and you will see people driving up them and then there's also parts within like Wahiba Sands where the sand meets the sea and it's like no other and the view is spectacular and it's just so calming and peaceful but on that subject now talking about sand I can't believe I didn't mention my favorite place one of my favorite places which is Barahik Man you may have seen it advertised as like the Maldives of Oman and it literally is it it is paradise now this involves if you're coming to Oman specifically to kind of explore this because it's about a four and a half five hour drive from Musket it's probably it could be easier to actually go to Salala and then drive that way too um but we have another airport now in Dukum so that makes it a bit easier but Baran Hikman is paradise it's purely white sand blue beaches loads of lagoons um and nobody lives there there's one guy that lives there and everyone resorts to him when they're in trouble because he knows the area so well but when you're driving to this place when once you get to the city of where it is and you start driving to get to paradise it's like a mirage for about an hour and you're just driving you don't know where you are you need off-road like off-road maps you need like good gps because your phones are not going to work at all once you get there and but then once you reach it's like there's flamingos flying everywhere the wildlife is the same if you love kite surfing and wind sports it's the place to go it's it's stunning um wow and it sounds like it's so untouched because it is a little bit remote so remote so untouched nobody's actually wants to touch and do anything to it they just left it for like camping so camping but then also this guy that stays there rents out um rooms which you can just rent from him and he has wi-fi too um but the best thing is at night you just look up and it's like you're in an auditorium because you just see a sky full of stars and yeah you cannot like if you have the opportunity and you want to do something different then you go straight to Bar-L-Hikwan.

44:24Oh that sounds incredible thank you so much for bringing to life the absolute diversity of Oman like you know from the mountains to the deserts to the beaches to the city and the history it's amazing how like jam-packed it is with different experiences that you can have I'm glad I could know there's so much to do here and I love to talk about it and shout about it um because we're such a quiet place and a hidden gem of a country but there's so much to do here and there's something for everyone yeah oh thank you so much Dina those with your Oman travel diaries I really appreciate your time thanks for sharing it with me thank you for having me

45:08ah what a joy it's been to journey through Oman with Dina Mackey her love for the country is infectious whether you're planning your next adventure or simply dreaming from afar I hope this episode has inspired you to discover the beauty and depth of Oman for yourself and to start planning your journey you can head to experience oman.om i always find the tourist board websites have got some brilliant resources and of course check out your favorite travel magazines and newspapers as well thanks so much for listening today if you'd like a reminder of any of the destinations that we chat about on any of the episodes just open up the episode show notes on your podcast app and there's a destination recap list in there or you can visit my website thetraveldiariespodcast.com.

45:56In the meantime, happy travels.

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