Musandam and bust

I was pleased to be waved through the border crossing at Dibba.

I was pleased not to have to pay for a new Omani visa.

I was less pleased to now be an undocumented foreign national. 

To complicate matters further, non-GCC nationals (me) aren't allowed to pass between border crossings here. Travelling from say Dibba, north to Khassab and then on to re-enter the UAE at Ash Sham was prohibited. 

A shame indeed, as that was exactly my intention. I'd read about dolphins cavorting in the fjords around Khassab and I meant to see them.

Bureaucracy be damned.

So I scooted out of Dibba to make camp.

An obliging acacia grove provided a discrete and comfortable spot. 

Emirati hospitality

Where the north-eastern extremity of the Arabian Peninsula tapers into the mouth of the Persian Gulf geography gets exciting and political boundaries get confusing.

Enclaves within enclaves compete with exclaves to confound the unwary cyclist.

For those with a taste for such things the addition of internal Emirati borders reveals yet further complexity.

Predictably we British must take our fair share of responsibility but this patchwork is at least the result of a commendable effort to ensure borders correspond to the reality of local loyalties on the ground. A starker contrast to the brutal linear creations foisted upon much of Africa is hard to imagine.

My practical considerations were limited to making my way towards Musandam while minimizing visa costs and avoiding dead ends like those I'd encountered in Al Ain

Arabia Felix

Goodbye metropolis, hello desert.

Negotiating the patchwork of four-lane M4 impressions which masquerade as quiet backroads on maps of Dubai I just about succeeded in avoiding the worst of the the regions fearsome mega motorways and found a big but quiet dual carriageway heading generally south south east. Small roads just aren't in the transport vocabulary of the UAE.

Beyond my general direction of travel I had no plan or expectations as to where I might end up. So it was with a sense of incredulity that I found myself peddling beneath this

What the what?

This felt like an especially surreal discovery given that Dubai is about as far from a bicycle oriented city as one could hope to find.

Leaving Iran

Leaving the remnants of the Shahs final excesses behind I cycled across the plain and through the mountains of the lower Zagros that separates Persepolis from the valley in which the city of Shiraz nestles.

Hearing the word Shiraz you perhaps think of a nice glass of red wine. You'd be half right in this case. The region around this most fondly loved of Iranian city is reported to have produced the finest wines in the Middle East from the 9th Century onwards. But 18th and 19th century European tourists were raving about sweet white 'port-esque' vintages; it turns out the link between the city and the popular Syrah grape variety ends with the name. For all you Onophiliacs it's all rendered moot anyway as those much vaunted vineyards have been producing raisins since the Islamic Revolution.

Mention Shiraz to an Iranian however and they are likely to think one thing: Poetry. Iran is a country where poets are revered and where poetry remains a vital cultural currency. Tehran may have the jobs, Esfahan the architecture and Mashad the holiness but Shiraz has the verse.

Two names ring out above all in the pantheon of Iranian poetry. Hafeez and Saadi (Fans of Ferdowsi and Rumi may splutter.) and both are sons of Shiraz.

Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,"You owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky. ~Hafez

The sun was out as I wove my way through the late morning traffic to the old quarter where I left the main streets and picked my way along winding alleyways flanked by high whitewashed walls in search of the well hidden Niayesh boutique hotel.  Sounds expensive but fortunately it wasn't with a single room abutting the central courtyard kindly discounted to a manageable $5 a day.

That'll do

One effect of my chosen mode of travel is solitude. It's something I have come to treasure deeply but taking a break from it in Shiraz was a pleasant change.