Birkat Al Mouz - Nizwa

Thu 25/12/25

It was 7 am in the morning when we left the airport and made our way to our destination today, Jabal Shams with a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was a café, Bait Al Sabah at Birkat Al Mouz, a historic Omani village with abandoned clay and mud-brick houses, banana and date plantations, and the UNESCO-listed Falaj Al Khatmeen irrigation system,  at the foothills of Jebel Akhdar. There are many abandoned villages with clay and mud-brick houses around Oman that we encountered during our 10 day visit, and this is one of them.

I came across the café while searching for accommodation, but unfortunately it was fully booked. So I decided to just visit the café.

The village is located 132km from Muscat airport, which took about 1h30mins on the highway which did not have any tolls.  We arrived at the café at 8.30am and we had latte and cappuccino for 3.4 OMR (about RM 36). The café is located in an old house built of mud that was recently restored to be a heritage inn. The café have a four legged mascot. 

the cafe cat

our coffee

the old village view from the cafe rooftop

After having coffee on the rooftop, we strolled around the surrounding abandoned village with the falaj drainage system and enjoyed the views. 

view behind the village

old mud brick houses

falaj irrigation system

at the top of the old village

falaj going through the mud brick houses

mudbrick houses

From Birkat Al Mouz, we made our way to Nizwa town to buy some groceries at Lulu hypermarket. After buying groceries, we went for lunch at Turath al Mandi restaurant. We had lamb shuwa with mixed rice for 3 OMR (about RM 33) , lamb or goat marinated in a rich spice blend (including coriander, cumin, cardamom, cloves, garlic) then slow-cooked for hours, traditionally in an underground sand oven (tanor). It was delicious! We were also given black tea free of charge. 

lamb shuwa

sitting on the floor style

We then walked to the Nizwa souq next door for a quick visit to take pictures since it was already 12.30pm, the souq would be closed during the afternoon hour from 1pm and re-open at 4pm. We didn't buy anything here, just taking notes of the souvenirs that we would buy from the souq in Muscat later. 

Nizwa souq entrance door

Nizwa souq

Nizwa souq

Nizwa souq

Nizwa souq food section

halwa or sweets 

We also took some pictures outside of Nizwa fort, just next to the Nizwa souq.

Nizwa fort is behind

We then headed for our final destination today Jabal Shams where we would be staying for 2 nights. 

KUL-MCT

Wed 24/12/25

We would be taking a 10 day trip, starting from Muscat to Jabal Shams, Misfat al Abriyeen, Al Hamra, Bahla, Wadi Shab and back to Muscat. We would spend 2 days in Muscat before returning to Kuala Lumpur  with our flight back scheduled at 1235 pm. For this trip, we booked our tickets through Qatar Airways, part of the OneWorld alliance. In this trip, we transited at Doha (DOH)  before arriving at Muscat (MCT), Oman. We bought our ticket about a month (end Nov) before the departure date (24 Dec). Our return trip ticket cost RM 8524 per person. 

Traffic looked normal, so we decided to take a Grab ride to KLIA at 3.30pm. It started to rain at 4pm and traffic started to build up. We arrived at KLIA at 5 pm.  After checking in and immigration clearance using the MyBorderPass app, we made our way to MH's Golden Lounge at the airside, after taking the aerotrain. We went to the Platinum side where there were less people so we had a bit of time to relax and enjoyed dinner of scallop and beef steak before it was time for boarding. We departed on time at 8pm.

soup

steak

scallop

dessert

I chose seat 1K on the starboard (right) side facing rearwards this time as I wanted direct access to the window. We were given the Diptyque amenity kit and pajamas. 

I chose the pepper crusted tuna and poached tiger prawn for starters, braised lamb shank with peppercorn jus as main course, cheese platter and and ice cream for dessert (it was great!). For light snack, I had peppered beef sandwich on sourdough. I had mint tea for the pre departure drink. 

pepper crusted tuna and poached tiger prawn

braised lamb shank with peppercorn jus

cheese platter

ice cream

let's sleep

peppered beef sandwich on sourdough

We arrived Doha at 10.35pm. We still had about 3 hours before our next flight to Muscat at 1.50am so we made our way to Al Safwa lounge to have our prayers, shower a bit (I was given a spa room) and have some meal of salmon sashimi and arabic coffee which were not served in flight (perhaps because it was a night flight). The meals here are only ala carte (no buffet) which need to be ordered.

spa room

spa room with shower and toilet

prayer room

salmon sashimi

We then made our way to the boarding gate and took the bus with special seats for "First" class. Our short flight of 1hour 35 min from DOH to MCT is marketed as "First" Class, but is similar to Business Class. I chose lemon and thyme chicken with herbed mashed potatoes; and orange and pistachio basbousa as dessert for the short flight.

First class bus seating

our "First" class seat

lemon and thyme chicken with herbed mashed potatoes; and orange and pistachio basbousa

We landed Muscat on time at 4.30 am. Immigration was smooth, I didn't have to show my itinerary print outs, just some random questions from immigration. This time we had Wise card, so we withdrew cash of 320 OMR from the ATM with a competitive exchange rate of 1 OMR = 10.7 RM. We did change 76 OMR in Malaysia (with exchange rate of 1 OMR = 11.5 RM) 

We then picked up our rental car (Thrifty, at the airport parking) at 6 am. Our car was a Toyota Yaris Sedan. The rental cost OMR 316 (about RM 3380) for 10 days. There is only 1 USB port and we couldn't connect our phone navigation to the car display.

our Yaris rental car

We opted for 15 day Maxis roaming for RM99 per person 

It was 7 am in the morning when we left the airport and made our way to our destination today, Jabal Shams with a few stops along the way.