Salalah: frankincense and Arabia's monsoon

The only region of the Arabian peninsula reached by the summer monsoon, Salalah transforms every year into a green oasis while the rest of the peninsula remains arid.

A car remains useful to explore the region of incense and Arabian monsoons.

During the Khareef, the summer monsoon that only affects this region of Arabia, the hills around Salalah are covered in green and temporary waterfalls cascade down the mountains.

A few minutes from the center, the frankincense trees of the Dhofar region, cultivated for millennia, produce the aromatic resin once traded for its weight in gold along the caravan routes.

Continuing on, one visits the Frankincense Land Museum, a UNESCO heritage site, which tells the story of incense trade along the southern Arabian caravan route.

In the evening, Salalah's white sand beaches, less well-known than elsewhere in the Gulf, offer a peaceful sunset over the Indian Ocean.

Dhofar incense, considered among the finest in the world for quality, was exchanged in antiquity at a value comparable to gold, fueling entire trade routes across the Arabian desert.

The Khareef phenomenon, which brings regular rains only to this narrow coastal strip of Oman, attracts tourists every summer from across the Gulf seeking unusually cool and green weather.