In the midst of all the glitz of the modern Gulf, home to vast shopping malls and some of the most luxurious hotels on the planet, Musandam is a place where life itself moves at a different pace: it lacked roads until just a decade ago. With metal-melting temperatures during summer and terrain that needs Thor’s hammer to flatten and tame, the landscape is one of the most dramatic and inhospitable you will ever encounter.Yet Musandam is just a few hours’ drive from Dubai, and reachable for a weekend break. Strike out towards the peninsula along the coast from the brashest of the Emirates and the tip of the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building – fades behind as you motor through dirty roadside sprawl along tarmac. You pass flaming oil wells, through the emirates of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah, before the endless development withers and the straight road begins to buckle towards the Musandam border, where a cliffside track winds around the fractured coast. It is the Gulf, but not as you know it: otherworldly Musandam is not a place for those wanting fusion food and FIJI Water, fine hotels or a Lamborghini showroom. Khasab, the region’s capital, has a splendid fort, built by the Portuguese to keep their sailors supplied with dates and fresh water. The influences of other, more modern, arrivals are being felt- such as the opening of the first supermarket. Yet the little town is not asleep. As you explore, the still air will be broken by the sound of roaring engines, while at the harbour, speedboats power their way out to sea.