A small town in the desert of Sharjah, 1 hour from Dubai, where archaelogists have uncovered remains and artifacts allowing us to see how Bedouin people lived in the past.

Museum

The small museum on site has a vast amount of information about an archaeological discovery of a tomb that held up to 300 corpses, this lead to exploration of the surrounding areas and human remains nearly 130,000 old being unearthed.

The museum leads you through time from the Palaeolithic period up until present day. There are arrow tips, knives, pots, necklaces, coins and other interesting artifacts to look at which had all been discovered around the village of Mleiha. It was interesting to see how these items had evolved through time.

We learnt about how the dead were buried, usually in family groups and saw how camels were entombed close to their owners, they have a big camel under the floor which the boys loved looking at. There are also some short films in Arabic and English explaining discoveries.

It only cost 55dhs for a family of up to 5 (2 adults, 3kids) and was an interesting 30mins or so. It was also, very quiet so we had the place to ourselves. They are open 9am-7pm weekdays (Sun-Thurs) and 9am-9pm on weekends.

Desert Trip – Camel Rock

We booked a 30 minute desert jeep to Camel Rock, which cost 90dhs per person (under 5s free). We hadn’t pre-booked but they luckily had someone available, for future visits you can book via their website here. They offer many guided tours, desert jeep trips, overnight camping, school visits and kids workshops etc.

We were taken by a lovely guide who slowed down to show us camels, goats, gazelles and the camel farms and homes of the Bedouins in the adjacent village. He answered our questions and was great with the kids.

We got into the dunes and did a bit of racing up and down which the kids absolutely adored. Elis screaming “I wish we could do this everyday!” was a lovely moment for all of us!

We stopped at Fossil Rock first where he showed us a giant rock made out of fossils. He poured water over it to show us the sea fossils and how old they were. The boys were very excited to find real fossils.

After more exhilarating dune bashing, we arrived at camel rock. An interesting formation in the middle of the desert, if you tip your head slightly to the left and look at it, it looks like a camels head apparently. We climbed up it a bit and the boys ran up and down the dunes and then we headed back to the car.

Tip – don’t sit right in the back of the jeep if you have the slightest fear/anxieties…I love it but my head didn’t as I was bouncing up and down so much it kept getting hit on the roof!

Wadi Caves

Further on from the centre are the caves where the remains were actually found. It’s a 5 minute drive, signposted (take a pic of the map at the museum for reference) and easy to park. They have made paths and a boardwalk which showed us the trenches where discoveries were found.

Further on through the wadi (Arabic word for valley) were the caves. A lot smaller than anticipated but still interesting and quite unfathomable that ancient human remains were discovered there. In the middle of the hot desert….in the middle of nowhere.

We enjoyed the rocky path climbing up and down discovering caves and looking out for big, black beetles, butterflies and of course dinosaur footprints. We even completed it at the silly time of 12pm, the hottest part of the day and we were fine in early March but you would need to do this early or just before sunset when the weather heats up later on in the year.

The Faya Cave

This was another short drive away, it was a cave that shows the evolution of rock over time. It was also shown to act as a shelter during the ice age.

A lot of this information can be quite difficult to understand nonetheless it is interesting and pretty breathtaking when you’re standing there looking at it and imagining all the people that would have walked over the same ground as you.

The Fort

This was our last stop and pretty miss-able to be honest. You need to do a u-turn and park at the gate on the opposite side of the road. It was the site of a Fort about 1800 years ago, there seems to have been some violent, dramatic act which resulted in a rushed abandonment. They have restored the walls so that you can walk around and see the different rooms as they would have been. The boys liked climbing and walking along the reconstructed walls and made for a fun last stop.

Overall: A really interesting day trip out of Dubai. Only 1 hour drive for a dramatically different landscape and lots of information to be learnt. We are always looking for lots of outside, natural places to visit so the caves and dunes were a big hit for us. Would definitely recommend, just get in touch with Mleiha first to check about their excursions to make sure they have guides available before you visit.

Click here to go back and find out about some of our other adventures in Dubai. If you are looking for another road trip click here to read about Wadi Shawka, a road trip to RAK.

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