Oman's spectacular 'Norway of Arabia'

Hidden among the wild fjords of northern Oman, between the mountains and the sea in a quiet bay, sits the small village of Kumzar. This is the country's northernmost frontier, but Kumzar has a distinct atmosphere from the rest of Oman. In fact, its glorious isolation – the village is accessible only by an hour-long speedboat ride or a 2.5-hour trip on a sailing dhow from the nearest city, Khasab – has led Kumzar to develop a language and culture all of its own.

Kumzar's unique character owes much to geography. The village sits on the Musandam Peninsula, a tiny coastal exclave of Oman separated from the rest of the country by 100km of the UAE's rocky desert. Musandam's nickname – 'the Norway of Arabia' – derives from its wildly dramatic coastline, ravaged by fjord-like khors – although, unlike their Scandinavian counterparts, these rocky inlets were formed not by the steady slithering of glaciers but rather by the collision of tectonic plates, which crack the Earth's crust from beneath like terrible creatures vying to emerge from an egg.