Mleiha may be a fairly unassuming small town surrounded by the dunes of the Sharjah desert, but the area around it is surprisingly full of superlatives and short on visitors, both of which make for a great day out. This is where you’ll find the world’s largest collection of off-road vehicles and what is believed to be some of the earliest evidence of modern human existence outside Africa, as well as a few other quirky sights scattered among the sands.
Our journey begins not in Mleiha itself, but in nearby Al Madam and its abandoned “Ghost Village”. Heading out of Dubai, the E44 to Lahab is the easiest way to get there, passing through surprisingly green areas of desert where grateful camels happily graze. There are a couple of different locations on Google Maps for the village. Follow the coordinates helpfully labelled “Al Madam Ghost Town Correct Location” which is, indeed, the correct spot. What was previously a track through deep sand has now been compacted with a layer of gravel, meaning that even without a 4x4 vehicle you’ll be able to get through.
There’s an air of mystery around the site. Built in the 1970s as part of a government housing initiative for a local tribe, today the hamlet’s 12 houses and mosque have been taken over by the desert, with sand dunes and drifts covering walls, creeping through windows, and filling the interiors. Urban myth says the village was abandoned due to the influence of malevolent djinns, but the real reason is more pragmatic, a result of the strong winds and harsh weather conditions that made living here a less than comfortable prospect. As yet, the site is undeveloped and there’s a thrilling rawness to clambering up dunes, through doorways, and into the interiors of the houses. This isn’t a place to explore in flip flops – sharp chunks of concrete lie submerged under the sand, so wear proper shoes.
There are two recent additions to the buried village. For the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial, the Concrete Tent by Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti of artistic research practice DAAR was added, based on the tents that form the basic construction of refugee camps – intended as a space for collective mourning and solidarity with Palestine. Made from a wooden frame covered with a concrete-like appliqué, it represents “permanent temporariness”. Eventually, the sands that are enveloping the rest of the village will cover the Concrete Tent, too, rendering it ephemeral. In the same area, and running until 15 June, are two works that form part of the 2025 Sharjah Art Biennial. Brier Patch by Hugh Hayden features a tangle of trees sprouting out of 100 school desks made from salvaged cedarwood, representing a commentary on education and the role of the modern American classroom. And A Wandering Breeze by Raven Chacon is a site-responsive sound work featuring the voices of Bedouin singers, making this hauntingly remote setting even more evocative.
From here, it’s back in the car for some well-deserved air-conditioning and onto the E55 Maleha-Madam Road for the 20-minute drive to the Off-Road History Museum. There are a few indicators that you’ve arrived, including a large structure in the shape of a pith helmet that once housed a café but today is home to a White Ford Bronco, a pick-up truck perched high up on a pole that has driven one million miles, and a huge orange model of a Jeep with an actual-sized Jeep looking minuscule between its axles. But these are just a taster of what lies within the museum’s cavernous hangars. In 2020, the museum was awarded the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of 4x4 vehicles anywhere on the planet, numbering more than 700. The cars, trucks and military vehicles belong to HH Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, and even if you’re not a petrol head, you could spend hours here, peering at curiosities like a modified Nissan Patrol that looks like a whale, a 4WD Citroën 2CV Mehari from 1960 with engines in both the front and the back, and a vast collection of vintage Land Rovers, Jeeps, Toyota Land Cruisers, and military vehicles.
By now, it’s getting on for lunchtime. Fortunately, there’s a very good lunch option just a 10-minute drive away at the Al Faya Retreat, an exclusive-use five-room hotel run by the Sharjah Collection, housed in a former grocery store and clinic. Mavia serves burrata salads, shish tawook, Wagyu burgers, burnt cheesecake and more at outdoor tables set around olive trees, or indoors in a light-filled space made of local stone and weathered steel, ideal when the temperatures creep up.
From here, we backtrack slightly for the 20-minute drive to the Al Buhais Geological Park, a collection of pod-like structures modelled on sea urchin fossils found in the area. The centre takes visitors on a journey back in time to an era when all of the land here was under the sea. Inside the exhibition spaces are pieces of rare ophiolite rock dating back 93 million years and forced up from the earth’s mantle to the surface by tectonic shifts. Outdoors, geology trails meander past Iron Age tombs and ophiolite in situ.
This isn’t the only place around Mleiha to learn about Sharjah’s ancient history. The excellent Mleiha Archaeological Centre is just a 15-minute drive away, surrounded by rust-red sands that creep up the sides of rocky mountains that rise from the desert. The museum is home to another surprising superlative in the form of hand-carved stone tools thought to date back 130,000 years, placing them among the first pieces of evidence pointing to the activity of anatomically modern humans outside of Africa. A 34-square-kilometre stretch of desert here has recently been designated the Mleiha National Park, and the centre also organises excursions to caves where many of the archaeological excavations unearthed evidence of early civilisations, 4x4 desert drives to see the intriguing Fossil Rock, a dramatic outcrop packed with marine fossils, as well as horse-riding in the dunes and opportunities to lie back on carpets and cushions at night to see planets, constellations and – if you time it right – meteor showers.
Before heading home, follow the Google Maps location of “The LifeBoats” to one of this area’s quirkiest sights. A short distance from the roundabout with a branch of the Sharjah Coop sit two orange lifeboats surrounded by nothing more than a couple of small farms and a lot of sand. The sides are marked with the name Betatank II Monrovia, but internet searches and multiple questions to friends who know the area well fail to yield the full story of how they ended up here. Regardless, they make for an intriguing final stop on our Mleiha day trip, and provide plenty of conjecture and conversation for the drive back home.
