Face to Face with the Matterhorn

Let’s see how fast I can put together a blog post. In this Project, I don’t even have time to friggin eat!

Continuing from where I left off in the last post. After the long journey and reaching Zermatt in the middle of the night, waking up to the sight of Mount Matterhorn peering at you from the balcony window of your room was just …AMAZING!

Sure felt like all our hard work of planning for the trip paid off! Europe is a bitch when it comes to weather. In the two weeks of our Europe trip, the weather forecast we checked just 2 weeks before the trip, showed that most of the days during our trip would be friggin rainy or cloudy. And we can’t change a thing about it coz the air tickets are bought, I’ve taken leave and we’ve planned out almost everything! But our highlight was Switzerland (Anu’s dream destination), so we had to rearrange it so that we’d be in Switzerland during the best of the weather and this turned out beautifully, in Zermatt at least! Here’re the pictures! Enjoy!


The best morning in our Europe 2015 trip – Mount Matterhorn, from our hotel room balcony, Hotel Bristol, Zermatt, Valais, Switzerland


So, that’s where the Toblerone chocolate symbol came from, a view from the stream just outside our hotel


Zermatt Graveyard, supposedly a tourist attraction …sure it’s peaceful, but who’s gonna visit a graveyard? Must house some famous mountaineers who died trying to climb the mountain, huh?








More views of the little car-free town of Zermatt, Valais Canton, Switzerland


The oldest part of Zermatt – Hinterdorf


The Matterhorn at dusk, Zermatt, Switzerland


Lights on the Matterhorn at night, in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the first time someone reached the summit of Matterhorn – the lights mark the path taken by the climbers, and is slowly lighted up from bottom to top. It’s repeated a few times in the night – View from our hotel room, Zermatt, Aug 2015

Car Trains, to Take or Not to Take?

We’re not going anywhere for summer this year. We like the summer here in the UAE, with its 43 to 50 degrees C heat, naturally hot scalding bath water and the dust. Yeah, we’re that crazy.

Actually, dad, and niece Sweety are here for a visit. Told Dad, it’ll be HOT, but he didn’t believe how hot it could get! Sweety’s on a college break, so we brought her here from India (where it’s raining dogs and cats now) to see how heat and dust could actually be nice. If only that was true.

In actual fact, we didn’t plan anything. Besides, we’re saving (leave days and money) for a New Zealand trip to see sis Kim & family. And NZ flights are expensive, coz it’s so bloody far away. Meanwhile, here’re some pictures from my stock of holiday photos just for busy times like this.


Iselle Village, on the Italian-Swiss border, Piedmont Region, Italy

Continuing with our Europe trip posts from where I left off before. To recap, we were leaving Italy after a night in Milan. What was supposed to be a short visit at the Expo Milano 2015 in the morning before we left Italy, turned out to be a long complicated affair (we misunderstood where we had to meet and spent more than an hour looking for each other!). We then drove beside Lago Maggiore and here we are, at the Italian-Swiss border. How I wish we were in Europe now, sigh!


The Italian countryside, beside a gas station on the highway, near Villadossola town, Piedmont, Italy


Another photo of Iselle Village, Italian-Swiss Border

Here’s where we came across our first car-train! The Italian-Swiss Border at the Piedmont Region, coming from Italy. Switzerland apparently is full of car-trains, a train where you can drive your car up on, which then takes you, and your car, into a tunnel across and underneath the immense Swiss Alps, to your next destination.

Our car GPS led us to the car-train station, at Iselle di Trasquera, at the Italian border. But hey, I’m not gonna miss driving on the Swiss Alps for some train ride in a tunnel, …even if it’s at night, so, no way mate!

On hindsight, maybe we should’ve taken the car-train. The border was almost the last thing we could see before sunset. We travelled through the entire Simplon Pass at night! True, we noticed some nice hotel-like buildings and hill-slopes at very dim twilight, which must have been spectacular at daytime. But what a waste.

We were on our way to Zermatt, where the mighty Mt Matterhorn is. Zermatt is a car-free town. The nearest our car could drive to, was Täsch, where people could park their cars and take a train to Zermatt. We reached Täsch at about 11pm. By the time we parked, took our bags and all that, the train has left! The next train …12 midnight! …Hmmm, yup definitely should’ve taken the car-train!


There we were – Täsch Train Station, waiting for the next train


And here’s little Jayden at Täsch, Valais, Switzerland

One Working Day in Kuwait

Kuwait Towers, Kuwait City

Hello! Wishing everyone a belated Eid Mubarak! Selamat Hari Raya!

Eid’s come and gone, but there’re still no signs of a softening of stand against our neighbour, Qatar. Actually, I think it’s become worse!

Anyway, it’s not for me to say anything. And besides, after coming to this friggin site in Abu Dhabi, I hardly have time to do anything personal, let alone write a decent post! So, here’s a picture post of another of our neighbours, Kuwait. These are from the one business trip I took to Kuwait in 2016. Business trip or not, there’s always time to do a li'l sightseeing. It’s just a matter of planning. When there’s a will, there’s a way!


There, I worked! Our site visit to Al Mutlaa, for a humongous public housing infrastructure project. Nope, we didn’t win it. Al Mutlaa happens to be the place of the infamous ‘turkey-shoot’ aka the Highway of Death, where the bulk of Iraqi tanks and vehicles were destroyed by the Americans on their retreat from Kuwait after the Kuwait War – From left, Samantha (our Senior Estimator, he’s Sri Lankan, yes Samantha is a guy’s name in Sri Lanka), Omar (our Utilities Technical Engineer, from Egypt), yours truly ahem, Balaji (Planning Assistant Manager), and a representative from our Company’s Kuwait Office. The colleague hidden behind Omar is Chen Haitao, Tender Assistant Manager




More views of the Kuwait Towers – We were staying at a hotel about 2 km away. I got up real early, had breakfast and got ready for work. But since the meeting which we were supposed to attend, was at 10am, what better way to while away the time than by going for a short sightseeing trip around, hehe


Kuwait City view, from the Kuwait Towers – that tall building in the middle is the Al Hamra Tower, tallest building in Kuwait, and the place where our Kuwait Branch Office is in


Al Hamra Tower, up close




Inside Al Hamra Tower


A view from up on Al Hamra Tower


Sharq Area, Kuwait – where we stayed for the night








And finally, some shopping – at The Avenues Mall, Kuwait – how could we not squeeze in a visit to Kuwait’s premier shopping mall huh?

The New Forbidden Kingdom - Qatar

Doha skyline from the Corniche, Doha, Qatar, with the Museum of Islamic Art on the right

Whoa! What happened to Qatar? Why the sudden isolation? Must be something pretty serious to get its Gulf Arab brothers to completely cut ties with it!

But I’m gonna keep my mouth shut on this one (UAE has warned that Qatar sympathisers will face fines of, get ready for this, …not less than half a friggin million dirhams and jail time!)

Sigh, no more Qatar stopovers I guess. One less ‘good’ airlines to fly. Qatar Airways somehow always comes up among the cheapest full-fledged airlines to fly out of Dubai, so that’s a let-down. Another thing I’m gonna miss is Al Jazeera, the international news network based in Qatar. It’s my favourite news channel, coz I find it less biased than its western counterpart, and there’re just less ads and junk around so that I can read only the news that matters. But what the heck, life goes on. Hope they patch up soon.

Meanwhile, here’re some photos of our recent stopover in Doha (late March this year). I’m glad I made the stopover. Even more so now that this mess has come about!


A meet-up with an old friend from our Mizoram days (and Emirates Road Project days), Andrew, in Doha's Souq Waqif. With him are his wife, son Garrett and sister-in-law


Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar


Jayden & Papa, Souq Waqif






More views of Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar


Al Fanar, the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, Doha’s mini Burj Khalifa, near the Corniche


The Corniche, Doha – I call this the Nepali Beach – On the Friday afternoon that we were there, there was a line of dhows docked along the corniche filled with loud music and Nepali revellers dancing! Groovy, but weird


The Pearl Monument, Doha, Qatar






Doha’s swanky new airport, the Hamad International Airport – pretty nice place to hang out, definitely a far cry from the congested old airport which we’ve transited before

So Starts Ramadan

Museum of Islamic Civilization, Sharjah, UAE

Here we go again, 30 days of fasting. (No, not me. The others I mean. I’m the type who can’t survive not munching on anything for more than an hour!) And this time, I’m in a friggin site, 130km away from home!

Don’t have much time to write. I gotta get a grasp of this Project as soon as possible, and there’s just about 3 years of information for me to absorb! (The Project started in 2014!)

So here’s something which I think suits Ramadan well. Wanna learn something about Islam? You can’t go wrong with a visit to the Museum of Islamic Civilization in Sharjah! See for yourself.








The interiors of the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization




The central dome, with a mosaic of the night sky showing the zodiac constellations


The Kiswah, the piece of cloth covering the Kaaba, the most sacred building in Islam which sits in the middle of the Grand Mosque in Mecca – the Kiswah is changed every year during the Haj Pilgrimage period. So sez the display. See, I told you it’s pretty informative. There’s more but you’ll have to go find out yourself!


A replica of the Holy Kaaba, showing the Kiswah and the Black Stone, an eye-like stone on the corner of the Kaaba near the door


A replica of the Black Stone of the Holy Kaaba – Wanna know what this is, go, visit the museum, haha, or you could just Wiki it!


Another of the many displays in the museum – It’s a brass pot with a Sheikh sitting on it, …no, seriously I don’t know what this is. You think I’m a curator or something?

And here’re some mosques around the Museum’s vicinity, and I have all the names… (that’s how good Google Maps is!)


A Persian-looking mosque, the Masjid Al-Zahra, at the Corniche, Sharjah


Abu Dhar Al-Ghafari Mosque, just beside the Museum of Islamic Civilization


Al Maghfirah Mosque, Corniche, Sharjah