Mission Leshan

Leshan Giant Buddha, Sichuan, China, Aug 2025

I’ve finally downloaded the photos of our recent home trip from the phones. There are only a few thousand photos to sort thru. (8 friggin thousand actually! No kidding.) Should be just a breeze …if I have days on end to just sit down and look at photos. Unfortunately, I don’t. (I dunno how the missus does it, she can Facebook ‘em on the day of the trip itself! Maybe, that’s how you’re supposed to do it. But I just can’t get myself to look at photos right after taking ‘em… I’d rather plan out our next day’s adventures!)

Anyway, to cut the story short, it’ll take me days. Nope, make that weeks. To go thru them, to come up with my home trip post. So, here’s something to tide over the gap. Since we’re on statues, here’s another big statue, in another big country! From one of our mini adventures last year – to Leshan, China.

For our last year’s Malaysia home trip, we decided to transit thru China. Why? Because the Chinese flights have resumed flying to Dubai (after God-damn COVID), and they’re cheaper, and better (umm… maybe not, depends how you look at it, but which other airlines lets you check-in 46kg per person?!??) Anyway, on our return leg of the journey, from Malaysia to Dubai, we had a long stopover in Chengdu – like 12 hours, if I’m not mistaken, from 6am till the evening. What better way to spend this time than to go out exploring, woohoo!


And so, here we are, at Chengdu Tianfu Airport. That ‘sculpture’ if you could call it that, is completely made up of porcelain ware tied up together – plates, cups, bowls, you name it! Chengdu is the panda capital of the world, but since the missus ain’t a fan of zoos or animal reserves (o, c’mon, who doesn’t wanna see a panda?), we decided to skip over to Leshan instead, to see the Giant Buddha! (By the way, if you wanna see pandas in Chengdu, do book in advance, a week before the visit …like how it is with the Forbidden City, I guess)


The Chinese version of McDonald’s! At Tianfu Airport. It was 6am-ish, and so we wasted our sweet time, toileting, photo-posting (not me, the missus, that explains the Facebook, huh?), eating breakfast at McD… Before we knew it, it was 9am! Quick, we should’ve left at 6.30am, to beat the crowds (see, told you I never f@#*ing learn!) It’s 160km from the airport to Leshan and it takes 2 hours! And we have to get back by umm… 3-ish!

We Didi-ed (taxi) our way to Leshan through highways and roads flanked by lush green forests – nice, quiet roads, so why can’t the car go faster? I supposed it’s the pesky traffic cameras that are all over the place. This is China, speed cameras must be a dime a dozen. Most of the Didi drivers have these speed radar detectors that continue blurting out warnings of cameras ahead, in Chinese. I don’t even know why they bother, as the entire journey would be filled only with announcements! Luckily for us, the taxi that we took to Leshan (and back – we made a deal on a return trip) made do without the detector!


We reached! This is the main entrance square where you buy tickets to enter (yes, also the ferry tickets). It’s a huge square, just east of the Minjiangyi Bridge. You won’t miss it if you’re nearby. No, don’t bother using Google Maps. It doesn’t work in China. Use one of the Chinese maps app instead, like A-Map (but you gotta know a little Chinese, bcoz it’s completely in Chinese. It’s fun, Chinese, it’s like trying to crack a code!)

Oh My God… look at the people! Where do we even go from here? And we’re like really late! It’s 11:15am, and we should leave by umm…1:30pm! How can we even make it? And we’d have wasted hundreds of bucks of taxi fare… and Anu’s visa fees for nothing. There’re 2 ways to visit – walking, or by ferry. The faster way is by ferry, coz it’s a long way to walk, and you’d have to climb up and down long and steep staircases (and remember, there’re lots of people.) There’re so many queues at the entrance, full of people. We queued at the wrong one which led to the ferry terminal, but then found out that we’d have to first get tickets!!! At the other building! And there’re so many people. Inch by inch, foot by foot, I finally got the tickets! (I left Anu and Jayden at the ferry terminal to wait for me). When I entered the ferry terminal with the tickets, the officer there gave us numbers showing our boarding sequence. And by gosh, there’re hundreds of places to go, before our turn! I estimated that our turn would come up after 1pm. OK, I had no choice, I’d try to talk my way thru (in Chinese). No luck, the officer guarding the terminal couldn’t make an exception, and told us to wait, and none of the other tourists I spoke to would exchange tickets (no, they weren’t unfriendly, it’s just that their numbers wouldn’t really give us a good boost up the queue). Then, a change of shift, and a change of luck. I spoke to the new officer in charge, and he just waved us thru, as the last of the lot that was to board next… before deciding otherwise, and tried calling us back. But by then, we had already joined the group in front, and he just relented. Whew! My years of working in a Chinese company (and by extension, having to learn to speak Chinese to communicate with some of my Chinese colleagues) finally paid off! Thank God!


More waiting! The ferry boarding jetty (it looks like a ferry, but it’s only for waiting and boarding)


Off we go! On the Minjiang (Min River), Leshan, Sichuan, China, Aug 2025


A bridge on the Min River (I think it’s the Haotu Bridge) near the Giant Buddha


Leshan Giant Buddha… How peaceful it’d be, if it wasn’t for the people


Voila! The ferries!


This is what your photos would look like, ahem. With life jackets, loads of ferries, and people… What the heck! Just go with the flow, and enjoy!


Time to go, on the Min River


The park between the ticketing complex and Giant Buddha. The ferries’ dropping point is different from the boarding point (it’s further south), so you’d have to walk back to the main entrance square


A bell at the Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area


Back at the main entrance square. What are these Ashoka Pillars doing in China??! (That’s the National Emblem of India, isn’t it?) Well, the pillars of Ashoka were first and foremost symbols of Buddhism, which is why a place like the Giant Buddha has these…

Whew, we made it back on time! Mission Leshan accomplished, thank You, God.

The Father of All Statues

Whoa. WHAT. IS. THAT??!

It’s Indian Independence Day this weekend! (and so is the Pakistani one, they were basically ‘born’ at the same time, split from their mother, British India, in Aug 1947).

Happy Independence Day, friends! Here’s a ‘colossal’ post just for this occasion! A monument to an Indian independence leader, and the prime unifier of the Indian states immediately after independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, in gargantuan proportions!


Welcome to the Statue of Unity, the tallest statue in the world, Ekta Nagar, Gujarat, India, Jul 2024

The statue sits just beside the Narmada River, near the Narmada Dam, in the state of Gujarat. It’s a pet project of the BJP, India’s current ruling party, and the long-time ruling party of the state of Gujarat. That place is now something like a ‘theme park’ centred around the statue, complete with a new township (Ekta Nagar, meaning ‘Unity City’, on the existing Kevadia town), a spanking new railway station, 5-star hotels, food courts, a ticketing complex and information centre, theme parks – there’s a herbal medicine (Ayurvedic) botanical garden and wellness centre, a Children’s Nutrition Park (whatever that is), a zoo, a dinosaur park, boat rides on the Narmada River, and so on, and so forth. All clean, nature-loving, non-animal-harming, spiritual fun. Nothing of that modern ‘debauchery’ that you get in other tourist places (if you care about that sort of stuff that is, which I doubt many tourists do...) 

We almost didn’t make it in time to visit. We (or more like I) thought we could just drive there from Baroda (Vadodara), drive past the statue, and take some photos from afar. But no. Private cars aren’t allowed on the roads leading to the statue, and we were told to go back to the ticketing complex, buy the tickets, and then catch a ride on the many electric buses (which comes with the ticket price) or electric vehicles from the ticketing complex. We reached just in time before the ticket counters closed. Whew, really close call, we would have gone all the way for nothing! (But this wouldn’t be the last time that I tried something like this, I never fucking learn, stubborn idiot!) Anyway, here’s BJP’s theme park for your pleasure!


The garden at the Statue of Unity complex


No, Jayden. That isn’t the Emperor of the Galactic Empire! (But it’ll be pretty cool if Star Wars actually did something like that, won’t it?)

If you read about Sardar Patel, you will know that he actually contributed tremendously to the unity of India. He was a pragmatist who could see how untenable India as a nation would be, if India remained undivided, as espoused by his leader Gandhi, due to the big divide that had already been created between the Muslims and Hindus at that time. He was therefore the prime supporter for the partitioning of India from the Hindu side (the Muslims’ leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was the one who came up with this idea of partition, and its main advocate), deviating from the stand of many of his fellow party comrades, who wanted India to remain undivided. He was also the main person to get all the princely states inside India (and there’re hundreds of them), to accede to India! That was no easy feat, OK? So, kudos sir! You deserve the big statue!


That, really is a colossal foot!


NOOOO!!!! Don’t crush me….


A view of the Narmada River and Dam from inside the statue… yeah, you can actually go up, and look out thru the windows somewhere in his chest area


Wow, what big feet you have! Statue of Unity, Gujarat, India, Jul 2024


Fancy some Gujarati dinner? We’re not very fond of Gujarati cuisine… imagine combining sweetness with red, hot, spiciness! But I like the thepla, and the puran puri from this shop was the nicest puran puri I’ve tried so far… at the Jalaram Khichdi Restaurant (wait, what? A khichdi restaurant? That’s like porridge. I wouldn’t go to a restaurant for porridge! I can get khichdi just fine at home, compliments of the wife! And she dishes it out with some amazing chutney), somewhere near Dabhoi, on the road to Baroda from the Statue of Unity, Gujarat

Enjoy your weekend!

Royal Showdown in the State of Nine

Panca Persada, Seri Menanti, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

Here’s some palace intrigue to bore you…

In Malaysia, there is a state called Negeri Sembilan, which literally translates into the State (Negeri) of Nine (Sembilan). The royal accession system in Negeri Sembilan (or let’s just call it NS) is different from the other Malay Sultanates inside Malaysia. (Oh yes, Malaysia still has multiple kings, nine to be exact, and they rotate among themselves to be the overall king of Malaysia (called the Yang di-Pertuan Agong) every 5 years.) While the other Malay sultanates mostly follow a straightforward succession system whereby the kingdom is passed down from father to son, in NS, the king (or the Yamtuan Besar, in this case) is chosen among the male descendants of the original royal lineage from the Minangkabau Pagaruyung Kingdom of West Sumatra, by 4 territorial chieftains (Undang) in the state. These 4 Undangs (originally, there were 9, hence the name of the state, but it dwindled down to 4 powerful chieftains through time) cannot be the Yamtuan Besar themselves, but they hold considerable power because only they, by consensus among the 4 of them, can decide who, among the princes, can be the king!

The Undangs themselves are chosen from a few selected noble families of the respective 4 territories, and would usually be the son of the eldest sister of the said noble families. (It’s a strange matrilineal system… called the Adat Perpatih – ancestral property is passed down from mother to daughter, but the Undangs and the Yamtuan Besar must be male).

With such a complicated system, I would’ve expected a dispute to have happened a long time ago, but it’s been largely smooth for as far as I can remember. Until now, that is. Recently, the Yamtuan Besar’s Court dismissed one of the Undangs, for allegedly committing some customary offences. In a tit-for-tat move, the 4 Undangs (including the one who was dismissed) grouped together and issued a declaration that the ruling Yamtuan Besar, Tuanku Muhriz has been removed from his position for improper conduct, and proclaiming a new ruler in his place (who is a cousin of the ruling Yamtuan Besar). The Yamtuan Besar fired back, by installing new Undangs in place of 2 of the dissenting Undangs… What a mess, isn’t it? It’s still not resolved. It’s in the Court now, and has caused the state government to collapse, when state politicians took sides of the 2 competing claimants to the throne. Who knows how it’ll end? For the time being, life goes on for the ordinary Malaysians in NS. And here’re some photos of Negeri Sembilan… A little seen state when it comes to tourism! So, there you go!


Istana Seri Menanti (or Seri Menanti Palace), Seri Menanti, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, Aug 2025 – Nope, nobody resides here. It’s a museum (or was supposed to be a museum). The official palace and residence of the Yamtuan Besar shifted to a nearby brick palace, back in the 1930’s…


Mommy and Jayden fooling around in Seri Menanti


Panca Persada, the coronation compound of the Negeri Sembilan royalty…


Seri Menanti is the royal town of Negeri Sembilan. Nothing much to see here. If you wanna see a royal town of a Malay Sultanate, try Kuala Kangsar, the royal town of Perak. The old Seri Menanti Istana was supposed to be a museum, but I don’t think it’s opened for some time now, and I don’t see any signs of it being spruced up for reopening…

That’s all for today!

Companions of 2025

I’m back! And what a nice adventure our holiday was!

The main drawback to this is that there’s now a ton of work in the office waiting for me to attend to!

Haven’t downloaded any of the photos that we took during our recent trip, so I’m gonna post my annual tribute to the people in our lives. Here goes, to the people in our lives last year (2025), without which our lives would be so dull. Thank you all, for your time, for your friendship, and for enriching our lives! May you all have happy, successful, and fulfilling lives, full of joy, hope and good health!


Diwali with the Agarwals (Umesh, Bhavna and Dyuti), at their place in Oia Residence, the same apartment block that we share, Oct 2025. Justin wasn’t with us this time, as Diwali was a little early last year, and Justin was still in Singapore


And here’s our immediate neighbour Milind, with wife Rajeshri and umm… niece (right), I think, (nope, I don’t remember her name) who was here doing a temporary job as part of her academic practical training, at our home on Diwali, Oct 2025


And here’re Milind’s kids! Mihir (second left) and Aru (first left), close friends (and ‘partners in crime’) of Jayden, at their home, on Ganesh Chathurti (yes, another Indian festival – dedicated to Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed god), a major festival in Maharashtra where Milind’s family hails from, Sep 2025. (I don’t know who the other boy is, maybe Jayden knows!)


Here’s KP Singh (centre, standing, in black) and Abha (second left), our former fellow Oia Residence mates who’ve ‘upgraded’ and moved into a villa of their own! In Victoria Heights, Dubai Sports City. Way to go mates! The others in the photo, are the Singhs’ friends. Diwali 2025


And here’re KP’s and Abha’s kids, Advika (left) and Shreya (centre), at their new home, Victoria Heights, Sports City, Oct 2025


We don’t only celebrate Indian festivals. Here’s a little Chinese for you. Jayden, with one of the teachers in the Chinese Institute he attends, at the institute’s Chinese New Year function at their DragonMart2 branch, Dubai, Feb 2025


And this is his Chinese teacher, Liu Laoshi (i.e. Teacher Liu – ‘laoshi’ means teacher in Chinese) at the Great Wall Institute, Motor City, Feb 2025


More Chinese coming up… Jayden and fellow Chinese language students (I only know one, Rachel (third right), Jayden’s Chinese Class classmate, who’s Indian, but better at Chinese than Jayden!) performing a Chinese poem at the UAE Chinese Poem Gala and Great Wall Institute Anniversary, organized by his Chinese Institute (who else, when it featured their name!), at the GEMS Modern Academy (which, ironically, is an Indian school), Dubai, Jun 2025


Moving from Chinese to music, this is Jayden’s piano teacher, Marc, who is from the Philippines, at a piano recital, where Jayden played Hedwig’s Theme. Not bad, Jayden. Keep it up! Dec 2025


Justin’s back! And here’re his friends, Yiro and Angelina (I forgot her Korean name, which she prefers to use nowadays), both from South Korea, at our home, Dec 2025


Moving to my colleagues, here’s another Indian festival, Onam, the biggest festival of the Indian state of Kerala. At The Island Project site office, where I was stationed for 6 months last year. Here’s Mahesh, Safety Officer for the M&E works of the massive hotel complex project (4 luxury hotels on an island!) (We shared a work cubicle – don’t ask why I was sitting with the Safety people, it’s a loooong story), Sep 2025


And here’s what you do for Onam, a feast! Featuring over 20 multi-coloured dishes served on a banana leaf… but they’re ALL vegetarian! Sorry meat-lovers, it ain’t your day! In the photo are: Sujatha, Senior QS (left, from Tamil Nadu), Noufal, HSE Manager (centre) and Aryan, QAQC Manager (right) (Noufal and Aryan are both from Kerala). The hand that you see on the right, belongs to the Project Director, Mr Konudula Rao


Another feast, but I think this was a farewell feast, compliments of the colleague who was leaving, which I think in this case, was Arslan, the Electrical Engineer (5th from left) (I hope I remembered correctly). The others in the photo are (from left): - For the love of God, I forgot who that first one is; Fayaz Ahmad (Electrical Engineer); Asif (Admin Officer); Sajid Mahmood (Time Keeper); Arslan; Hazir (Land Surveyor); yours truly (ahem); Afsal (Electrical Engineer); Ashik (Sr Stakeholder Coordinator); Sohail (Project Engineer); and Munnir (Storekeeper). At the now defunct Closeout Office, in Warsan 3, Jan 2025


Here’s a party at our company’s Civil & Infrastructure Branch Head Office in Dubai South Business Park celebrating our company getting the award for the Dubai Island Bridge Project. There’s a load of company old-timers in this photo! From left: Han Guang (Assistant GM, in charge of the General Management Office of the Branch – I’ve known him since I first joined the Company in 2008, he was then our site office’s Admin Officer); Xue Bingbing (drinking from a bottle, Timekeeper? Don’t really know); Anilkumar Madhusoodhanan (QAQC Director – knew him, when I rejoined the Company in 2013, I think he joined in 2012 - he retired earlier this year); Prashant Mestha (Tender Director, joined in 2014); Cheng Qianli (General Manager, our Civil & Infrastructure Branch’s top boss); ummm… an HR Manager (I think) whom I know not, he didn’t stay very long in the Company; Khaled Adel (Contracts Director, another colleague from the 2008 times, he was the Contracts Manager of a Project when I joined in 2008, he left the Company late last year, after 18 years of service!); and Ren Bofei (Project Manager, he was a Chief Surveyor in 2008!)


Finally, some complete strangers. Good Samaritans who tried to help Anu to ice-skate, 2 kids from Eritrea! Anu’s a kid magnet! Children just seem to gravitate towards her, like she’s one of their own! And this is not the first-time things like this happen! At the Galleria Ice Rink, Hyatt Regency Dubai, Mar 2025

That’s all for now. God bless us all! (Except those who’re still fueling this stupid Iran War…)

Island of the Hill Myna

Bliss… a peaceful beach at the Berjaya Tioman Resort

I’m in a hurry. I’m going on leave!!!! Yippee! A trip, finally. …On a flight! After seeing the kids fly off and come back (by themselves) in the airport, we, adults finally get a chance to fly ourselves. No thanks to Trump and gang, who totally messed up the situation here. Yes, that stupid Iran war, that Trump and Netanyahu started, got out of hand and nobody knows now, how it’ll end. Damn!

Gotta find an easy post… with pictures, and less writing. Let’s see, since we’re going home to Malaysia, I’ll post something from Malaysia, which I’ve not posted before – Tioman! The island of the Hill Myna!


We’re here! The Berjaya Resort, in Tioman Island, Pahang, Malaysia, Aug 2024

Thanks to sis, Hazel, who gave us 2 nights in this resort from her Berjaya Vacation Club quota






There’s nothing much to do, but chill out at the beach…


Or in the swimming pools


Or we could go snorkelling! At the sea in front of the Tioman Marine Park


Look at the fish around us!


The Tioman Marine Park building…


At the raised footpath that connects Kampung Tekek to Kampung ABC (which is the nickname for Air Batang, …don’t ask me what the ‘C’ stands for). This ABC Village brings back fond memories of the first and only time I visited Pulau Tioman before this, in umm… the early 90’s, 1990 probably, or was it 1991?

At that time, I was a student in a college, in Kuala Lumpur (KL). And I had 2 close friends from our secondary school who were then studying in two other different universities, in different parts of Malaysia. There was a national holiday, Hari Raya Haji, and we happened to meet up in KL, and there, on the spot, decided to make a trip to Pulau Tioman (yup, those were the times, when we could just get up and go! Fuck the planning, haha!) So, we went straight to Puduraya, the main bus station in KL then, and found out that half of the KL population was there, trying to get bus tickets to go back to wherever their hometowns and villages were, because of the Hari Raya Haji (Eid Al Adha) holidays. There were no more buses to Mersing, the departure port for ferries to Tioman. So, we bought tickets to Kuantan as advised by some helpful people in the bus station.

When we reached Kuantan, we went straight to the bus station, and found a bus going to Johor Bahru (JB) at night, with a stop in Mersing. Voila! We grabbed the tickets, but that still left us an entire half-day in Kuantan, with nothing much to do. And so, we headed to the beach in Kuantan (Teluk Cempedak, if I’m not mistaken), and swam and chilled till the time for the bus journey came. I don’t remember how we cleaned ourselves up after the swim in the sea, but we were somewhat sticky with the salt water on our bodies, and finally we made it to Mersing in the wee hours of the day, which was just right, as ferries then, left at daybreak, like at 6am, not like nowadays…

We stayed in Kampung ABC, if I remembered correctly, in a little wooden chalet overlooking the beautiful, blue sea, in a small village, with a path, wide enough only for bikes. On the third day of our visit, on the day which we were to leave, we were having breakfast at the chalet, and asked the landlady about when the ferry would leave Tioman for Mersing. She pointed to the boat chugging away from the nearest jetty, and said that we’d missed it! What a day that was. We waited in the jetty, under the hot, unrelenting, island sun, until we got a boat in the afternoon. Managed to make it back to Mersing in the evening, but not early enough to catch any public buses going off from Mersing. Finally, we ‘bribed’ some members of a tourist bus from Singapore (yup, Singaporeans could be bribed, haha), to allow us to get on their bus, which was heading back to Singapore, to bring us till JB (a big city, which we would be able to get onward bus tickets to wherever we needed to get to). JB was jam-packed with Singapore-bound traffic (as that was the only land crossing to Singapore then). (The next day was back to work, and back to school, and that’s why we HAD to get back that day). To cut the story short, I managed to make it back to KL in umm… the wee hours of the next day, and my architect friend who was at that time working as an intern in Ipoh, had to take a day off!

Oops, looks like I’ve written a lot more than I planned to. Back to the post…




The seas around the Tioman Marine Park along the footpath. By the way, Tioman got its name from a bird, the Hill Myna, or in Malay, ‘Burung Tiong’. Of course, there’s a legend on that… and you can Google it for all you want… (I’m sure it’ll be in the internet, I’ve already written too much as it is…)


The Maori Dive Academy, where there’re toilets that we could use (for changing and other stuff), and food! (after snorkelling)


Time to leave, and get back to everyday life! At the Tekek Ferry Terminal, our arrival and departure point, Tioman Island, Pahang, Malaysia


We’re back on the mainland! Mersing – The Mersing Harbour Centre, Johor, Malaysia

That’s all. See you after our break!