When It Rains…

Water flowing on a dirt road in Nahwa (a territory of Sharjah), UAE – This road connects Wadi Shees to Nahwa, passing through the Omani exclave of Madha

Continuing on the rain topic, last week, it rained in the UAE. People here love the rain. They come out in hordes to get soaked in the rain, as if it was some precious holy water that’d wash away their sins. They take photos, and videos, to Instagram and Facebook and what-have-you. I guess that if you stay in a desert long enough, you’d behave the same, even for people from a tropical rain forest (like yours truly) and from rain-soaked Assam (the wettest place on earth, well almost, it’s next to Meghalaya, isn’t it?) like Anu.

Rain is so ‘powerful’ here, that it could cause schools to close. If it’s heavy enough, that is. Because it friggin floods, OK? (I think the desert infrastructure isn’t really built to handle that much water in a short time and therefore, floods are normal if it rains heavily). Then, there’ll be accidents and massive jams all over the place. And still, people love the rain. What can I say? OK, I’m letting the photos speak. Enjoy!


Our flooded neighbourhood, Jan 2023. The road between our apartment (left) and the kids’ school (right). No problem, it’s only ankle deep...


Whoa! Where did this lake come from? Motor City (our neighbourhood), Jan 2020


A waterlogged Dubai, Jan 2020 – Sheikh Zayed Road turn off to Oasis Mall


Sometimes heaven just can’t decide whether to send a sandstorm or rain. Why not just send both? This is the worse type of rain you could get, especially with a strong wind bringing big amounts of sand and a moderate rain which isn’t powerful enough to wash away the sand. The result? A mud rain! Which your poor wipers would struggle to cope with, like in the pic above – Aug 2023


But rain ain’t all bad. It brings life back to the desert! Anu and Jayden at our very first lone camping spot, in the Omani exclave of Madha, Feb 2023, a month after the rain. We returned to the very first place that we camped out by ourselves, which was in Oct 2020, during the pandemic times. It was greener this time (but of course, you still can't compare it with Malaysia or Assam, duh). Check out this old post for the past pictures


Playing with water, on the dirt road near Nahwa village. (What the heck, so what if it’s by the road? Water’s water! And it’s in the hills, from the rain)


A flooded Nahwa Cave… Check out our old post for an unflooded cave




Another cool stream by the road. I think this is inside the Omani territory of Madha


Ahhh… how green it is at the Omani-UAE border at Ain Lighmour! (Fujairah). UAE is on the right where we’re at. Across the fence, on the left, is Oman


Here is a view of the ‘Blossom Valley’ (Ain Ul Ghamur/ Ain Lighmour - I think they mean the same thing) when it was dry, Nov 2022


And the same ‘Blossom Valley’ living up to its name in Feb 2023, Fujairah, UAE

That’s it for now. Go chill! And Happy Halloween to the spook-lovers out there!

Pagodas for Shelter

Kathmandu, Nepal in the monsoon, Jul 2022

It’s that time of the year again where the Indian festivals start to pick up. Tomorrow is Durga Puja, a major festival for East India, and Anu’s family’s biggest festival. The rest of India knows it more as Dussehra and in Nepal, it’s known as Dashain.

We celebrate it by putting tika on the kids. Tika (sticking a paste of banana, uncooked rice and red powder on the forehead) is a Nepali tradition. Since Anu is partly of Gorkhali descent, that’s what they do. Since I already have some photos of our UNPLANNED 2022 stopover in Nepal sorted out in my computer, that’s what I’m gonna do. Post them, haha. And that’ll be one post done! Talk about quick-wins!

Last year, we made our first visit to our Malaysia home after 3 long years of the dratted COVID pandemic! It is the first time in 3 friggin years that we, trapped expats in the UAE, could go somewhere. Anywhere. Seeing that situation, the airlines company, decided to make a killing (when else would they recoup their losses of the COVID years??) Therefore, airfares shot up 4 friggin times of the pre-COVID fares! To keep the costs affordable, we had to make stopovers. We chose an Omani low-cost airline (SalamAir) which would take us to Dhaka, Bangladesh before getting on Biman (Bangladesh’s national carrier) to good ol’ KL. But then SalamAir cancelled our flight! YEAH, they fuckin did, a week before the flight date! – Their plane developed some technical problems, they said! (As if they had only 1 plane, ….or maybe they really did!) That drove us into a mad rush to find alternative, CHEAP, tickets to Bangladesh quickly, but there were none to be found. We eventually ended up with Jazeera Airways, a Kuwaiti low-cost airline who were famous infamous for their delays, (we found out only after we flew!) to fly to Kathmandu, Nepal where we would catch a connecting flight to Dhaka. There was a 5+ hour stopover in Kathmandu, so there should be no problem, although it would involve us going thru immigration, taking out our bags and checking in again. And then lovely Jazeera Airlines poured all that nice plan down the drain by delaying their flight by 5 fuckin hours! And thanks to them, we were in Kathmandu, in the monsoon season!

We’ve visited Nepal before, way back in the winter of 2010. And we’re back, to see how Nepal looks like, in the monsoon. Monsoon isn’t a time when tourists visit Nepal, because of landslides, rain, mud, clouds and thunderstorms. But do we have a choice? Luckily for us though, it turned out pretty good, except for our shoes getting soaking wet, and doing a marathon in Kathmandu’s airport trying to catch our flight, whatever it takes. (We failed as you could see). Here’re the pictures.


Whew, safely at our hotel, Hotel Moonlight, after the fiasco of trying to catch our flight at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was nice at the airport, customs, immigration, security, passengers… They let us thru, cutting across queues and procedures. We got our on-arrival visas and cleared immigration and security in a breeze, but our bags took forever to come out. And then we embarked on a mad rush pushing the loaded trolley from the Arrival Terminal to the Departure Terminal, and this had to be done outside, on an upwards ramp. By the time we got to the check-in counter of our airline, I was red, panting and soaking with sweat. And there was NO-ONE at the counter. Or the airport office of the airline. Well, we reached at exactly the flight departure time. Later, we learnt that all the staff were at the gate assisting boarding. To cut the story short, the airline’s (Biman) manager, God bless him, booked us on the next day’s flight out, with only a cancellation / rebooking fee (of USD40 per person if I remember correctly). That’s a far cry from considering us as no-shows and getting us to book fresh new tickets!


Anu, Hotel Moonlight, Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal – See the cloudy monsoon skies?


A bird’s eye view of densely-packed Kathmandu from our hotel. Here’s an older post with more views


A street-level view of Thamel, Kathmandu. The streets are dotted with shrines, temples and entrances to hidden courtyards


Entrance to a street-side temple – the Nardevi Temple (sez Google Maps)


A courtyard with some shrines – Yatkha Baha (thank you Google Maps, what can I do without you…)


Kathmandu’s Durbar Square – that’s where we were heading to. I remembered it as a nice place to chill out during our last visit in 2010. Wanna see how it changed after the 2015 Earthquake. Thankfully, many of the buildings are still around, or maybe re-built. There’re still signs of rubble and scaffolds in the streets, I think from the rebuilding process


A hidden god, with scary fangs!


Kathmandu’s Durbar Square in the monsoon


It’s raining. Luckily, there’re pagodas all over to hide from the rain. Doesn’t stop water from soaking our shoes though


Never mind the rain. Devotees offering prayers to Kala Bhairava, the main deity of the Newars and by extension, the protector of Kathmandu. Behind, a temple is under construction


This pagoda looks new. Must be newly reconstructed. Notice that pile of old stone rubble in the front?


Another courtyard with a stupa – Shree Ghah Chaitya (yup, sez Google Maps)


Finally, time for a Nepali dinner. We found this restaurant, the Paleti Bhanchha Ghar, between the Durbar Square and our hotel. Anu, sitting in front of a painting of the Kumari, the living child goddess of Nepali tradition

Happy Durga Puja! Happy Dussehra! Happy Dashain! And incidentally, this festival coincides with the Taoist Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Malaysia, so Happy Festival to the Malaysian Chinese celebrating this as well!

The Valley of Bacon

Rainbow Valley / Spectrum, Wadi Ghub, Fujairah, UAE

It’s mid-October! It’s still hot, but not as crazy hot as before. Very soon, it’ll be trekking and picnic season here in the UAE. (And the missus is just raring for that to happen. She’s a nature person – trees, flowers & hills are her thing. She’s looking forward to camping in the wilderness, although every time we do that, we’ll not sleep well, we’ll be dirty and there’ll be lots of things for her to prepare and to clean up after. Oh, of course I help, but she’s super-efficient. …So, it’ll end up with her doing most of the work… Sigh!)

So, here’s a trekking post. Our trek up to what people here called the Rainbow Valley or the Spectrum Valley. Personally, I prefer Spectrum, because there’re ain’t much of a rainbow to me. It’s just red and white like bacon. Wait, that’s even better, Bacon Valley, or Bacon Cradle! If you have a twisted mind, it even looks like a humongous… you-know-what. (If this was in a place where ancient paganistic beliefs were practiced, I’m sure the people would’ve made it into a fertility temple …And here, is the Mother of them all!) Officially, it’s called Wadi Ghub, though.

We actually did this trek not at the start of trekking season, but at the end of it, in 2021, i.e. at the end of March, when the temperature starts to climb and things dry up. But the days are longer too, so we decided to do it in the afternoon, after lunch. We figured we’d have enough time to go in and come out before sun sets. Most of the people do this early in the morning and by the time they trek back, it’d be under the hot, relentless midday sun! I guess we made a pretty good decision. We had the spectrum valley all to ourselves! Well, almost. A girl and a guy came later, when we were about to leave.


Ghub Village, Fujairah, UAE – Getting our bearings on where the hiking trail starts. This was our first amd only time here. There, those mountains are where we should head to…


Let’s park here by the village, for a quick lunch, under the shade of the tree (out of view on the left). The trek starts just ahead, see the earth track leading up to the telecommunications tower (on the right). We could watch the goats, for entertainment


We decided to drive right up to the telecommunications tower… and park there. (Why walk when you can drive, hehe). There’s no one around. We saw some hikers walked down past us when we were having lunch (at 4pm!!!)


“We love to go a-wandering, along the mountain track...” 4.30pm was when we started. Do you see Justin?


The kids and a stone stack. Where do these come from? We’ve seen them all over the place world. The first I remember noticing them was in Ladakh in 2004. I thought they’re Tibetan prayer arrangements… But then we saw them elsewhere, like loads of 'em in a river gorge in Slovenia… But I think they’re cool as trail markers, at least we know we’re on the right track


Up and up into the wadi, clambering over rocks. I hope we’re getting close


Hey, slow coaches, hurry up! Jayden and Papa are the slow coaches in our hikes (always)


The rock’s changing. Looks like bacon is near!


Ta Da! We’ve reached the bacon rocks! But where’s the cradle/ saddle that we see on the internet??


I think we have to go higher. Be careful kids!


Hey, I’ve found it! High above the valley, 5.30pm


Anu and the valley of bacon! If you look closely, you can see a girl on the top, right corner. She and her partner are the only other people we encountered on the trek. They arrived when we were about to go


Holy stacks of bacon!


Whew, made it back in time before sunset. Bye-bye Wadi Ghub, 6.30pm

The ADAC Project

The Abu Dhabi Airport Landside Primary & Secondary Roads Project, UAE (Photo, above & below – compliments of Abu Dhabi Airport Company (ADAC) – end of 2017)


There, those roads that link the new terminal building (bottom) to the highway network of Abu Dhabi (at the top) are our project. Those are the primary roads, and the secondary roads are all the other roads around which connect the multiple facilities within the airport with the terminal buildings and the primary roads

This week marks the end of a long, drawn-out Project that yours truly has been helming for the last 6 friggin years! Yes, 6 years, only for the completion and close-out. I joined the Project (the Abu Dhabi Airport Landside Primary and Secondary Roads Project) in May 2017 to replace the Project Manager who resigned. And then in Jan 2018, I took it over from my Senior Project Manager who also resigned. (He had to move to Canada to complete his Canadian-residency requirement).

About 6 months down the line, i.e. in June 2018, a new project in Dubai materialized for the Company, and my boss asked me whether I was interested. Of course, I grabbed the opportunity! (What? My family was in Dubai and it was a brand-new Project!) The Abu Dhabi Airport Project was a loss-making Project with tons of issues that had to be resolved, and so I moved my butt to Dubai (but our Company’s policy is that you could move your butt to anywhere in the Company, but your old responsibilities STAY WITH YOU, unless somebody takes over. And since it was a more-or-less completed Project by that time, I stayed on as its Project Manager, albeit off-site). Slowly, one by one of our project staff left and by the end of 2018, we demobilized completely, staff, office and everything! We had finished everything physically by then, but were stuck in obtaining clearances and authority permits for one reason or another (not of our doing, sez us). And the Client and Consultant insisted that this had to be done contractually (I think they were actually relishing in the fact that they had this clause in their contract… The Client was in no hurry to take over the project at that time, I think. The terminal building was years from being completed. The UAE was knee-deep in an unwanted war in Yemen, sucking up unnecessary expenses. And then came COVID-19!) So, it ain’t my fault! (That’s what I’ve been trying to say). But let’s put all this behind us as the airport’s about to be opened! And we received our Performance Certificate (which signifies the final completion and acceptance of a Project). Finally!

Here’re some photos of the Project. For memory’s sake. Enjoy.


Wet-mix (aggregate base course) laying in progress. This was about when I first joined in 2017 – earthworks and road works were in progress, some bridges were still under construction…


The condition of one of the secondary roads (SR-11) in May 2017


Rolling in progress. A road being paved in May 2017


Not all asphalt is black – Here you can see red sand asphalt being laid on top of one our bridges. First time I saw this in my work experience


And you see bridge decks being painted blue?? This is one of the layers in the bridge deck waterproofing system. It’ll later be coated green (yeah, the waterproofing is a multi-layer system)


Working in summer is a drag. Especially, with a sandstorm happening. Here’s a view of the Project in Aug 2017, sandstorm, aeroplane and all


Oct 2017, on a completed part of the project


The structures in the Project are a whole new story – ever seen a pronged bridge pier like this? This isn’t the original design. It was a T-shaped pier originally. Then cracks appeared on the pier head. The Consultant and Client blamed it on our poor workmanship. And we ‘counter-blamed’ it on poor design. Eventually, with a lot of effort, grit and investigations, we were proven right. There WAS a deficiency in the design, and the Consultant had to do a redesign to strengthen some of the piers. Hence, the pronged-shaped pier with 2 additional props!


Some of the piers had to be ‘fattened-up’ to strengthen them. Notice the left most pier in the photo above? We had to strip the completed concrete surface, scabble them, add additional steel reinforcement and cast them back. Hence, the fat pier


Underground utilities are another big part of the work. Here is a storm water drainage pipe under construction. The storm water drainage network is extensive and for the handover to the authorities, it had to be spotlessly cleaned?!? Awww, c'mon, it’s a god-damned drain for goodness’s sake!


A worker in a drainage manhole. See what our workers had to do?!? Cleaning & testing of the drainage network lines


Testing of the fire-fighting system in our 2 substations, Jun 2019. And this is the main cause of our problem of getting authority clearances! Our 2 electrical substations had to be certified by Abu Dhabi’s Civil Defence Authority, who is in charge of the fire prevention systems of buildings in Abu Dhabi. We had 2 tiny substation buildings in our Project (tiny in comparison to the size of our Project – It’s like 2% of the friggin total project value), and the approval process was stuck because our great designer (of the Client) did not design them to the latest fire prevention codes of Abu Dhabi. And so, we were all languishing in approval hell, with the Client and Consultant reluctant to issue us any change order to incorporate the design changes (they’re small changes, just modify them, willya?) (Well, who’ll pay for them? And what if it goes wrong? And what about the time extension? You’ll blame us for the delay, etc, etc, etc.) Finally, our Company (or more appropriately, my Project Director) buckled, and asked me to just get it fucking done. Eventually, especially when the Client became interested again (because their own commissioning consultants kept stalling it), we got it approved!


Finally, a note on Safety. Thank God, that we had no loss-time injury (LTI) in the whole duration of our Project, from 2014 to 2023! 12 million man-hours worked without an LTI. I thank our Safety Team for driving a hard agenda and ensuring that we all go home safe and intact. I thank our workers, my team members and colleagues, and our subcontractors, for cooperating and supporting our sometimes ‘ridiculous’ requirements. I thank our Consultants and our Clients for emphasizing safety, and being a pain-in-the-neck on safety. (We had one suicide case though. A worker tried to hang himself from a railing of a bridge, but luckily for him (and for us), the noose he tied broke. He survived, but broke quite a few bones due to the fall to the ground below. He was sent back to India after he recovered. Hopefully, his mental condition’s fixed as well). The above photo is a program-wide safety training organized by the Client in one of our fellow contractor’s (TCAJV) facilities.

That’s all for now. Here’s a link to some photos of the people of the Project.