Not as Easy as It Seems

Gergeti Trinity Church, at the foot of Mount Kazbek, near the village of Gergeti, Stepantsminda, Georgia

Summer is burning on. The gods must be angry – fires rage, floods inundate, disease ravages the world. Are these the end times? Errrr…. dunno! But what the heck, if the sky falls down, take it as a blanket. That’s what I used to say, when I was single and had no responsibilities. Now it’s a constant worry… when will the next Project come? Will I still have a job next month, next year??

Anyway, thank God, we’re still thriving even when we’re stuck in desert-land in friggin burning summer. How I wish we could (still) go for a holiday? But it’s only 3 weeks away to the start of the new school year, so, bye-bye holidays!

I’m back at holiday dreaming. Here’s a continuation of our trip to Georgia exactly 3 years ago, in 2018. By the way, my colleague just came back from a tour of Georgia commenting on what a good time they had there. …What nerves! That’s like rubbing salt into a wound. But let it pass, we have a higher calling, ahem – stopping the spread of COVID.

Back to our trip, here’s how we worked our way up to the Gergeti Trinity Church in Kazbegi (Stepantsminda).


Time to start our day. Anu at our guest house (Blue Caps) in the village of Gergeti. That’s the Gergeti Trinity Church, on top of the hill above Anu’s head in the photo. The church is visible all over Gergeti and Kazbegi. But how do we get there??? “Hello, ma’am, where is the road to that church there?”, I asked the landlady of the guesthouse pointing to the church. “Mmm-hmm”. “Can we go using this road?” pointing to the road in front. “Mmm-hmm”. Sounds like another cousin of Groot (the tree man from the Guardians of the Galaxy who can only speak 1 sentence). Oh well, “Madloba” (thank you). Oh, she’s better than Groot, she taught us this one Georgian word we learnt in our trip which is not a name of a food!


Oh, this looks like the way. The church is just there (top right)


There! A close up view. It’s a mighty cloudy day. Looks like we won’t be able to catch a sight of snow-capped Mt Kazbek after all. What a waste…


Uh-oh! No through road. Construction workers waving us to go back! Pointed us to go down…


Went back down all the way out of the village and took another road. Oh, this looks like it. Let’s go up… Oops, another no through road! – That’s yours truly with our trusty Great Wall 4WD (yeah, the Chinese car) which we rented from a local car hire shop near our guesthouse in Tbilisi. I hope it makes it (our Great Wall pickups in the Project I was on in the UAE, all had problems with the AC, but this one’s so far so good!). It’s an automatic transmission 4WD, not exactly my cup of tea. I’m more used to a manual transmission 4WD.

Here we go again, went back down the road, passed the river (Chkheri) and went further upstream.


Finally, WE MADE IT! Great Wall triumphs! Gergeti Trinity Church, Georgia – this road ain’t easy for the inexperienced – a steep road of wet soil and boulders – But I’m proud our Great Wall car made it. I saw many a Volvo and Audi SUV turn back down. Also, maybe, the countless times of yours truly driving up and down the wet and muddy hill roads of our Mizoram hill road project in the 2000’s paid off, haha! And mind you, those were on manual cars with no hand brakes. (None of the car hand brakes work in Mizoram, and nobody bothers. They just bloody well use the first gear and stick a stone under their wheels to park. The trick is when you start the car on a slope. You have to bloody well step on the brake and the accelerator at the same time with your right foot, while you control the clutch with your left – Interesting, ain’t it?)


That’s a view of the road we came up on (this was taken on our way down). Look at the wheels of that Volvo trying to climb a rock. I dunno whether he made it or not. The car of choice for the locals (and you wouldn’t believe it) – is the Mitsubishi Delica. They’re unbeatable in the hill roads of Georgia!






This is just amazing! Even if it’s cloudy – Gergeti Trinity Church, Stepantsminda, Georgia


Right behind us, if it’s a clear day, would be the snow-capped Mount Kazbek


A view of the town of Kazbegi (Stepantsminda) and the village of Gergeti from the Gergeti Trinity Church. I guess you can also hike up like these people in the photo, if you don’t wanna drive


Justin at the Gergeti Trinity Church, Stepantsminda, Georgia


Horse vs Mitsubishi Delica - who’d win? On our way down. There in front, is Kazbegi!

Companions in the COVID Year

Three’s not a crowd… Anu, Jashna and Madhavi at the Desi Village Restaurant, Dubai – Dec 2020

This is my annual post on the people we met or were in our lives for the past year. I usually post it sometime around June (that’s when I usually finish sorting out the friggin photos of the past year, hehe. Yep, I’m that slow). But what the heck, it's only a month late. So, here’s a lookback at whatever gatherings we could have in a year ravaged by the global COVID-19 pandemic. I’ll let the pictures speak.

We were in a lockdown for a significant part of the year, let’s see mmm March to about July 2020. Then the government relaxed it a bit, praise God… And we’ve been like this since then. Masks and social distancing are still here (luckily) or we’d be seeing numbers soar like the rest of the world, praise God again…


Anu’s eldest sis Manju and son Kunal stayed with us in Dubai during most of the lockdown as they were stranded from returning to India due to the cancellation of flights. They were here to visit Karishma and was supposed to leave in mid March. The first time Manju and Kunal stayed with us was in 2007 in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India when Kunal was a wee toddler. That was before we had any kids of our own. Check out this old post on Agra to see how they look like then 


Whew, a relaxation – Fancy some chicken mandi? At Mandi Time Restaurant, International City, Dubai – Jul 2020


Finally, time to go back – At Sharjah International Airport to board a repatriation flight to India – Aug 2020. Come back soon!


Meeting our International City neighbour after a year – with a new kid on the block, Adam, son of the neighbour across our International City Apartment. We went back to our rented out apartment to kick out the bloody non-paying tenants of our flat – Jul 2020


This is life before the pandemic – At a function in Feb 2020 organized by Parsons, the consultants of the ITS2020 Projects, of which yours truly is one of the packages’ Project Manager – An Arabic lunch where the contractors' representatives of all the packages and the Client, the Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai were also invited. At the front are senior officers of RTA's Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) Department, Sofiene Jegham, Salahaldeen Al Marzooqi (ITS Director) and Mohammed Al Ali – at Bin Laden’s site office, contractor of the new Traffic Management Centre at Al Barsha


Parsons ITS Project Director, Ammar Kanaan


And this is the ITS2020 Package 1B Project Site Office during the pandemic – a photo shoot to commemorate the completion of the erection of the last (and 112th) Dynamic Message Sign (DMS) in Jul 2020. The photo’s not very clear as it’s a Whatsapp photo compliments of Mubashir Wani (who’s not in the photo, what a pity. He’s the photographer, OK?) But these are the names of the people I recognize: - Squatting, left to right: - X, Aliasgar Numberdar (Planner), Mukadas (Office Assistant), X, X, Gul Saeed (Foreman), Shahid Alam (Surveyor), Abhishek Radhakrishnan (ITS Engineer), Sarvesh Nayak (ITS Engineer), Mohammad Saleem (Document Controller). Standing, left to right: - Trinu Rajan (Technical Engineer), Jaicin Joy (QS), Evika (QS), Syed Saadi (Procurement Officer), X (Safety Officer), X, X, Harsha Jayaramaiah (ITS Systems Engineer), Sathyajith (Draftsman), X (Draftsman), X, Baber Javed (Admin Officer), Safi Ullah Khan (Deputy Project Manager Package 1A), Rathinavel (QC Manager), X, Muhammad Waqas (Construction Manager), Devansh Raj Kanchan (Assistant Project Manager), Qamar Abbas (Assistant Project Manager Package 1C), Ayush Agarwal (Technical Manager), Danish Ahmed (ITS Engineer), Yours Truly, Abdul Saleem (Systems Project Manager), Laith Rababa (QAQC Engineer), Nizar Makdissi (Site Engineer), Antoine Atallah (Construction Manager), Bernar Makdisi (HSE Manager), Eldho John (Electrical Engineer)


Diwali – Nov 2020 at one of our neighbours in Oia Residence – KP Singh and wife Abha’s house


A return visit at our apartment


This is our other neighbour in Oia Residence – Milind Pandhare in a Bhai Dooj festival during Diwali 2020 at our house – This was supposed to be ritual between sister and brother but because we have no one here in Dubai, Anu decided to just adopt a brother. There you are, haha


Milind Pandhare et moi


Meeting our old friends, Madhavi, Roby and Jashna for dinner at Desi Village Restaurant, Dubai – Dec 2020


And here’re the kids – Mashel, Aria and Viva with our kids

That’s all for now folks! Ciao!

Our Northern Neighbour

Eid Al Adha Mubarak!




Sharjah Mosque at night and at daytime

Never imagined I’d have time to post a short post before Eid Al-Adha, but here’s my opportunity. Was gonna fix the aircon (AC) of the car today before the long 5 day break for Eid. Last night, I noticed that the AC froze up after driving about 30 mins on it. We had to switch it off, let it thaw, and then there’d be air again, but then it’d freeze up again after a short while. I couldn’t bring it to a workshop in the morning as I’d arrange a site visit to our Sweihan Military Road Project in Abu Dhabi Emirate with the Construction Manager who used to be in charge of the Project. So I brought it to a workshop the minute I got back from the site visit, (but of course, after lunch. For yours truly, lunch is still the priority, ahem).

The workshop I asked (and all the others I enquired on the phone or online) told me that it couldn’t be done with the remaining time I had today. So, WTF, I let it be, and came to the office to finish off some of the banking work before the week closes for the long holidays, and at the same time squeeze this little post in, hehe.

That’s all. Here’re a few pictures of mosques and stuff from the emirate immediately north of Dubai – Sharjah.


More Sharjah Mosque - like an Ottoman mosque straight out of Turkey, isn't it?


Google Maps names this as the Ahmed ibn Hanbal Mosque, Sharjah Cultural Square (which is literally a circle) – We bought our piano earlier this year from one of the houses near the mosque. That house is a workshop / storage for pianos and keyboards…






Sharjah University City


OK, that’s all the time I have – Say bye boys – The boys with eyes barely opened at a monument near the Sharjah International Airport – We call it the toothpaste monument – doesn’t it look like a dollop of toothpaste being squeezed out?

Have a blessed Eid, Selamat Hari Raya, may peace be with you. Ilaa liqa, maa salama!

On the Georgian Military Road

An apiary (honey bee farm) on the Georgian Military Highway, south of Sioni village, near Stepantsminda. So sez Google Maps. (All the location names in this post are picked from Google Maps. If not for Google Maps, you think I’d know the names???)

It’s the summer break. School has ended, and UAE residents are heading out, in droves, to wherever they’re allowed to go, COVID or none. Georgia, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Russia, you name it. As for us, we (or more appropriately, the missus) have decided to be conscientious (to our suffering fellow humans in other parts of the world) and do our part to stop the spread of pesky COVID. Meaning we’d be taking a break from taking a break, sob, sob…

So, with our holiday plans down the drain, for another summer, here’s the next best thing… daydreaming about our past adventures… Here’s a continuation of our Georgia trip of 2018.

Continuing from where I stopped, from Shiomghvime we headed for the Georgian Military Road, going back past Mtskhetha. Our destination for the night was Stepantsminda (or Kazbegi as most people call it) at the northern end of the Military Road before it crosses into Russia. Here’s our trip in pictures.


Ananuri Fort – this was our first stop on the Military Road after we left Shiomghvime – Pictures in the internet shows the fort at a point where two rivers meet, like a wedge jutting out between two rivers. But when we visited, one side of the river was bone dry… What a let down


There, the bone dry side of Ananuri Fort – Heck, there’s a car, some cattle and even a shed there… Must have been dry for some time now…


Anu in carnival mood – on the banks of the Aragvi River, north of Buchaani village – there’s something like a watch tower on the hill across the river if you look closely, and some people picnicking


At a grocery shop at Kvesheti – to stock up on supplies (…and more importantly, to empty our bladders. Whew, what a relief. Thanks for the toilet, mate. Madloba)




The Aragvi River at Kvesheti village

Finally, Kazbegi – we reached at dusk. Amidst the increasing darkness, we could see the faint outline of a majestic snow-capped mountain to the left, Mount Kazbek (aka Mt Kazbegi). I figured we’d see it clearer the next morning. (Yeah, my foot, the next morning, the entire mountain was shrouded in clouds… We left without ever seeing Mount Kazbek in its actual glory)


A Georgian dinner at Stepantsminda / Kazbegi


The next day – Stepantsminda with the Gergeti Trinity Church on top of the hill. Behind the hillocks would be Mount Kazbegi, if it wasn’t for the clouds… Did we go up to the Gergeti Church? Of course we did, but that’s another adventure altogether which I’ll post another time, hehe


Bye-bye Kazbegi! – View of Stepantsminda from the south on the Military Road


On the Georgian Military Road – Looking north, just south of Sioni village. The little church on top of the hill on the right is the Sioni Basilica according to Google Maps


What a gorgeous valley! The Terek River valley, south of Sioni


A village on the other side of the Terek River. Google Maps labels it as Kaboni


And this is a photo of the famous Georgian ski resort, Gudauri – this is the Peace Monument, taken from the car. We passed Gudauri to and from Stepantsminda but did not stop both times

From here, we headed south back to Ananuri, and then took a left turn going east towards Tianeti, Akhmeta and finally Telavi. And that exciting story I’ve covered earlier – check out this old post. Ciao!