The Pearl of the East Coast

The east coast of the UAE that is, ahem.


Khor Fakkan Fountains at Khor Fakkan Square (but seriously, it’s a circle, from any angle you look at it from…), UAE

Eid Mubarak! I know it’s a few days late, but what the heck. Here’s a post for Eid/ Hari Raya.

I’m putting some photos of a rejuvenated Khor Fakkan, a port town on the east coast of the UAE, belonging to the Emirate of Sharjah. Khor Fakkan (which in English translates to the Creek of Two Jaws), is an exclave of Sharjah, completely surrounded by areas owned by Fujairah and Oman. In the past few years, Sharjah has poured in a lot of money to beautify it, and the results are nothing short of spectacular. Just a few years back, there was a beach, a park, and nothing else much. Now, there’s a brand new dedicated 90km highway, the Khor Fakkan Road (what else) with multiple tunnels through the hills, connecting Sharjah on the Gulf coast with Khor Fakkan on the Arabian Sea. There’re scores of new roads all over town. There're monuments and gardens at every prominent spot you can think of, and grand government buildings that look like palaces. And all this for free to visitors! (Unlike Dubai where everything comes with a ticket price tag, ahem). It’s like a complete makeover! Don’t believe me, just check out street-view in Google Maps where the photos were taken in 2015-2016, and compare them with the actual view in Khor Fakkan now. You’ll be amazed at the changes. Here’re some photos. Enjoy.


Approaching the Incense Burner roundabout in the middle of Khor Fakkan ‘Square’ (or more accurately, Circle…)


New government buildings line the refurbished roads… these are the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Marine Transportation, Khor Fakkan. (How do I know? …Google Maps man, it shows everything!)


The gardens and fountains of Khor Fakkan Square (Circle), Emirate of Sharjah, UAE. That ummm... phallic-looking building (sorry) on a hill is the Resistance Monument




Frolicking in the gardens, Khor Fakkan Square, UAE


And this is the Al Rafisah Dam, on the Khor Fakkan Road just before reaching Khor Fakkan. Yup, even dams can be beautified


Flowers at the Rafisah Dam Tourist Centre




It’s a favourite among the locals, I think…


A cafe at Al Rafisah Dam, Khor Fakkan Road, Sharjah, UAE


Wow, what’s this? A waterfall?!? Khor Fakkan Waterfall, a man-made water feature along the waterfront promenade


Hello kids! Khor Fakkan Waterfall, Khor Fakkan, UAE


Khor Fakkan Waterfall and Amphitheatre


Family photo, Khor Fakkan Amphitheatre, Khor Fakkan, UAE

That’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed your Eid/ Raya holidays!

A Tragedy in Bangladesh

Some very sad news came to us from Bangladesh when we were visiting India 2 weeks ago. A young and promising nephew we met for the first time in Dhaka last year, was hit by a vehicle on 1-Apr, when commuting to work in the eastern part of the country. He passed away.

He was the eldest child among the children of Anu’s long-lost cousins in Bangladesh, and the only son of his family. He leaves behind his grieving parents, a younger sister, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. Good bye and rest in peace, Hridoy. May God bless your soul and strengthen your love ones on earth to live on with hope and strength, in your memory, so that you may be proud of them. God bless.


Hriday is the one in blue on the right – Hob Nob Café, Banani, Dhaka. They came all the way from their village in Sreemangal in the eastern part of Bangladesh just to meet us.


A lighting storm in Hatirjheel, Dhaka as seen from the Hatirjheel Bridge 2 (Mahanagar Bridge) - This was the last place we were with the Bangla family before we went our separate ways. They left for the bus station to get back to Sreemangal and we went back to our hotel.




Leaving photos of Bangladesh’s National Martyr’s Memorial (Jatiyo Sriti Soudho) to end this post. May God bless the family, take away all their grief and restore hope. Protect them from harm, evil, sicknesses, strife and deceit. Amen.

The Golden Temple

The Golden Temple (aka Harmandir Sahib), Amritsar, Punjab, India

Happy Vaisakhi. Happy Songkran. Happy Puthandu. Happy Boisakh. Happy Bihu. Happy Vishu… Too many to name them all, what the heck, Happy New Year to the myriads of people celebrating their new years this weekend in South Asia and Indochina!

I know a post just for this! Here goes – photos of our stopover at the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine. Have a blessed New Year celebration to all those celebrating.


The alley outside our cheapo hotel, Hotel Swaran in the congested area north of the Golden Temple. What the heck! What sort of place did we book? The hotel looked decent in the photos on the booking site, and it was CHEAP. Yup, and that was exactly what we got, CHEAP! The people here have no sense of cleanliness, at all. Dust to them is no big deal. Nuff said


OK, let’s go. Gosh, this place is a maze of small alleys crammed to the brim with shops, filled with honking bikes, autorickshaws, you name them. Hey, watch out!


Whew, the Golden Temple! Let’s hide our shoes somewhere there (hope they don’t disappear like what happened in the Balaji Temple in Tirumala…)


We’re in! Look at the crowd! And this was 2022 March, when COVID-19 was still prevalent and we had to make a hundred declarations just to fly


What COVID?!? We're the only ones with masks


A dip in the holy pool


No, we did not try to enter the Golden Temple itself… Look at the line!


Blessed are you


Family pic, Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab, India


Here’re some other views of Amritsar – the Partition Museum


One of the statues outside the Partition Museum – Hey, where’s his sword?


Oh, this chap took it! Just kidding… Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue on a roundabout

Ta, till next time. Gotta bet back to the pesky audit work (don’t the Head Office have better work to do???)

Some Cool Colours for the Holy Month

Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia

It’s Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Happy Ramadan to all the Muslims! Ramadan so happens to be my favourite month working in the UAE, ahem. It’s generally less hectic, the jams are less and the working hours shorter. What’s not to be liked?

This Ramadan though, we’re travelling, as it coincides with the school’s 2-week Spring Break. We’re off to India (yes, again). Gotta get the friggin bank problems in India sorted out, and visit the family. So, I’m gonna leave a quick photo post till I write again after the holidays. Ramadan Kareem!

Here’re more photos of the blue and white suburb of Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia for the occasion (since I’ve scores of photos from this place which I did not post in my earlier Sidi Bou Said post. Besides, blue and white looks so serene).


What better place to start than the house of the person who started this blue and white trend. The Ennejma Ezzahra, the Star of Venus


Ennejma Ezzahra was the house of Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger, a French aristocrat and artist who first introduced the blue and white theme to this place (but for some reason or other, his front gate’s door isn’t blue. It’s yellow! I think he’s a secret member of the Hufflepuff)




The gardens of the Ennejma Ezzahra


It has great views of the Mediterranean


The interior of the house






A walk around a blue and white town


A mosque at the centre of town


Another photo of the picturesque Café des Délices




Dusk in Sidi Bou Said


Ciao! Till we meet again! Happy Fasting! Selamat Berpuasa!

The Picnic Times

Good morning! The view from our tent in Jebel Jais, Ras Al-Khaimah, during the crazy COVID times – end of Oct 2020

Know how we overcame the boredom and challenges of being stuck in the UAE during the travel-restricted COVID years? We took to the hills with our tent, food and barbecue grill! And it felt like the entire UAE had the same idea as us… So much so that when we went up to Jebel Jais, UAE’s highest mountain, the road was jammed with cars, and tents set up at any empty space you could find! It was a friggin tent city in the mountain. But that is a story I’ll leave for next time. For now, here’re some of the photos of our picnics in the UAE.

We had our first camping night out during the COVID times in mid Oct 2020, on Jayden’s birthday near Nahwa, on a weekday. All alone in the night and quiet as hell (coz it ain’t known for being a camping site, like Jebel Jais). But it turned out nicely, and nothing disturbed us. And from then on, picnics are the things we looked forward to in winter.


This was us barbecuing at home (shh… luckily, no neighbours complained)


A hookah (or better known as shisha here) is a nice complement to a barbecue


There you go! Barbecued chicken Filipino-Chinese-Mediterranean style

We upgraded to a slightly larger tent, and went up to Jebel Jais to a completely opposite atmosphere. Sleepless night, from all the tents around us, some with lights that could light up a friggin stadium, crazy people who could talk from night till dawn (tents aren’t exactly soundproof) and rival camps playing rival music in Arabic, Hindi, etc. What a din! I’ll leave the photos for next time (coz I’ve not sorted them out yet, hehe).




A picnic at the foot of Jebel Jais when coming down…


Hey, a gap in a road, why not eat here… There you go! – On the Khor Fakkan Road, in the stretch between the Al Multaqa Tunnel and the Al Saha Tunnel – Jan 2021. We were returning from an outing to a fort near Khor Fakkan




And while we’re at it, let’s do some exploring…


Looks like it goes nowhere (where cars could go), except to a tunnel that goes thru to the other side of the highway – I have no idea whether this place belongs to Sharjah or Fujairah. The internal boundaries of the UAE are mighty complicated


Another picnic, this time on the Masafi to Tayybah Road, Fujairah – Jan 2021


Oh no… ambushed by goats! Shooo! Go away


Wadis and hills are not the only place we could picnic. How about a desert? Near Umm Al Quwain’s camel race track, north west of Falaj Al Mualla – Jan 2021


Of course, there’re camels. But when there’re livestock, there’re always pesky flies around


That’s all the photos for now! Leaving one photo of our first trip to Wadi Shawka – Feb 2021. The kids having lunch at a visitor’s shelter at the entrance to the road to Wadi Shawka Dam. We would later find out that the road to the dam is not the greatest route to get into Wadi Shawka (cars are blocked by the dam, you could only trek in). There’re routes where you can actually drive into the wadi. Yahoo!

Sigh, there's only about half a month left for picnic season, before 'glorious' summer (or what I call the scorched months) comes...