Re-Visiting Abu Dhabi

I’ve left Abu Dhabi for 4 months. But now I am back… back to meet old friends, back to tie up the loose ends (a.k.a. cleaning the shit), back to desert life… At least this time around I got a direct flight. I flew in direct using Etihad Airways. Many people asked me what airline this is… well, to the uninitiated, Etihad is the national airlines of Abu Dhabi. This is relatively a new airline. Its sister would be the more established and well-known Emirates Airlines which is operated by Dubai. I will blog later on the history of Middle Eastern airlines on another date (I got a summary of that from an Emirati friend).

Anyway, Etihad was a world-class airline… much better than Qatar Airways, Lufthansa or Malaysia Airlines. The service was good, the seats were comfortable and the in-flight entertainment very personalised. Everyone has his own screen and there is a huge selection of movies, dramas or music to choose from in their in-flight entertainment. The flight was surprisingly full – I guess many Arabs were returning home after their summer holidays. I sat next to a Malaysian lady who’s going back to Saudi Arabia! Gosh… a Malaysian woman working in Saudi! She works as a nurse in a hospital in Dhamman, which is just across from Bahrain. According to her, life in Saudi was terrible but the money was good. There are many restrictions for women there – cannot drive, cannot go out alone (in fact dangerous!). You see, women are basically second-class in Saudi! I wished her all the best and hope she survives there.

I arrived in Abu Dhabi airport past midnight. The airport looked exactly the same as I’ve left it. The inverted ‘bee hive’ is still the master center piece of the terminal. There was as usual a long queue of South Asians waiting for their entry permit while I breezed through the immigration counter. Then, I went straight to the car rental counter and drove more than 2 hours to Jebel Dhanna where I’ll again be staying for the next 1 month plus (Insha-allah!) Reached at 4am there and checked into the camp. Tired, exhausted but not sleepy. Nevertheless took a warm bath and headed to bed.

Good Bye Abu Dhabi! مع السلامة أبو ظبي

Ma'a salama Abu Dhabi (مع السلامة أبو ظبي)! Good bye Abu Dhabi! After 5 months in the emirates, I will be leaving tomorrow. It has been an interesting working experience - getting to work with people of different nationalities and diverse backgrounds. There were good and bad times, challenging and light moments. The desert environment is harsh especially now in summer but hey I am proud to have survived it all! I got to visit Abu Dhabi and even Dubai - the paradise of Middle East. I had an enjoyable desert safari and met some new friends. But at the end, nothing beats home and Kuala Lumpur, here I come! Back to home! By the 28th noon time I would have landed at KLIA alas.

Malaysia - truly a food paradise

One of the things every Malaysian overseas would miss the most - Malaysian food. Yup... we are so blessed, coming from a food paradise - a place where we are spoilt for choices - huge variety of food at cheap prices. So after months of chicken sashilik, salad, spagetti and dhal, dhal, dhal.... I can now go back to Malaysia and go on an eating spree. All the Malaysian food I miss so much - nasi lemak, dim sum, curry mee, pan mee, chee cheong fun, egg tarts, duck rice, yong tau fu, laksa, char kuey teow, fried carrot cake.... oohhh the list is too long. Even the roti canai and dhal taste better back home! So, Malaysia here I come - revenge time on food! hahaha.... And to my friends who are still stuck in Dubai - enjoy more dhal! Your time to go home will come soon...

Poor camels

I have some sad news about some camels struck by lightning recently in Abu Dhabi. This happened near a town called Gayathi which is quite near where I am now. Here's the story from Gulf News:

16 camels killed by lightning
Abu Dhabi: A bolt of lightning killed 16 camels near a farmland off Ghayathi in the Western Region yesterday. The herd owned by Mohammad A'sheer Al Mazroui was stationed near a sand dune behind his farmland, 20 km from Ghayathi. The local Arabic daily Al Khaleej quoted Al Mazroui as saying that the camels were grazing at the pasture when the sky suddenly became cloudy. Soon it started to drizzle and a small group of camels broke away from the herd and climbed the sand dune nearby. Lightning and thunder shook the area and lightning felled 16 camels.


It has been rather cloudy the past few days and some parts of the Eastern Region of Al Ain actually had thunderstorms. The weather has cooled down a bit but remains above 40degC. Meanwhile, humidity climbs and it's feeling like a sauna here - sticky!

Flight out on Wednesday

It is the summer holiday season in UAE and it was difficult to get a flight out. Especially if the destination is Malaysia since this is after all voted the Best Summer Holiday Destination! Anyway, I got a flight on Qatar Airways on Wednesday night which will bring me once again to Doha for a short transit before flying back to KL. I should be reaching KLIA at noon time on the 28th. This is pretty much 5 months since I first left KLIA on the 29th January.

Now that we are able to get Final Completion for the project, there is really nothing much to do on-site. I am packing up and roaring to go! Everyone here has said that I was very lucky to miss the full-blown summer by just a few days. Come July, the entire Gulf region would be offering a complimentary sauna to everyone. Not the best of times to be around.

Final completion soon

Alas, after 5 months of hard work, the final punch item was resolved yesterday. There was some initial setbacks in the morning when the new communication line installed for the gas chromatograph did not work. But a few phone calls later and lots of hard work, the system was put back in service with the punch item issue solved. All in all, this last bit of work took 11 hours but when it was done, there was a sigh of relief. Even the final most worrying job of clearing all the site office foundations was completed. The last signs of Siemens is now removed from site!

With that, we can now apply for final acceptance of completion from the customer. This also means my tour of duty in UAE ends here. I am still waiting for my flight to be confirmed. I am trying to get a flight on the 26th but so far I'm only able to confirm one on the 27th. Anyway, I have to start packng up and saying my goodbyes to all my customer engineers.

The end is near

Just got confirmation from my project manager today. 25th June would be my last day of work here in UAE. Expect to fly out on 26th June and be back to Malaysia! 3 days short of 5 months in UAE!

Listen with your ears

Finally a Friday I could spend lazing around at camp, away from work – doing absolutely nothing. A time to relax and cool down. As I lay on my bed not willing to rise, I kept my eyes closed and let my ears exercise its senses. What did I hear? I could hear…

• The air-conditioning running with occasional sound of the compressor cutting in. Not only mine, but other neighbors as the entire UAE is now droning with air-conditioning running 24hrs a day.
• Water dripping from the leaking shower in my bathroom. It has been leaking since day one and repaired once. But it just keeps on leaking. Water is wasted in this water-scarce nation.
• Kittens purring. The mother cat of the camp has just given birth to a litter of kittens and they like to hang around under my cabin during the day time.
• Birds chirping away happily unperturbed by the hot weather as they dodge around in the shades of the trees.
• Myself breathing – inhaling & exhaling. Breathe in… breathe out. The sound of life.
• The sound of email coming into my inbox. I’ve kept my laptop switched ON through the night. My inbox has been very busy nowadays with emails running around UAE-Malaysia-Germany-Italy. It’s hard to imagine a world without internet nowadays. We held ransom by this technology!

The ears are always under-utilized. We tend to keep it closed to sounds and voices that we do not want to hear. There are always background noises that we miss out in our hurried life. But if we just sit down a moment, close the eyes and allow our ears to do its job it’s amazing how much background noises escape our attention at other times.

Black and White

I'm really getting darker... tanned by the summer sunshine of UAE. Check out this latest picture of me. See the contrast in skin color? My face & arms vs my legs! (Sigh) will take some time to reverse this when I get back to KL!

Beside me by the way is my Tunisian friend. I don't really understand everything he says most of the time since his English is jumbled up with Arabic and French. Yup, Tunisia is French-speaking. And the way he describes it, Tunisia seems to be some paradise! But all I know is this Tunisian man is very friendly, helpful and cheerful all the time. Nice to have such people around sometimes to give a lively atmosphere!

What is on my mind lately? What else? To go back home! Home to KL! But before I can do that, I still have lots to settle here on-site - to clear up the last bits and pieces. Sounds simple but when you actually get down to it, it can be taxing and energy-consuming. But as some may say - there's no such thing as "easy money"!

Floras in the Middle East