Training in Dubai

Few days back I travelled to Dubai for training by my company. In 5 days stay, I visited limited places; following are few of the important points.

1. Monika the Air-hostess from India in Emirates was very talkative same as me. We were silent until we were 5 KMs to Dubai and she suddenly saw my tattoo on my hand “Om” and we started talking for 15 minutes. We didn’t feel like we have talked for only 15 minutes
2. Attitude of Arabs at Dubai Airport for Retina scan is pathetic. 3 out of 10 counters were functional and 150 people were in one line waiting for 2 hours to get it done. Arabs were treating the foreigners like their servants and the way they were talking was driving me crazy.
3. Numerous citizens of Pakistan & India come to Dubai & there is special counter for Pakistanis & Indians at Ariport.
4. 45 degree Celsius was unbearable especially when you have to walk.
5. Hiring a taxi is not an easy task, sometimes you need to show your Pakistani skills
6. Traffic is an issue in Dubai but 120 KM/Hour is normal speed on Dubai roads though we touched 170 KM/H once . Metro train will start soon in Dubai.
7. Shopping Malls are worth watching and Burj-Dubai is an amazing building
8. Because of Dubai Pizzas & Mexican food, I will go again to Dubai in September
9. Taking bath with hot water even in Al-Marooj Rotana hotel is not an easy task
10. I was surprised to know that Jabel Ali city has more than 10,000 companies in it.

Meeting in Manila

In June 2008, I had to travel to Manila, Philippines in order to have the official meeting with business experts of my company. Actually they were supposed to come here in Pakistan but due to our law & order situation here, we went there. I stayed there for 14 days. I took the flight from Karachi-> Dubai -> Manila (same was the return route). Following are few points worth sharing.

1.    140 countries doesn’t require visa to enter the Philippines but Pakistan does
2.    Requirements of Philippines visa were very high like they needed clearance from the POLICE and Ministry of affairs. I was laughing at the clearance from POLICE, even If I had committed the crime, how would our POLICE track that?
3.    Travelling in business class is comfortable but for only 4 hours, after that you are saturated specially when you know 7 hours more to go
4.    The rush at Dubai Airport was same as the traffic at Jinnah hospital signal
5.    I loved the way hotel staff used to call me “Good Morning Mr. Perkaaaaaaaaaash”
6.    Finding the Halal Food in Manila is an issue, though Indian vegetable food is great to have as an alternate.
7.    Training on security in Philippines by our company staff looked funny to me because we already have seen lot of things than they covered in their presentation
8.    Malls in Manila are closed by 8pm.
9.    Filipinos can understand English.
10.    Horse & boat riding on weekend was awesome. Though I pity on that horse
11.    It was fun to see the active volcano. Smoke everywhere was amazing but the way to volcano was TOO tough. I was praying to be back safely
12.    Filipinos charged us hefty amount for boat driving due to monopoly.
13.    Ocean Park is manila is also a wonderful place where you can see various kind of fishes.
14.    A girl in our group almost had a fight with a guy on commitment VS actual
15.    Asia Shopping Mall is the largest mall in Asia. It was very huge to be visited in a day and was also costly but I managed to buy a few things from there as well
16.    Beaches are on 2 hours drive from Manila which will be explored by me in the next visit to Manila in September 2008.
17.    On my return, at Manila airport we met with the judge of Supreme Court of UAE, he was a great guy. He told us a few things related to politics and I was astonished on them. He also asked us to contact him in case we face any issue unlike Asif (The Cricketer).
18.    In flight, we two friends told the Air hostess that we are twins. After that we ordered the same in appetizers and food. While serving deserts she didn’t ask me but served the same ordered by my friend. After serving, she again asked “You both doesn’t look twins ”

An official visit to Muzzaffarabad

I got a chance to pay a visit to Muzzaffarabad city with around 30 of my colleagues to inaugurate the 3rd school sponsored by my company after the Oct 8, 2005. It took around 2 hours in fight till Islamabad and around 3 hours more towards PC hotel Muzzaffarabad. The way we passed through from Islamabad was the way to death, passing through mountains was freaking experience. We were passing through 6” margin and I was sitting at the window seat of coaster. On the way, I was relieved to see the beauty of nature.

On the first day, we went to see the school inaugurated one year earlier and see how children are passing their time in school. We were divided into groups and we got chance to interact with students and for the first time I felt that IT’S VERY HARD TO TEACH SOMEONE because we had drawing competition between groups and I am not good at drawing and I was supposed to teach them. Anyways, drawing was made by children of all groups; I was surprised to see the communication & drawing skills of those students, they were simply the best. Top Three Groups were awarded some awards and off course my group wasn’t one of them . After that we played around. That three hour experience was the best experience of mine with children.

Second day, after driving for three hours on zigzag mountains, we reached at the remote area of Muzzaffarabad where we were supposed to paint the school & plant the plant, after that school was officially inaugurated. After that whole team went to visit the city and have the food at Food Street. Surprisingly, in Food Street there was no arrangement for cooking food of 30 at a time, the person managed to serve us the food after 2 hours. After food when we tried Kashmiri tea, it was damn salty.

After having dinner we came back to hotel and had a chit chat with each other along with singing & telling the spooky stories to each other. I didn’t sleep that night at all since we had to leave by 3am as we may catch the flight from Islamabad by 8am. On the way to Islamabad, we faced a dangerous accident, the other vehicle was about to fell down from the mountain and we hit the mountain at the left. I checked for the girl who was sitting at the front seat and fortunately she was OK, interestingly she was still sleeping . Well after the 15 minutes Pashto fight, we continued our journey. We reach at airport around 7:15am and checked in on time and reached Karachi safely.