Hanoi
With co passenger Chang Yen at Bahrain airport
‘You need to report to Gulf Terrace Hotel at Khobar by 5 o’ clock in the evening; Cathy Pacific limo will take you to Bahrain from there!’ – replied Ronald in his typical philipino accent.
Thursaday and Friday were hectic, purchasing and stocking items at home, including gas, drinking water,cooking water etc. Friday evening, as usual last minute packing was going on when my colleague George visited me to wish bon voyage. By the time I had messed up the home as if we all were leaving the place. Our office driver Jiji showed up exactly at 4 pm to take me to Gulf Terrace.
Gulf terrace was not new to me; we had conducted our toastmasters area contest, a couple of years ago. But after reaching there, I was informed that cathy pacific’s pick up point is another location; the gulf terrace plaza, few buildings away. Jiji dropped me and left.
When I reached hotel reception, the attendant told me that the bus starts by 7pm only and not 5pm! All because of this Ronald… I thought. Should I stay there or should I go back to home to come again? I was pondering. Suddenly a thought came to my mind. Two hours.. YES..TWO HOURS.. I have got as bonus in life! Two hours free from schedules, deadlines, releases, pending requests from Boss, pending play station 3 dvds from Aakash. Two hours in no mans land; two hours in international waters beyond country borders!!
I kept recapitulating many ideas and felt relaxed; I picked up a casual conversation with my fellow passenger, Hong a chinese business man from Hong kong. He looked really smart and was commenting high about Indians, supporting his index finger pointing the head, compensating for his broken English. He did mention his observation that he found plenty of Indians and Philipinos working in Middle east, attributing the reason to their English!
Since I had more than an hour at my disposal, I took my mobile and started calling Amma, my aunts and uncles, seeking their blessings with the courtesy of cheap fring calls. Apart from talking to them, it also served as my preamble for radhika and kids settling back in Chennai.
By 7:30 pm our coaster started its journey to Bahrain. The van had an attached cabin, that housed our luggage. Dammam to Bahrain via Khobar is only a short distance. I could not see a single Indian apart from myself around. Other than my new Chinese friends, there were few philipinos and Koreans/japnese, all looked the same to me with their tiny eyes and flattened nose. Dammam to Khobar is 20 km by land. From Khobar to Bahrain, the travel is by the man made bridge across see, called King Fahd Causeway. This connects a small island in the middle. Half of the island houses Saudi customs and the other half the Bahrain’s. Week-ends witness heavy rush and queuing of cars from Saudi side with people longing to get liberated in liquid state. That day being Friday, the rush was from Bahrain side with returnees.
Our driver collected all our passports like a bunch of vegetable and went to the counter. Later, we were requested to join. The Saudi official in the counter was in his usual unfriendly style and greeted us in Arabic monosyllables similar to our po..po.. in tamil. I greeted him salam alaikum and he became friendly for a fraction of second and went back to his original status. The building was a curved roof cubicle, with 10+ pc monitors, but only one person. There were two window acs. The L shaped full length open counter had an un matching full height glass door on one side. There was a telephone at the corner and on its concrete slab stand, there was a concrete hollow block too, without serving any purpose what so ever!
When our driver returned to our van after half an hour, we thought we were lucky to leave in record time; but as usual it was not to be so! He came inside and asked who is thi yen? A lean, clean shaven (may be birth, like that?!) boyish gentleman raised his hand. “Come down.. your exit re entry visa has expired, four days ago, it seems. Now you go back to Saudi, get it cleared and then travel!” poor fellow.. hope he is not going for his own marriage; the Arabic wordings, dates and letters, goofing up of his company admin.. and lack of his own double checking has cost him this trouble. By the time our driver disposed him and came back, we lost another half hour.
Clearing the Bahrain side of cause way, we finally entered ‘business friendly bahrain’ as they call themselves, we came across a bit of free air and huge colourful hoardings all the way. Bahrain, such a tiny country has cleverly encashed the conditions imposed by its neighbours. My Chinese friend kept appreciating the sky scrapers of Bahrain as we advanced towards its airport island Muharraq. On our way, we could see the cinema hall with a big display of ‘my name is khan’.
After we entered Bahrain airport, the passengers in van were eager to get out at every stop over. The driver kept on telling.. wait.. wait.. all the way. I, have been waiting a little too long for 15 years my dear.. I was telling myself silently :-))
Our flight to Hong kong was scheduled for early morning 1:00 am. By this time, Hong and I have become good friends by this time; we had some French fries and coffee in Mac Donalds and I got invitation to visit Hong in Hong kong in the near future. Like Dubai airport, Bahrain airport too is more a hypermarket and less an airport. So passing time there was a breeze as usual; the wifi helped to complete some unfinished business in my sleek and inexpensive acer netbook.
As per scheduled time, Cathy Pacific flight departed to Hong kong. They showed their professionalism the way they treated us. The airhostesses were quite friendly; one by name Jim was initially amused to learn that I was looking for vegetarian meals. Some how he arranged to get a look alike stuff! He did handed over a bag full of muffins and fruit salads, to bail me out during hong kong – Hanoi travel, as Vietnamese airlines could find it difficult to decipher vegetarianism and eventually he did prove himself right, later!
7 hours by flight looked pretty longer for me, against my usual 3-4 hours flying to India. Most of the time went in sleeping. Whenever I was awake, I was juggling between the 50+ channels in the mini lcd tv before me. Half of its channels were repetitions, with a funny time lag of few minutes. Finally I settled for a Chinese movie with English subtitles. (I didn’t put the head phones at all). The movie appeared more Indian to me with too many dadas, mafias and street fights, but for a bit of explicit adult content.
By the time I started watching the movie, half the way, I understood that the heroine Pamela is a comfort worker(!) but she is good at heart and has a mentally retarded physically grown up sister to protect from the hawkish thugs. There is a petty rowdie by nick name ‘porcupine’. He irritates us with his looks and keeps chasing Pamela and her sister with lust. He competes with another young and corporate style don by name Peter for ‘number one’ slot in the locality. It is the time, the hero by name ‘Fai’ enters the scene. Fai is an old time ally of porcupine. In fact he has been a active hitman in his teens and has killed 20 opponents before getting shot by a cowardly police officer. As Fai gets released, both porcupine and peter try their best to win his friendship to their advantage.
Fai, resembles udayanithi stalin with ottu dhadi ; surprisingly cool and seasoned with his long served jail term. When he returns to his home town Mangkok, he is totally disappointed to see it as a different place altogether with a his old frequenting places, theatres and midnight shows gone. The police officer who shot him 30 years ago, is still around and he tries to bring Fai, porcupine and peter into his iron fists. Some graphics here and there extends the prison mentally to Fai, and when he says, we are never free.. just out from one prison to another’.. we do agree with him, momentarily!
Fai, incidentally saves Pamela and her sister from porcupine. The really touching episode starts when, Fai visits his mother. Demoralized by Fai’s imprisonment, Fai’s mother fails to recognize him with her demnitia; she keeps telling him, her son is working in a far-away place. Fai coolly tells her, he in fact is Fai’s friend and his name is Pschyco. She then allows him and his friends to her house and serves them water, generously!
After a couple of scenes, Pamela too joins them. In a cinematic way, Fai’s mother regains her consciousness; he gives her a head bath and they have their hearty chat and his mother dies smoothly at that moment as an anti-climax. Suddenly that scene made me emotional; I thought why am I wandering like this in my life? I could have also done a graduation in tanjore poondi pushpam and settled in AG’s office like my elder brother (cousin) Kumar and at least I could have been lucky to meet my mom every day evening! Tears started rolling down my cheek, by the time our flight safely landed in Hong kong, bringing me back to the realities of life!
Hong kong Air port was clean and elegant, surprisingly with low activity and less passengers around. It took another 2 hours flying for me to reach Hanoi airport. From the above, it is all green and water everywhere around. With the airport not even matching the Coimbatore airport(ashok, excuse), I felt a bit disappointed as if we have made an emergency landing in a paddy field. But for the remoteness of the airport and the approach route to Hanoi, I am pretty impressed with Hanoi city. It is peaceful, nice buildings, people and excellent weather! To some extent it reminds me of the Bangalore which I was familiar to in 90’s.
My Zamil Steel senior colleagues as well as fellow Tamil friends Satheesh and Mani were generous enough to pick me up from the airport. Satheesh extended the hospitality by arranging a grand dinner at his home, introducing many fellow tamil friends cum colleagues; the place looked like a mini extension of Chennai then!
Now that I have spent more than 24 hours here, I am lucky to have a relaxed Sunday to share my little and big thoughts and bore you as usual. Tomorrow onwards, I need to be on my toes for two weeks take over and subsequent return to Saudi Arabia, final wind up operations, selling the car, settling family and move to Hanoi in April, permanently(!?!) I don’t know whether I will keep the same enthu and energy to write in this forum with my newly acquired assignments.
Cheers
Landing Hong kong, with two drops of tear rolling down
Dammam Bala
Dammam Bala
“Mr.Ronald, I am Engineer Bala from PEB Engineering! Just now I received your email. It shows my e-ticket booking from Bahrain to Hanoi. What about Dammam to Bahrain link?” – I called my admin personnel, the other day.
‘You need to report to Gulf Terrace Hotel at Khobar by 5 o’ clock in the evening; Cathy Pacific limo will take you to Bahrain from there!’ – replied Ronald in his typical philipino accent.
Thursaday and Friday were hectic, purchasing and stocking items at home, including gas, drinking water,cooking water etc. Friday evening, as usual last minute packing was going on when my colleague George visited me to wish bon voyage. By the time I had messed up the home as if we all were leaving the place. Our office driver Jiji showed up exactly at 4 pm to take me to Gulf Terrace.
With a few parting hugs and kisses with kids (I always include Radhika too in my kids’ list :-) I left home. Jiji was talking something with his usual cheer while my mind was lost in thoughts connected with my future placement and responsibilities. At times I did envy Jiji a bit, in spite of his meager income he too kept his family in Saudi, his wife not working, somehow managing to retain a broad smile in face. I myself have never counted my blessings and always brooding on opportunities lost and missed!
Gulf terrace was not new to me; we had conducted our toastmasters area contest, a couple of years ago. But after reaching there, I was informed that cathy pacific’s pick up point is another location; the gulf terrace plaza, few buildings away. Jiji dropped me and left.
When I reached hotel reception, the attendant told me that the bus starts by 7pm only and not 5pm! All because of this Ronald… I thought. Should I stay there or should I go back to home to come again? I was pondering. Suddenly a thought came to my mind. Two hours.. YES..TWO HOURS.. I have got as bonus in life! Two hours free from schedules, deadlines, releases, pending requests from Boss, pending play station 3 dvds from Aakash. Two hours in no mans land; two hours in international waters beyond country borders!!
I kept recapitulating many ideas and felt relaxed; I picked up a casual conversation with my fellow passenger, Hong a chinese business man from Hong kong. He looked really smart and was commenting high about Indians, supporting his index finger pointing the head, compensating for his broken English. He did mention his observation that he found plenty of Indians and Philipinos working in Middle east, attributing the reason to their English!
Since I had more than an hour at my disposal, I took my mobile and started calling Amma, my aunts and uncles, seeking their blessings with the courtesy of cheap fring calls. Apart from talking to them, it also served as my preamble for radhika and kids settling back in Chennai.
Fifteen long years have passed in Saudi Arabia, thirteen of them with family staying together; all of a sudden, the change has come. Now I need to get adjusted to new place, back to forced bachelor hood; School admissions for children in Chennai, people taking about difficulties in obtaining them, endless queues and sleepless nights associated with! Is it all worth? Whether it is worth or not worth, it has to be done that way. The decision has been taken; the ball has started rolling!
By 7:30 pm our coaster started its journey to Bahrain. The van had an attached cabin, that housed our luggage. Dammam to Bahrain via Khobar is only a short distance. I could not see a single Indian apart from myself around. Other than my new Chinese friends, there were few philipinos and Koreans/japnese, all looked the same to me with their tiny eyes and flattened nose. Dammam to Khobar is 20 km by land. From Khobar to Bahrain, the travel is by the man made bridge across see, called King Fahd Causeway. This connects a small island in the middle. Half of the island houses Saudi customs and the other half the Bahrain’s. Week-ends witness heavy rush and queuing of cars from Saudi side with people longing to get liberated in liquid state. That day being Friday, the rush was from Bahrain side with returnees.
Our driver collected all our passports like a bunch of vegetable and went to the counter. Later, we were requested to join. The Saudi official in the counter was in his usual unfriendly style and greeted us in Arabic monosyllables similar to our po..po.. in tamil. I greeted him salam alaikum and he became friendly for a fraction of second and went back to his original status. The building was a curved roof cubicle, with 10+ pc monitors, but only one person. There were two window acs. The L shaped full length open counter had an un matching full height glass door on one side. There was a telephone at the corner and on its concrete slab stand, there was a concrete hollow block too, without serving any purpose what so ever!
When our driver returned to our van after half an hour, we thought we were lucky to leave in record time; but as usual it was not to be so! He came inside and asked who is thi yen? A lean, clean shaven (may be birth, like that?!) boyish gentleman raised his hand. “Come down.. your exit re entry visa has expired, four days ago, it seems. Now you go back to Saudi, get it cleared and then travel!” poor fellow.. hope he is not going for his own marriage; the Arabic wordings, dates and letters, goofing up of his company admin.. and lack of his own double checking has cost him this trouble. By the time our driver disposed him and came back, we lost another half hour.
Clearing the Bahrain side of cause way, we finally entered ‘business friendly bahrain’ as they call themselves, we came across a bit of free air and huge colourful hoardings all the way. Bahrain, such a tiny country has cleverly encashed the conditions imposed by its neighbours. My Chinese friend kept appreciating the sky scrapers of Bahrain as we advanced towards its airport island Muharraq. On our way, we could see the cinema hall with a big display of ‘my name is khan’.
This khan has had lots of resistance in not only in Mumbai, he could’nt enter in Saudi too. With no theaters around, the only way for him to sneak in is in a compact disc form!
After we entered Bahrain airport, the passengers in van were eager to get out at every stop over. The driver kept on telling.. wait.. wait.. all the way. I, have been waiting a little too long for 15 years my dear.. I was telling myself silently :-))
Our flight to Hong kong was scheduled for early morning 1:00 am. By this time, Hong and I have become good friends by this time; we had some French fries and coffee in Mac Donalds and I got invitation to visit Hong in Hong kong in the near future. Like Dubai airport, Bahrain airport too is more a hypermarket and less an airport. So passing time there was a breeze as usual; the wifi helped to complete some unfinished business in my sleek and inexpensive acer netbook.
As per scheduled time, Cathy Pacific flight departed to Hong kong. They showed their professionalism the way they treated us. The airhostesses were quite friendly; one by name Jim was initially amused to learn that I was looking for vegetarian meals. Some how he arranged to get a look alike stuff! He did handed over a bag full of muffins and fruit salads, to bail me out during hong kong – Hanoi travel, as Vietnamese airlines could find it difficult to decipher vegetarianism and eventually he did prove himself right, later!
7 hours by flight looked pretty longer for me, against my usual 3-4 hours flying to India. Most of the time went in sleeping. Whenever I was awake, I was juggling between the 50+ channels in the mini lcd tv before me. Half of its channels were repetitions, with a funny time lag of few minutes. Finally I settled for a Chinese movie with English subtitles. (I didn’t put the head phones at all). The movie appeared more Indian to me with too many dadas, mafias and street fights, but for a bit of explicit adult content.
By the time I started watching the movie, half the way, I understood that the heroine Pamela is a comfort worker(!) but she is good at heart and has a mentally retarded physically grown up sister to protect from the hawkish thugs. There is a petty rowdie by nick name ‘porcupine’. He irritates us with his looks and keeps chasing Pamela and her sister with lust. He competes with another young and corporate style don by name Peter for ‘number one’ slot in the locality. It is the time, the hero by name ‘Fai’ enters the scene. Fai is an old time ally of porcupine. In fact he has been a active hitman in his teens and has killed 20 opponents before getting shot by a cowardly police officer. As Fai gets released, both porcupine and peter try their best to win his friendship to their advantage.
Fai, resembles udayanithi stalin with ottu dhadi ; surprisingly cool and seasoned with his long served jail term. When he returns to his home town Mangkok, he is totally disappointed to see it as a different place altogether with a his old frequenting places, theatres and midnight shows gone. The police officer who shot him 30 years ago, is still around and he tries to bring Fai, porcupine and peter into his iron fists. Some graphics here and there extends the prison mentally to Fai, and when he says, we are never free.. just out from one prison to another’.. we do agree with him, momentarily!
Fai, incidentally saves Pamela and her sister from porcupine. The really touching episode starts when, Fai visits his mother. Demoralized by Fai’s imprisonment, Fai’s mother fails to recognize him with her demnitia; she keeps telling him, her son is working in a far-away place. Fai coolly tells her, he in fact is Fai’s friend and his name is Pschyco. She then allows him and his friends to her house and serves them water, generously!
After a couple of scenes, Pamela too joins them. In a cinematic way, Fai’s mother regains her consciousness; he gives her a head bath and they have their hearty chat and his mother dies smoothly at that moment as an anti-climax. Suddenly that scene made me emotional; I thought why am I wandering like this in my life? I could have also done a graduation in tanjore poondi pushpam and settled in AG’s office like my elder brother (cousin) Kumar and at least I could have been lucky to meet my mom every day evening! Tears started rolling down my cheek, by the time our flight safely landed in Hong kong, bringing me back to the realities of life!
Hong kong Air port was clean and elegant, surprisingly with low activity and less passengers around. It took another 2 hours flying for me to reach Hanoi airport. From the above, it is all green and water everywhere around. With the airport not even matching the Coimbatore airport(ashok, excuse), I felt a bit disappointed as if we have made an emergency landing in a paddy field. But for the remoteness of the airport and the approach route to Hanoi, I am pretty impressed with Hanoi city. It is peaceful, nice buildings, people and excellent weather! To some extent it reminds me of the Bangalore which I was familiar to in 90’s.
My Zamil Steel senior colleagues as well as fellow Tamil friends Satheesh and Mani were generous enough to pick me up from the airport. Satheesh extended the hospitality by arranging a grand dinner at his home, introducing many fellow tamil friends cum colleagues; the place looked like a mini extension of Chennai then!
Now that I have spent more than 24 hours here, I am lucky to have a relaxed Sunday to share my little and big thoughts and bore you as usual. Tomorrow onwards, I need to be on my toes for two weeks take over and subsequent return to Saudi Arabia, final wind up operations, selling the car, settling family and move to Hanoi in April, permanently(!?!) I don’t know whether I will keep the same enthu and energy to write in this forum with my newly acquired assignments.
Ultimately, where will I go? Kazhuthai ketta kutti suvar!!! :-))))
Cheers
Bala G(ot to make a mountain out of a mole hill, as usual :-)
PS: BTW if any one knows the name of the movie that I have described, please be kind enough to tell me.
