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I finally get my hands on it!

2008 Volvo S40: 2.4Litre, 170bhp, Sports Chassis, Leather interior with sports steering, 17″ alloys, Power seat with memory, Auto dual zone climate-control… etc… Plus all the usual safety-acronyms associated with a Volvo!

A couple of photos from after I got back home:

After weeks of sweating it out, test driving, researching and what not, I finally make up my mind. Actually, I thought I did, when I test drove the 2008 Honda Accord V6, with its awesome 268bhp power and great handling…

But then I took a look at and drove the 2008 Volvo S40, and pretty much made up my mind straightaway. I guess more on this when the financing, insurance & all that comes through, and I actually get my hands on it!

Finally I make up my mind!

We decided it’s time to be “adventurous” and do a last-minute drive up to Ras Al Khaimah, UAE’s northernmost Emirate - A drive of about 150 kms.

Since it was last minute, we thought choosing to stay at the Hilton might be the safe option, not having to research much, for some sort of “standard” expectations. It turns out that we were wrong. Even forgetting the part where the whole place looked so run down, the hotel service was abundantly sub-standard.

The food we had from the near by mall turned out to be far better than what was on offer for dinner & breakfast at the hotel. To top that, we were asked to pay for the dinner we had already paid for with the room, and had to go all the way up to the reception to clear up an obvious mess up of their staff.

As if to round-off the consistently bad experience, when checking out we had to wait, argue, and pay again for our room booking all over again, because apparently, “online payment” meant nothing to them.

Now you know which hotel we would not be recommending on your trip to that direction!

With that, I should finish off with a few pics of the trip. Don’t read too much into some of them looking great, just consider it due to my great camera

Mostly empty roads

In the room

Outside the hotel

It was so hot, and un-happening at the nearby beach resort, that in 2 mts we were checking when the next bus back to the hotel was.

The one decent angle I got for a good shot, in the whole resort place

Thank you Nikon D40!

Pool, early morning. Now imagine 25 people in and around it, in the afternoon.

My company celebrated it’s first anniversary recently. No points for figuring out where I work, here are some pics!

There were many performances

That’s us of course!

There were some pretty decent bollywood performances too!

That was the cake! And everyone got a piece!

Big screens

The venue

Caught a few great snaps or the Burj!

That’s another one!

Rented a car, and discovering whole new levels of freedom! What used to be trips that needed to be pre-planned, wait-in-the-sun-and-dust-for-taxi, suddenly becomes easy!

I like it!

My ride, until I get my… err… not made up my mind!