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Imagine a fast food joint like McDonald’s, who does a huge amount of business in this country on Home Delivery, does not have a hotline to call to place your order!!!

Apparently, each franchise has its own number, and unless you happen to know the exact number of the one closest to you, they don’t want your business!

They have a website, with a list of all their outlets, but unfortunately, they dont want to publicize the numbers to call to place your order. In fact, try as you may, even googling doesn’t help.

That would have taken some effort, u know, some unbelievable strategy to achieve such levels of inconspicuousness in this digital age!

Now that it’s been more than a year since I left Singapore, time for a bit of reflection. What do I realize I now miss?

• Singlish - I still occasionally form sentences in Singlish in my head, and suddenly realize that the listener would have no clue if I actually speak that. Imagine the ease of using 1 or 2 simple words like Can meh? (as opposed to its translated long form - “Err, I dont think that’s possible. Are you sure of that?”)
• Chilly crab - I think it’s worth taking a flight back to Singapore to enjoy an evening of Chilly & Pepper crab, Fried buns, Sambal kang kong. There was some Chilly crab festival in Dubai once, but those who went for it advised to stay clear.
• Red tape (or the lack of it) - Probably the biggie of the lot, Singapore is the worst place you should stay if you wish to relocate to any other place in the world. You would get used to things getting done easily, and the steps to get that done clearly defined and quantified. You go anywhere else, a hitherto unknown concept of Red Tape presents itself! The only thing that’s more complicated (on purpose) in Singapore is when you want to buy your own car.
• Rain - After a year in Dubai… “Rain, what’s that?”
• Singaporean Cabbies - Probably the most entertaining lot, of all the professions you come across in Singapore. I think every single one I have come across had something to talk about the ‘gahmen’.
• Public Transport - Even though you can literally see the Metro being built all over the place, it’s still a long way to reach the levels of Singapore, where almost everyone takes Buses or Trains to work.
• Having private conversations in public - In Singapore, it’s fairly safe to talk in either Malayalam or Hindi and be sure that it would remain a private conversation. In Dubai however, those 2 languages combined is spoken or at least understood by probably 60-70% of the population!

Oh, and happy belated National day to all in Singapore!

And HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, INDIA!

So we decided to go on a road trip to Jebel Hafeet in Al Ain, the 2nd city of Abu Dhabi. With our previous experience of Ras Al Khaimah at the back of our minds, we set our expectations rather low. Especially on what to expect in the two hours of driving to get there. Of course there was still the drive to climb Jebel (meaning “Hill” in Arabic) Hafeet, which is supposedly the greatest driving road in the world according to some.

But what surprised us was Al Ain itself. Having been used to Dubai, where construction and dust ruins the whole perception of the place, Al Ain on the other hand is seriously green, shady with large tall trees (Dubai is too young to have big trees!), and every road, building and junction gave the impression that they have years of stories to tell.

And Jebel Hafeet didnt disappoint either. And although I would probably still vote for any road in mountainous Europe for being more scenic, this gradual climb up was still excellent. Overall, a great experience, and can’t wait for the summers to be over, when temperatures would get to the pleasent 20’s or lower to make another trip here!

Date palms all along the highway

Reaching Jebel Hafeet

Posing at the Oasis

More posing

The car!

Green Mubazzarah - The Oasis

The Road

The Oasis from above

The Palace atop Jebel Hafeet

Inside Hotel Grand Mercure

Ridgy hills

Way back: Al Ain - Dubai Highway

So what happened is this… There was a serious mis-communication in the process of my purchase of the S40, and what I bought as the 170bhp engine, actually turned out to be only 140bhp. And considering horsepower was the major factor in my decision, things got extremely messy.

After weeks of excruciating paperwork, procedures etc (probably enough to write a whole blog or book about), and with the excellent customer-oriented approach of Volvo, I today drove out in a brand new Volvo S60 2.5T!!!

That means a 2.5L turbo-charged 210bhp 320Nm engine (0-100 in 7.4 seconds!) on top of all the things I got in the old S40. Granted the styling is not as sharp as the more compact S40, but everything said and done, I have all I was looking for, in the S60!

So… all’s well that ends well I suppose!

Here are some pics from familiar angles.

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: