The Shifting Sands

Some of you may be aware that we are relocating to the UAE and I will be starting a new job with much of my work in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.  At present we are in the throws of relocating. The house is packed and Kate and the girls are in temporary accommodation in Dubai.  The process has been pain free.  Within an week I had a residents visa and Kate and I had orgainsed a rental property, a bank account, kids in school, mobile numbers and Kate was confidently driving around the city. In addition to all the chores, we also sorted the kids with some activities.  For Ada it was Nippers at Umm Sequiem Beach and for Lucy it was badminton. For the third child, me, it was getting down to Wadi Adventure the white water and surf park about 150km south west of the City on good road. The park has a wave pool which is capable of producing a 3.3 metre wave every 90 seconds and the ability adjust the type of wave depending on the needs of the participants.  Looks like an amazing way to learn to

We enjoy the Diwali festivities and traditions.  We don’t enjoy the fireworks in Mumbai which are set off all night and are less about pretty colours and light and are more about the loudest bang for your rupee. For us it is a good time to escape the Mumbai madness.  In the past we have traveled to Catholic areas where Diwali is not celebrated as enthusiastically.  The verdant terraces of the hills around Kathmandu Following the vegetable man on my morning run This year we decided on Kathmandu which is still predominantly Hindu but a fireworks ban from the government means that the traditional Diwali practices are observed without the city sounding like it is in the throws of violent revolution. After chasing accommodation, we settled on two nights in Patan and two nights near the small village of Chandeshwori on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Diwali celebrates the victory of light over darkness, hope over despair and from a seasonal perspective

Getting ready to ride from Patan to Chandeshwori I was keen to do something a little more exciting in Kathmandu than sightseeing and, after exploring the possibility of some rock climbing or white water kayaking, I decided to hire a bike and try out some of the many trails around Kathmandu. A newish Giant Talon with deore XT groupset and Rockshocks . with remote lockout. Not bad for a hire bike in Nepal! I contacted Himalaya Single track who, for around $35, were able to hire me a well equipped Giant with basic repair gear and a pump. They were also very flexible about enabling me to drop off the bike at their workshop in Thamel before my return flight to Mumbai on the Sunday morning.  The retail store was very well equipped with a good range of high end gear for the gear freaks.  The workshop was very well fitted out and had friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable western mechanics.  I purchased Mountain Biking Kathmandu

The Diwali, the festival of light, is the Indian equivalent of Christmas.  It is very commercial and husbands are expected to buy jewellery for their wives, so its not much fun for the men folk! . This year we were in our new offices in the Metro Depot and we decided to have a Rangoli competition.  Rangolis are also known as a kolam or a muggu and are a form of folk art using coloured sand rice, flour, petals to create artwork to welcome gods into the home. They form a central role in religious observance in Mumbai and in India more broadly. The teams hard at work All the Senior Management were judges for the Rangoli competition including the expatriates Managers. An area in our foyer was set aside for the competition and the teams, most of whom were in traditional dress, were given an area consisting of four floor tiles to create their Rangoli. Based on the expatriate's  inability to predict the winners it could be reasonably suggested that we were not in a

Dussera celebrates victory over the devil and draws from Rama's defeat of the 10 headed demon king Ravana and the Goddess Durga's victory over the demon Mahishasur. Our little friends Dusserra seems to have become much more significant in Mumbai this year.  In our first year in India we visited Udaipur over Dusserra and the festival was much more significant with temporary temples erected and kids out dancing the kolattam or stick dance almost every night.  After returning to Mumbai from Udaipur we rarely saw any festivities on the streets This year there were any number of Rama and Durga statutes in roadside shrines in the same manner as during Ganpatti.  On the roads with less traffic you could see people dancing, gambling and socialising for the week of Dusserra. Bright lights of festival season My logic is that Mumbai has a large population of migrants and they bring their traditions with them. This, combined with the fact that Mumb