Back to Bangladesh

Not the best work environment


It's time to go back to Bangladesh for the third time to hold a series of customer workshop. Last time I was there I ended up staying a extra day due to a faulty airplane. This time I'm supposed to be there for 4 days together with Magnus. We also decided not to stay inside central Dhaka which can be fairly busy (especially the traffic is crazy). So, this time we went for Radisson SAS which is located between our office and the customers office.

Posted at 04:00AM Mar 03, 2008 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Going back to Dubai

Leaving office


Time to leave for the airport to go back to Dubai.

Posted at 04:00AM Feb 15, 2008 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Botswana

Botswana map at the immigration




Haas consult...and beef farm?




Need a haircut?




The biggest insect I've seen


Today we went to Gabarone in Botswana. However, since there where no air line tickets available we had to drive there which was a four hour drive. I'm not to disappointed though since it gave me a chance to see something else besides Johannesburg. I must say that South Africa is a extremely beautiful country and even though we didn't see any wild animals besides some baboons that where sitting on the fencing next to the road you really would like to go on a regular safari to see more of the nature.

Johannesburg is actually situated 1800m above sea level so the landscape is really nice and the climate is not as warm as you might think.

Posted at 04:00AM Feb 13, 2008 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Second trip to South Africa

Again, a different view on bringing guns to work




Nelson Mandela square in Sandton, one of the few "safe" places...




Example of game you can eat at Butcher Shop and Grill




And a small encouragement in the restaurant


Time for another trip to Johannesburg. This time a number of customer meetings was planned and as I realized last time, Johannesburg has a lot of security problems so you basically don't move around as a visitor without knowing where to go. However, the hotel is next door to Nelson Mandela square in Sandton which is considered safe so we could at least go out to get a good meal of local game in the evening.

Posted at 04:00AM Feb 11, 2008 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Going to Stockholm

Today I'm going to Sweden for a training. This usually means the Lufthansa flight leaving at 02:00 but during winter SAS is flying so now the flight leaves in the morning instead. Unfortunately it also means delays, bad service and a general bad feeling...

I had almost forgot how low budget SAS can feel, but first starting with a delay of 2,5 hours (which actually can't be blamed on SAS but rather the bad fog) quickly reminded me. Then, after takeoff, I had coffee spilled all over me without getting a offer of dry cleaning, just a quick excuse. This didn't really make the whole experience less irritating. Damage control isn't their best discipline...

Posted at 04:00AM Jan 28, 2008 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Johannesburg, South Africa

Feels like the wild west when they ask if you carry a gun before a meeting...




Barbwire or electric fencing on every house


So, after being back in Dubai for 12 hours it was time to take the taxi to the airport to go to Johannesburg, South Africa. After a eight hour flight and some problems with the hotel booking I was able to go to sleep fairly late. The next day was filled with customer presentations so not much time to do anything (you wouldn't go out anyway...).

When I arrived back at the hotel the next day the door to the room next to mine was broken up with a crowbar... Not the best feeling of security.

a As usual there was no time to see anything besides the usual trip between the hotel and the office, but having traveled a lot the last weeks I was happily surprised when I was able to get a earlier flight home so that I landed Thursday night rather than Friday morning. There has been a lot of 6 day workweeks the over the last year.

Posted at 04:00AM Nov 27, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Going on vacation in Malaysia

Monkeys in the trees during the boat ride through the jungle




Lotta feeding the monkeys




Overview of the hotel area




The pool area at the Westin resort


After a really hectic week of traveling we managed to ship the dogs of to my parents in Sweden and then get on the plane for a vacation where we went to Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. On Langkawi we stayed at Westin Langkawi Resort which was really nice.

Having a vacation was really needed and since we both managed to get a nasty cold there was only resting planned for the first couple of days. Once the cold started to ease we started doing some excursions on the island. First thing to do was to take a boat trip through the jungle and mangroves on Langkawi. A really "touristy" thing to do, I know, but we needed to get out of the hotel after getting over the flue. The days kept on going in vacation mode and as soon as we felt well enough from the cold to go diving it was time to do what we came here for.

Went out early with a boat to go to Coral Garden for some diving. It was about 30 min boat ride from Langkawi and once we actually got away from the island, the clouds from the rainy season cleared up and we had beautiful weather and a perfectly calm ocean during the boat ride.



Lotta feeding the fishes on Coral Garden Island




On our way back from diving


Once we got to Coral Garden island and jumped out of the boat, of course my dive computer (Suntoo D9 which I've used twice gave up and went into crazy mode. So, since it receives the air information from my regulators I just had to pack the stuff up and use rented equipment. It¨s good that you haul these things halfway around the world...
Anyway, we had two nice dives and enjoyed a pick nick lunch on the beach between the dives.

The whole vacation was ended in Kuala Lumpur where we just walked around all day and enjoyed the city and did some shopping.



Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur

Posted at 04:00AM Sep 16, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Rome

Overview from Frescati city center towards Rome




Overview from Frescati city center towards Rome


Yesterday I went to Rome to have a meeting. It was really refreshing to leave the hot and moist summer of Dubai and land in Rome where the temperature was much cooler and the first thing you felt leaving the airport was a soft breeze from the ocean.

The venue was Frescati which is a suburb to Rome and I must say that I really like Italy. It's a bit hard to get by with only English but they have great food and good wine all nicely tied in with a excellent landscape and a lot of history.

Posted at 04:00AM Sep 03, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

The Algerian trip

Keeping the actual departure time seems to be only one of the things that Air Algeria is not capable of... But on the good side, it was nice to see something besides desert and extremely warm weather for a change. The weather was really pleasant with a temperature of about 20-23 degrees. The landscape around Algiers was really green and it's situated just between the mountains and the Mediterranean. Unfortunately it was a short stay in Algiers and I didn't have time to see anything in particular. We however went out to eat in the older areas of the city.
People were friendly in general even though the persons working in the service sector probably would benefit from a less French attitude. I mean, if you can speak some English and the person you're talking to speaks absolutely no French, it might help if you try in English.
One comment I heard when one person was describing Algeria was that the country took a pause for 15 years and are now trying to catch up. One example of this is that the airport apparently took 30 years to build. I think that describes what I saw pretty well. There seems to be a lot of hope and willingness to create something. Also, Algeria has a lot of oil which will help them with this if they manage thing in a good way.
Unfortunately I forgot my camera at home so I couldn't take any pictures on the trip.
I arrived at the apartment in Dubai about 04.00 on Friday morning and most of the Friday was spent in bed making up for lost sleep.

Posted at 04:00AM May 11, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  | 

Fast tracking passport control

Sometime you just get amazed how easy and efficient things can be. This morning a colleague told me about the UAE-gate card. Basically what you do is that you go to a place on the airport, they take your fingerprint and put some info into the system. The whole process took about 30 minutes.
With this you get a electronic card that you can swipe in the passport control and effectively bypass the lengthy queue to the passport control. This means that from now on, passing in and out of Dubai is as easy as passing through the gate at the subway station. Why don't we have this in Europe?



The UAE-gate card

Posted at 02:00AM Apr 30, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Travels  |