Interesting life in Iran

Fish, Fish

Well, there were many times that I enjoyed staying in Iran in spite of being homesick which I encountered during each 6 months. Why 6 months? Well, most of the time the company would send me back to Singapore for my R & R after 6 months working in Iran. My flight route would always be from Teheran, Bangkok and finally to Singapore. During each trip back, I have to accompany a group of skilled workers to Bangkok and have a short holiday over there. The reason for being in Bangkok was to assist them with flight arrangement out of Bangkok. I have tried teaching them simple English so that they can book for their own journey out from Bangkok to Singapore but failed. Why my workers wanted to go to Bangkok? Well ,obeiliao!!! lah ,the workers would enjoy themselves. Just wonder if any of them encounter AIDS!!! Even in spite of the communication problem,(they cannot speak Thai at all)they could find their way to their sources.,fantastic!! Their favourite word, cheap and good.

Back to Iran. One day the driver took me to an existing site where all our staffs were working. It was called Neka Power Station. In this power station, the internal turbine was cooled by drawing sea water from the Caspian sea into its system . The sea water will first be cleaned when passing a trash screen and after this stage only small item, fish etc could pass through. After through the trash screen, the water was passed through a cleaning department where you have all the brushes which are inside a glass container.You can see this process at our normal car wash. The only different was that they are not at the outside but in containers. As the water passed through this stage, all the remaining rubbish were filtered out including the fish. and these items were eventually poured into the outside drain with lead back to the sea. All of us would stand outside along this drain and just waited for the flushed out fish and just use our hand to pick them up. So simple EH!! The fish are very big
You can imagine the amount of fishes we caught each time, better than fishing. Some fishes were broken up into two parts.
The cook will think of how to cook with the fish, first" Hu moi" (fish broth)""kiam hu,"(salted fish) steam fish, every fried vegetable we will use fish. In the end " Chea Kah Kia" ( eat until scare of it) no more using of fish as a ingredient.

Wild Goose.
One day, the army who were taking care of the Power Station security shot a wild goose and my Superman, Project manager ,Mr Khor Kim Lee, bought it and and asked the chef to cook it with Chinese Herb. During the dinner, we ate it and the meat was very fibrous. Lucky, I have very good teeth!! Hee! Hee!, still young lah.

Wild Fox
During winter time, we would suspend the work for that day. On this particular day, my Batching Plant operator decided to go hunting for animals. He found a claw mark in the snow and decided to follow it until he reached a hole. On further investigation, with the help of another staff, he found another holes. He insisted that the second hole could be an escape route.
He went back to the Batching plant and started loading up the concrete truck with water and also installed snow chain to the 4 tires. Locking on the 4 wheel drive lever, he drove the truck until the first hole and started to poured water into it. At the outlet, a bar bender was waiting
As predicted, a small creature came running out of the hole and the bar bender gripped the animal and quickly put it into a bag. We took the poor animal back to the camp and after examining it, we found that it was a fox. Again that night, we started to cook the animal with herbal ingredient, "Poh Thong" in cantonese
The whole camp ate it and for that night, all the heaters,which we used during winter ( temperature dropping to -20C in the night as recorded by the thermometer),.in the each cabin were turned off. Just imagine how warm our body was after eating the animal soup.
( Well, most of the Vietnamese ate dog meat for a simple reason that was shortage of food during the Vietnam war. So they have to cook dog meat to keep their body warm during winter.
I found out this after working with the Vietnamese workers working under Ivory's project in Penang.

Wild Boar.
We did not hunt for it but was informed by the village people the minute they caught or kill one.
We would follow him to the place and sometime we did not buy it for we found out that the boar was too old. This was our regular supply for pork in a Muslim country. "Bo Bah A Se"( will die without pork).

Prawns
We bought frozen prawns from the Persian Gulf in Teheran. Considered very lucky to eat it.

Help given to the village people
During winter, the head of the village would ask us for our help to push away the snow along the village road with our bulldozer. Other than this, we also have to pull up a car that went off the ravine with our concrete mixer which we have loaded it up with water and 4 wheel locked on before pulling it out.

I left Iran by surprise
One day when I was back to Singapore for my R & R, due to winter in Iran, my Japanese boss requested me to go over to Indonesia to assist in a water treatment plant project. My Project Manager did not allow me to go at the beginning but have no choice due the MD final decision.
My friend, Mr. Chai Kum Fook, took back for me all my clothing's and books that I have left in Iran on his final trip out of Iran. Very sad for I did not have a chance to say goodbye to the Iranian Family.