Hanging Out: Dream World Resorts

A day out at Dream World Resorts, Karachi, Pakistan on 3rd of April, 2010.

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Hanging Out: The Spectacular Kund Malir Beach

With out any doubt, one of the most beautiful beaches of Pakistan. Thank you All Mighty Allah !

These pictures are from a tour we did on 19th March 2010.

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Hanging Out: Trip to Makran Coastal Highway, Chandragup, Kund Malir, Hingol, Ormara, Gwadar and Jewani

Participants:

Schedule:

• Saturday, 27 February, 2010
• 05:45 – Departure from Karachi
• 06:30 – 06:45 – Fajir prayers near Hub Chowki [Video]
• 07:45 – 08:30 - Breakfast at Winder [Map]
• 09:55 – 11:05 – Chandragup and Jabl-ul-Ghurab [Video - Info - Map]
• 11:40 – 12:00 – Tea at Hingol River Bridge [Video - Info - Map]
• 12:20 – 13:45 – Swimming at Kund Malir [Video1 – Video2 - Info - Map]
• Lunch on Makran Coastal Highway, Buzi Pass, Princes of Hope, Sphinx [Video - Info - Map]
• 15:45 – 16:00 – Zohar prayers at Ormara [Video - Info - Map]
• Asir prayers & Tea break near Pasni
• Maghrib prayers on the go.
• 21:30 – Gwadar Tourist Motel Check In [Info - Map]
• Sunday, 28 February, 2010
• 00:15 – 00:45 – Dinner at Gwadar Tourist Motel
• 06:00 – Fajir prayers at Gwadar Tourist Motel
• 07:15 – 07:45 - Breakfast at Gwadar Tourist Motel [Video]
• 08:15 – Gwadar Tourist Motel Check Out [Video]
• 09:50 – 11:00 – Stop at Jewani Museum and Sea Front [Video - Info - Map]
• 12:00 – 13:00 – Stop back at Koh e Batil and Zaver PC Gwadar [Video1 – Video2 - Info - Map]
• 13:15 – 14:30 – Lunch and Zohar prayers in Gwadar West Bay [Map]
• 17:15 – 17:45 – Asir prayers at Ormara [Video]
• 19:45 – 20:30 – Maghrib prayers and Tea at Hingol River Bridge
• 23:30 – Karachi

Transportation:

• Available transportation deals:
  • Mr. Muhammad Khan (Nagan Chowrangi)
    Cell#: 0300-3651148
    25 Seater Coaster – Rs. 18,000 + Diesel + Oil
    14 Seater Hiace – Rs. 13,000 + Diesel + Oil
  • Mr Nadeem (Liaquat Abad)
    Cell#: 0300-2206604
    25 Seater Coaster (AC) – Rs. 22,000 + Diesel
    14 Seater Hiace (AC) – Rs. 12,000 + Diesel
  • Khaled (Jauher Morre)
    Cell#: 0301-2219272
    28 Seater Coaster – Rs. 15,000 + Diesel + Oil
    14 Seater Hiace – Rs. 10,000 + Diesel + Oil
• We prefer last deal with Khaled bhai for two reasons:
  • We travelled with him a couple of times before on other destinations
  • His was the cheapest deal among rest of the others
• Details:
  • Toyota Hiace Low Roof
  • Diesel Used – 170 liters
  • Diesel prices per liter:
    • Karachi – Rs. 71.86
    • Between Ormara and Gwadar – Rs. 65.00
    • Gwadar – Rs. 60.00
    • Ormara – Rs. 61.50
  • Total Fuel Cost + Oil – Rs. 13,420
  • Driver Labour & Toyota Hiace rent – Rs. 10,000
  • Total Transportation Cost – Rs. 23,420

Accommodation:

• Available and Up to date accommodation deals:
  • Zaver PC Hotel, Koh e Batil, Gwadar.
    Phone: (0864) 4212223, (0864) 4212257
    Booking Phone Karachi: (021) 5680111
    Single Bed (24 hrs): Rs. 7,500
    Double Bed (24 hrs): Rs. 8,500
    Extra Mattress (24 hrs): Rs. 1,000
  • Gwadar Tourist Motel, Governor Rest House Road, Gwadar.
    Phone: (0864) 210899, (0864) 211400, 0300-3939059, 0333-2023158, 0300-2857883, 0346-8334664, 0321-8624550, 0334-3325783
    Apart from the deals mentioned in the link, we were able to struck the following deal:
    Double Bed (24 hrs): Rs. 667
    Extra Mattress (24 hrs): Rs. 50 (However, do note that extra mattresses were not “mattresses” but thin comforters made from cotton).
    We prefer this motel because it is located along the sea shore (west bay) unlike others (Sadaf Hotel, Royal Resort Hotel, Islamabad Hotel). There might be other hotels on the east bay along sea shore, but because we were running out of time, so we picked the very first hotel which met our minimum criteria, instead of visiting all hotels and then deciding which one to choose.
    So, our accommodation cost was:
    3 Double Bed Rooms: Rs. 2,000
    5 Extra Mattresses: Rs. 250
    Tea, Salad, Mineral Water (provided by hotel): Rs. 385
    Total accommodation cost: Rs. 2,635

Food:

• We hire the services of a professional BBQ chef arranged by:
  Khapa Restaurant, Shop# 13, Shalimar Shopping Center, Gulistan e Jauher, Block 17, Karachi.
  Contact Person: Iftikhar
  Phone#: (021) 34246322, 0300-2145242
  Chef Name: Babar Ali
  Cell#: 0332-3273597
  Service Charges: Rs. 2,000 for 2 days
  All of the dishes prepared by Babar were exceptionally delicious.
• Food expenditure:
  • Coal, Natural Gas and other cooking equipment rent and transportation cost
  • Plastic plates, glasses, spoons, tissues
  • Chicken, spices, vegetables, oil, ghee, flour
  • Snacks (Bread, Chicken Spread, Chips, Biscuits, Nimko, Kino)
  • Mineral water, cold drinks, lassi, tea
  • Breakfast
• Total food cost: Rs. 11,003

Total Trip Cost:

• Transportation Cost: Rs. 23,420
• Accommodation Cost: Rs. 2,635
• Food Cost: Rs. 11,003
• Total Cost: Rs. 37,058
• Per Head Cost: Rs. 4,000 approx.

Tips:

• Always set a single gathering point for departure instead of picking people from different locations, because that’ll save a lot of time. If you are planning to leave early in the morning than it is recommended to gather a night before at a central place, it is far better than waiting for 5 – 10 minutes for every other participant and loosing an hour or more just because of that.
• Make sure every participant have necessary toiletries with himself.
• If you are planning to visit Mud Volcanoes than make sure you do not travel on trails created due to vehicular movement. Travel a little on the left or right side, because those sides would be more stiff. While the trails are some what soft and could make your vehicle stop. If it happens, do not accelerate too much, the right way out is to dig out that soft soil around your vehicle’s tires and then accelerate smoothly.
• It is recommended to have additional fuel in bottle or can with you for emergency purposes. Keep an eye on your fuel indicator and refuel often.
• A water cooler is recommended to keep ample amount of cold water. Or, if you can arrange an ice box than its better because it will keep both water and drinks cold.
• First aid kit is a must
• GPS is a must for such tours, if you do not have any local guide with you. It is advisable to switch off all those unnecessary applications on your mobile which run in the background because they consume your mobile battery.
• Make sure you have cell phone, camera and cam chargers with you. Mobile car charger is a must.
• Telenor (voice/data) works exceptionally well. Though there were long patches where no signals of any operator were available.
• Good to have a laptop with you, if you have several mobile camera, digital camera and cams with you. You can sync all images and videos to your laptop at one central location and later on can upload, share or burn CDs for distribution among tour participants.
• Keep a trash bag with you while traveling and dump all your trash in it to be disposed off safely as soon as you reach one of the destinations.
• Keep an eye on your driver and make sure he drive according to the rules. Because if he don’t, than God forbid, that could endanger your and others life.
• It would be good if you have at least 3 days for such a trip, we were running out of time and could’ve enjoyed more if we had an extra day to spend.

Participant’s Comments:

Hanging Out: 2010-02-20 Kemari Deap Sea Fishing

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Hanging Out: 2009-05-15 Trip to Quetta and Ziarat

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Hanging Out: 2010-01-16 Deep Sea Fishing near Kemari

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Setting Null value (reflectively) using Apache Common’s PropertyUtils

If you have a requirement to set a Null value (reflectively) to a property of an object using Apache Commons than following method won’t work for you:

BeanUtils.setProperty(Object bean, String propertyName, Object value);

And neither does this one:

PropertyUtils.setProperty(Object bean, String propertyName, Object value);

The reason is that both method uses ConvertUtils to convert values of source type to a destination type. The default set of converters which are registered with BeanUtils have a default value specified and this is why you can’t set a null value using default settings. If you want null values to be set then you need to register converter implementations for those types with a default value of null. So for example you would do something like...

ConvertUtils.register(new IntegerConverter(null), Integer.class);
ConvertUtils.register(new DoubleConverter(null), Double.class);

(Note: the "null" value in the constructors is the default value)

Alternatively, you can also achieve this by following statement:

PropertyUtils.getWriteMethod(PropertyUtils.getPropertyDescriptor(this,propertyName)).invoke(this, new Object[]{null});