A prelude to belly dancing Early in the morning, Lee gets me up because the Shakira in Dubai concert is on TV. I’m a huge fan and have gone to two of her concerts, but the Oral Fixation tour is the newest and I was not able to go last time (I was on my sub-internship at the time and was working hard to impress). I love watching her and singing along to her Spanish songs, and of course, I always love her belly dancing. I took up belly dancing after my first Shakira concert, but with classes and rotations, I [View Full Entry]

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Just so you know, the phrase “The Great Imitator” has a medical significance that we’ve decided to leave out of this blog. The origin of the phrase is totally unrelated to Dubai, but I wanted to give it this title because Dubai creates a feeling that everything you can find in another part of the world can also be found here. Call it imitation, in a positive light. After all, if nature blessed Dubai with sand and sea, but not snow, what’s so wrong with using some human innovation to make some? Pinoy breakfast in Dubai The bright Dubai sun creeps [View Full Entry]

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GOLD! Unearthing Ibn Battuta’s Stash in Dubai Sleep is overrated anyway Before I start, let me say that there is no place in the world like Dubai. The goal of this city is to have it all: the biggest, baddest, largest, tallest, funnest, costliest, and any other superlative you can think of. It will have the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, in a matter of years—it is predicted that this building will top the Taipei 101 in Taiwan (509 meters) by more than 200 meters. It has the world’s only 7-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab (although to be accurate, [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Bangkok It is dark when we get up. We leave our room just as the sun rises, and our 17th floor hallway gives us a great view of the orange orb rising over a still sleepy Chao Praya River. We have little time to appreciate it though, so we jump into a cab and make it to Suvarnabhumi Airport with just enough baht (316, to be exact) left over to pay the driver and give him an almost decent tip. The rest of our baht has to be saved for our departure tax. Check-in is wonderfully easy at Cathay Pacific [View Full Entry]

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Slamming into Bangkok Sad to say, our vacation from our vacation is over. It’s back to just being on vacation now. Krabi La Playa, Ao Nang, and Ko Phi Phi have exceeded our expectations. And that outdoor food court will live on in our minds and stomachs through infinity. No exciting details for the transfer back to Bangkok. Thai Air Asia has open seating and when it is time to board, a chaotic free-for-all ensues. We are not in position and end up at the back of the line. The uneventful one hour flight takes a turn for the thrilling as [View Full Entry]

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Island Hopping and Aggressive Fish I’m excited about today. I’ve loved our chill days at Ao Nang. Thai food is amazing, and the people really do always have a smile ready for you. While things don’t always work efficiently, they make the effort pleasantly and the infrastructure for tourism is well-established. At breakfast, I make sure to take two pieces of white bread so as to attract some colorful fish to me today. I obviously haven’t done this before, or I would have known to buy a whole loaf. The full day tour to Ko Phi Phi costs anywhere from 1,300 [View Full Entry]

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Meli is dying to get to Ko Phi Phi, but today will not be the day. I am feeling like such a vagabond and can’t fathom doing anything. The heat adds to this sentiment. And, this is a vacation from our vacation. We wake up to dine and when we are done, Meli resumes her dreaming. I feel like doing nothing. She feels like sleeping. One would think that we were barely getting any sleep; to the contrary, we clock at least eight hours a night. Are we still recovering from med school and all those on-call nights? Meli sleeps for [View Full Entry]

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How Time Flies When You’re Doing Nothing Krabi, land of the Farang (foreigner). Almost everyone at Krabi La Playa is blonde with either white or red skin. Finnish? Dutch? We’ll never know. We are surrounded by families enjoying the enormous pool at our resort. The backpacker crowd probably wouldn’t want to be anywhere like this, but I’m happy about it. It’s quiet enough. The kids are well-behaved, their laughter and belly flops making for pleasant background noise. It’s certainly better than the pop techno emanating from the pool bar. This [View Full Entry]

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Meme did much justice to the breakfast we adore at Dream with yesterday’s entry. Today, we request the American Breakfast again. I switch the banana with nutmeg smoothie for a mixed berry one. Mems chooses the freshly squeezed OJ. Knowing how much she loves the tomatoes here, I made her an offer to test the strength of the affinity: I’ll give you anything you want, ANYTHING, for that tomato. SHE PASSED! That’s how great these tomatoes are. ANYTHING! We pack up, leave most of our luggage at Dream because Thai Air Asia only allows 15kg/person, and 30km later we are back [View Full Entry]

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Mission Accomplished Early morning finds Leroy dressed and ready to go to the U.S. Embassy and get those extra pages he is becoming desperate for. I make a poor attempt at offering to go with him, but he tells me to stay and linger in the Dream bed with its Egyptian cotton sheets and non-allergenic pillows. No argument here. He comes back with 22 new pages and just in time for a ridiculous breakfast of toast, tropical fruit with honey and yogurt; egg with sausage, spinach, the sweetest tomato in the history of the world, mushrooms; banana with nutmeg and mango [View Full Entry]

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