After a few days, seaside paradise gets old (well, not really), so we booked a driver to take us into Phuket City, also known as Phuket Town, and by either name it is the capital of the island and province of Phuket. We took the one-hour ride through some fairly severe local traffic for two […]

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A fair question, especially if you live in North America. Why Phuket? Hawaii or the Caribbean are very similar, and much closer. I can’t imagine I would have come here, from L.A., for instance, because the distance is so great. Hawaii is five hours; Phuket is more like 18 from LAX, with a plane change, […]

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Far as I can tell, that expression is rather like the Hawaiian “aloha” — and can be used, in Thai, as a generic greeting meaning either hello or goodbye. Yes. We are in Thailand. And it is fair to ask why someone who lives in Abu Dhabi would depart the UAE at this point on […]

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The UAE seems to see a major hotel open every week. And that is only a slight exaggeration. Every luxury brand is here, sometimes several times over. I believe we have at least three Fairmonts in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. I might be missing one. A couple of Ritzes, a Kempinski … name a brand […]

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We were riding in the Land Cruiser over the broad and grassy uplands of the Masai Mara, looking for a leopard, when we saw a tent-like structure on the horizon. What could that be, out in the middle of the game conservancy? A watering station for some truly exotic creatures who would be traversing the […]

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Six days that flashed past … but seemed jammed with enough events and experiences to last for weeks. A first visit to Africa, and to Kenya. A day in Nairobi, one week after the terror attack at Westgate Mall. Then four days in the astonishing Masai Mara Conservancy, we woke to hippos bellowing in the […]

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  People ride around in Land Cruisers, with guides, here in the Masai Mara, sharing the same upland plains with all manner of creatures, great and small, harmless and lethal, and it doesn’t take long to think you’re in a sort of zoo, where the chances of you being harmed are remarkably low — unless […]

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The idea of safari resorts, like this one in the Masai Mara, in Kenya, is Land Cruisers out on the savanna, a half-dozen tourists with cameras, binoculars and bush hats, a guide/driver … and the big animals of Africa. Even if we concede that Kenya’s tourist industry is geared to assure we see as many […]

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Our room — a tent, actually — is located on Hippo Corner. Or at least that is what operators call it, here at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club in the Masai Mara. On the balcony of this particular tent, a person can look down the 50 feet or so to the Mara River, and see […]

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Yes. We are in Kenya’s capital. Site of the terror attacks at the city’s biggest mall last week. I prefer to think it isn’t as brazen as it may seem, from the western side of the Atlantic. Isn’t it generally safest right after a major attack? And wouldn’t it take a few weeks for a […]

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