World Travels: First Leg

After heavy drinking on our farewell parties and cleaning the flat (well I was still in the pub!), we left the drizzly shores of the UK in the early hours of the morning on 14th February 2005 to catch a flight at 6.30am and begin our world adventure....

Dubai

Email Date: 02 March 2005 06:55
Subject: Far far away...

Well, I think, as expected it's been a fantastic trip so far. I'm now sitting in an internet cafe around the corner from our hostel in Bangkok. We're staying at Suk 11, on soi 11 just off Th Schukumvit - DJ Riza I can't thank you enough for this recommendation, it's basic but at 700Baht (approx 10GBP)a night each it superb!....anyway I'll just update you all about Dubai before I delve into the crazy world of Bangkok!

We checked into my bro's villa for a luxurious start to our world travel (again big thanks to Dave and Claire for your generosity!!).

The sunshine was a little slow to arrive but the booze took off at a great pace. Landing on the 10th Feb late at night we hit Hilton on the creek hotel for a champagne brunch the following day. The deal was unlimited champagne from 11am - 3pm along with a three course meal and buffet for around £25, supeeeeerb!! They certainly weren't shy in topping up the glasses, well I made sure of it anyway! Moving onto the Irish Village (IV) we topped up our pallets with Guinness and finally hit an expat nightclub. We knew it was time to draw the night to a drunken close when me and Dave lost at pool and I wanted wrap my cue around.......

I won't bore you with too much detail of our adventures in Dubai but here's a brief summary of our two week visit...

Desert safari - consisted of being taken in a 4x4 over the sand dunes at speed along with a fleet of other 4x4's. I felt pretty rough after the experience and just about the contained the chunder (I know unlike me to keep anything in, ha ha!!). I did hear someone didn't contain their innards in another car - as you can imagine that was messy business! The same evening we hit a purpose built enclosure still in the desert where we were entertained for the night. Had the chance dress up like the locals, smoke "da shisha", ate local kebabs with humous whilst watching the belly dancer strut her flabby belly (couldn't believe the flabbiness of it, ginger it made your belly look like average..well er maybe not, ha ha). We were given the chance to dance with her so obviously jumped at the chance! Being on full show to a crowd of over 100 guests I stunned them all with my legendary Caterpillar move, it went down a treat. The belly dancer was a little perplexed, ha ha, and lady V was obviously embarrassed, superb!

5 star hotels - since being in Dubai we've been to 6 five star hotels, more than I've been to in a lifetime. Reason being is that most of the social drinking is there so obviously it was rude not to go! Eat and drink much as you can buffet's are also quite popular at these hotels so me and lady V fully tried and tested the Spice Island at the Renaissance hotel. It cost around £22 for unlimited food, beer and wine, although the wine reminded me of the cheap paint stripper I drank at uni (how did I drink that stuff), but there was an option to upgrade the wine so I obviously refused, ha ha!! The food selection was Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Indonesian Indian and Mexican so I ate almost everything....and drank everything.....in fact tequila's were included too but was near closing time when I realised they were so only had time to squeeze in one shot...gutted. Still we were there for 3 hours so we still got our monies worth, think they were glad to see the back of me!!

Royal Meridian Hotel - during the day been lounging around the Beach club at this hotel. Lady V and I joined via bro's corporate membership for 650DHS for 7 visits (worked out 7GBP per visit). Superb facilities including pools, beach, tennis courts, gym, jacuzzi, steam room and hammam pools (five different temperatures ranging from 18deg - takes your breath away, to 38deg - scorcher), although the sun hasn't been blazing all the time I've still managed to burn my pasty skin, but now bode a darker tan than lady V, think she might say otherwise!!

Had the chance to visit , which was a visit I'd recommend to anyone. (Omani) Siany lives and teaches there so we got a 6 hour bus ride for £15 return and stayed with her parents (again thanks Omani Siany for letting us stay with your parents, superb!!!....the thank you's are endless aren't they!?!). Sian showed us the sites in two nights. Wish we had longer but we packed in a few things! Got battered with her parents the first night and ate a tasty lasagna prepared by their Indian cook, nice touch! Sian took us up the road to smoke the local Shisha - good at the time but it was super strong and felt like we were smoking 40 of ginger's roll ups in one go! The following night hit the local Souk (market), experienced the best fruit juice, ate the tastiest shwarma (kebab) and stuffed ourselves with the tastiest Southern Indian food, so no mango chutney but for the first time I didn't need it!

Most importantly I've played two rounds of golf. One at the Montgomerie and yesterday at the Nab Al-Sheeba, which is enclosed within a race course. Both are superb and a test for the keen golfer. Unfortunately there was plenty of water on both courses and with my banana slice had a field day in taking all my golf balls!! Might have to write to Montgomorie to see if I can get them back! Jez and ginge for your interest I shot a meager 98 at the montgomerie and a 91 at the Al-Sheeba. Lost to a guy called Sweeny, friend of a friend out in Dubai. It came down to the 17th hole and we were all square. He nailed a 6 iron onto the par 3 over the water whilst I stupidly took my 7 iron out and plonked it in the drink, gutted!!....

Tennis - what could have been the greatest tennis day of my life turned out to a little disappointing! We had tickets for the quarter finals for Friday just gone and the line up was as follows:

• Kiefer(GER) v Spanish dude
• Henman v Ljbuvic
• Agassi v someone
• Federer v someone

Now you'd think being in a desert it doesn't rain very much, but low and behold it decided to rain most of the day!!! Noooooo!!! We got to see Agassi and Federer warming up on the outside courts but we saw Kiefer lose to the Spanish dude and Henman lose to Ljbuvic. He's the 6ft 5" giant from Croatia, whom he;s now played four time and lost four times! It was good to see Henman but he got a little frustrated with the crowd and umpire so kind of lost the mental game (Dieder, Duster and Zane - kind of what happens when I play you, ha ha....hey have you joined Wigmore tennis club yet; is my name inscribed up on the honors board yet...sweet!!)....anyway Henman lost in two, in fact we left two games before the end as another bout of rain fell. We were there from 11.30am till 10.30pm and saw around 3 hours of tennis, now that beats Wimbledon hands down, in fact Alan Mills, the organiser of Wimbledon was out on court too whenever it rained...why he was there I do not know so I blame him - p*ss off back to the UK Millsy!!

7 star hotel - also visited the burje for a cocktail, too expensive for food at 200GBP for food (without booze) even the new age back packers gave this a miss. Had a nice meal consisting of local fish one night... accompanied by Prince Charles' PR (sister of Dave's friend's wife) and her partner who was a Chef for the royals (Scottish). Had a top night but once I started to do my Sean Connery impression and the Scottish Chef went very quiet I knew it was time to leave....Chef's are renowned for a wee temper!!

Anyway that's just enough to give you an idea what we got up to in Dubai. It really is an exciting place to be, sky scrapers are being built overnight, the Burj is a stunning landmark to Dubai and can be seen almost anywhere along Sheikh Zayed Rd, but what Dubai is trying to achieve (well probably almost has) is to be the biggest and greatest at everything. It has the largest prize money in tennis, horse racing and golf. It's planning to build a grand prix track, the largest indoor shopping center plus a ski slope and also building the tallest building in the world, called the Burj Dubai, but once this is finished they're building another tower to be even taller, crazy stuff.

Anyway exciting as Dubai may be me and lady V are now in Bangkok as of Saturday 26th, where excitement is taken to a different level!!...

Right me and V are hungry and had enough of typing so off now to China town this afternoon for some tasty duck etc - why aren't we eating Thai I hear you ask, well seeing as we're in the crazy country for the next 30 days we've got plenty of time to eat Pad Thai Noodles!

Laa Kawn khrap. (Goodye)