I've written before about the excellent and inexpensive medical care at private hospitals in Thailand. My experience at Bangkok's Samitivej Hospital reinforced my overwhelming positive impression of medical services in Thailand. Samitivej is one of two hospitals in Bangkok where I could get the exam required by my cruise line employer.

Medical certificates for cruise ships are good for two years, and crew members joining a vessel must present one that will remain valid for the entire duration of their contract before going aboard. The medical certificate I had from my previous two contracts expires in March 2009, seven weeks before the end of my upcoming contract. So I need to get another one. I asked my agent to see if the cruise line would let me get the exam in Thailand, where the price would be a fraction of the cost an equivalent exam in the US, and he reported back to me that I just needed to get the exam with one of two approved physicians.

I chose Samitivej Hospital merely because it was closer to the hotel where Duk and I stay in Bangkok. After a trip on the Sky Train to the Phrom Phon station and a 1.5km walk through a posh residential neighborhood down Sukhumvit Soi 49, we showed up at the appointed hour of 8am on Nov. 3. First, some paperwork, then I was whisked back to the lab where a nurse drew a little blood and handed over a cup for a urine sample. I made a trip to the bathroom, and after a short wait, I was taken to another room for a chest X-ray.

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The prospect of returning to my country as it struggles with the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen is strangely appealing. Somehow I feel that I want to be there to go through it with my fellow Americans. The thought that I might return to a country in the midst of a transition between President George Bush to President Barack Obama makes me even more enthusiastic.

Yes, I've decided to return to California. My main reasons for leaving Phuket are that my employment here has not turned out the way I hoped. I settled down here with intention of staying for at least a couple of years -- at least enough time to leave a definitive mark on Phuket Post. But a number of things have led me to conclude that I won't be able to do what I want to do, and I won't bother my few faithful readers with the gory details.

Today is as good as any to make this announcement. I purchased my return ticket this morning, and I'll depart Bangkok in the early evening of Nov. 6 and land 20 minutes later in San Francisco. Thanks to crossing the International Date Line, I'll get back the full day that I lost in mid-January when I came here. If only the flight were 20 minutes long. Total travel time will be along the lines of 16 hours. Ugh. I don't think there's a longer possible flight in the world than Bangkok to San Francisco.

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Yes, the recent lapse in my daily posts started with a head cold, which took me out for three days of nothing but sleep (and a visa run to Ranong). But several other events came down in recent days, including one related to this cryptic clue. Of course, I'll tell all soon.

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There's definitely a reason the French Riveria is so posh. Put aside all the fancy hotels and the fantastically priced boutiques, and you still have miles of world-class beachfront. That's the first impression I have as the Grand Princess easily glides to anchor half a mile offshore of the marina at Cannes. Some time later, after several groups of passengers who had signed up for tours left the boat, I boarded a tender (one of the ship's lifeboats) and landed at a carpeted, tent-shaded quay in Cannes.

Immediately apparent was that the city of Cannes was preparing for the city's famed film festival in a big way. All along the main waterfront drag, crews were building tent structures for vendors. Banners for film production companies flew from hotel balconies, and almost every building bloomed with posters for films.

I had only one item on my sightseeing agenda for Cannes: to walk the sands of a beach and wade in the Mediterranean for the first time. So I walked and walked and walked past the luxury hotels, past the strangely named Theatre Claude Debussy. (Strange not that it's named after Debussy but that it appeared to be a movie theater—not a concert hall—named after a French impressionist composer.) I walked past all the beachfront restuarants. Each had a patio of umbrella-shaded tables upon a wooden deck above the sand, with chaise lounges stretching out to a section of water, which was cordoned off with buoys to protect each eating establishment's waterfront. Finally I found a municipal beach populated by a family crowd: parents and children murmuring in French, young sunbathers oiling up for the day. I peeled off my shoes and socks, walked to the water's edge and trudged up and down along the beach a couple of times. Mission accomplished.

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Oh, Barcelona, I have fallen in love with you, and I hardly know you. At first blush, you seemed like an unremarkable Mediterranean port town. A noble place, for sure, with grand architecture and a wizened presence suitable to an Old World city. Your graces, however, are revealed not in a flash, but in a seduction. Your streets vibrate with life. Your monuments pay tribute to a legacy of kings. Your buildings hold the boulevards with quiet elegance.

And your people. Dark and lovely, they move easily down La Rambla on a promising Friday afternoon. They stride downhill toward the marina or hurriedly motor on a scooter through the alleyways of the Gothic District, where the narrow faces of these beautiful people mirror the graceful lines of a cathedral that reaches to heaven in a cascade of pointed arches.

Yes, I fell in love with this city. After a mere 20 minutes of walking the streets to find a post office, I knew that a single day would not be enough to experience Barcelona's delights. I walked La Rambla, the main avenue downtown, with a crush of people promenading along a broad paseo in the median. Mimes lined the street striking poses as statues—a Roman senator, a devil, a military captain, a woman growing out of a patch of flowers in violent bloom—as well as painters turning out portraits of passersby in 20 minutes, newsstands bulging with souvenirs and sidewalk cafes serving eclectic fare at extravagant prices.

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After my morning workout and a two-hour practice session, I wandered out on the Promenade Deck to see the rock of Gibralter slowly moving aft along the port side of the ship. We were directly in the middle of the Strait of Gibralter on a glorious morning—cool and a bit breezy, but flat on the surface of the sea. I gawked for a few minutes and then went back to my cabin to fetch my camera. A few photos later, I walked through the ship to the starboard side and saw the hills of Marrakesh and the tip of Africa.

To my eyes, the Strait of Gibralter is hardly more than two miles from the tip of Europe to the tip of Africa. Now that I have seen it firsthand, I can understand in a new way how control of Gibralter has long been the key for any civilization seeking dominance in the Mediterranean.

The weather today is quite remarkable. During our Atlantic crossing, I heard several stories about rough weather or tough currents. We've had neither.

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After five days at sea, the Grand Princess finally made landfall at Punta Delgada, Azores Islands, a province of Portugal, and I was certainly ready to get off the ship for the first time. Since I joined at Galveston, TX, I have spent a full eight days on board—rather a long stretch, by most accounts. Most of the veteran crew started to get antsy toward the end of the five-day-long Atlantic crossing.

I could hardly stifle a giggle upon walking down the gangway and boarding a shuttle that would take me the short distance along the quay and into town. Having rarely left California, here I stood at the edge of the Old World thousands of miles away from my Santa Cruz, CA home.

Punta Delgada is definitely Old World. The shuttle stopped along the wall of a centuries-old fort. The streets are cobblestoned all around the town center, and the narrow sidewalks are inlaid with white tiles in simple scrollwork patterns. Just off of the central plaza downtown is a small church that, from the looks of it, dates earlier than the 16th century.

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I can hardly keep myself awake at the moment. Right now it's 1:30pm, and the ship's somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, about two and a half days out of Miami. Here we're in open space, responsible to no nation or government. Perhaps my biological clock is likewise unregulated and my sleepiness a result. At any rate, when I took out my laptop to write, I sat up on my bunk and quickly nodded off for about 30 minutes.

My bunk is quite cozy. I have the lower of two stacked berths, with my cabinmate Anatolie on the top bunk. There's a small shelf at the head of the bed where I leave my current book and a small digital alarm clock. There's a reading light, too, and a set of curtains around the exposed side of the bunk, so when I go to bed at night, I turn on the light, draw the curtains and luxuriate in the 25 square feet of space on this ship that is mine all mine.

Such small personal space may seem like a privation. I remember going fairly insane in a shared dorm room when I first went away to college. This time around, perhaps with the benefit of another almost 20 years of life experience, it's no problem whatsoever. In fact, I rather enjoy my cabinmate. Anatolie's one of the ship's two solo pianists. He sounds great on the piano in atrium amidships—his primary venue.

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