Eurasia Mega Trip 2026 - Days Fourteen and Fifteen - Transit To And Arrival In Alanya/Mahmutlar

 Sunday was devoted to travel. It is not actually that far from Malmo to the Mahmutlar of Alanya, but the nature of the actual travel made for a long day.

 Step One - Drive from Malmo to Copenhagen Airport

This involved finding a gas station, figuring out how to pay for the gas, filling the rental car, dropping the rental car off, figuring out where to get the transit bus of death (see arrival in Copenhagen post) , and getting to the airport departure terminal.

 Step Two - Getting to Our First Flight

Required going to the Terminal research said Turkish Airlines departed from, finding out the actual check in for Turkish is in the other terminal, schlepping to said other terminal, checking in, going through security and passport control, realizing the actual departure gate is in the terminal you originally went to, schlepping to said gate, gulping down a meal at airline lounge rushing to board and then boarding said flight.

Step Three - Transferring to Second Flight

Now in Istanbul, we must go by bus from the plane to the arrival area, clear passport control and security again, find the domestic airline lounge, figure out the special system for getting from the domestic lounge to the plane, taking the next plane to the Alanya airport.

Step Four - Getting to Our Airbnb

Wait for luggage which doesn't come out. Are found by airport personnel who let us know that as we came in on an out-of-country flight, our bags must still clear customs. Finally get into our transfer. Our actually met by our Airbnb host as the transfer arrives. Are helped registering which involves a fingerprint scan for entering the building, and finally get to the apartment. It was a good 21 hours before we finally got to sit down in the apartment and start getting settled.

We slept very late on Monday. It was 11:30 before we were out trying to find a supermarket as we had no food. There are two that are literally just outside the entrance to the building. Unfortunately Google Maps seemed to imply they were much further away so we did a bunch of unnecessary walking. By 1pm I was whipping up an egg and veggie scramble for brunch after which we collapsed again. 

It is quite hot here and we decided to not go out until after 6pm to look for something for dinner, get a few other items, and walk down to the water. The waterfront is about 3/4 of a mile from the apartment. We ate our first Donner Kebap for dinner, did a small amount of walking along the waterfront then returned to the apartment for collapse 3.0.

 Morning View from the apartment 

 

 Later view from same

 

My first experience with genuine Turkish style tea making apparatus. The apartment had left in it a HUGE bag of loose tea.

 

 You make the mother tea above very strong and add hot water to reduce the strength to taste.

I don't drink tea in general, but truly love Turkish Çay (pronounced Chai).

Enjoying Çay in traditional glass on apartment deck

 

Leaving the apartment to look for dinner

 

 

 Outside a traditional Parrot Kebap house

 

(That's not true. This is a pet store)

 

 First Doner Kebap of the trip

 

Lamb Hutay style with spicy tomato-pepper sauce

 

 

Chicken German style with salad inside

 

 

Walking the waterfront at nightfall

 

 

Arriving at home sweet home for the next three weeks

 

Eurasia Mega Trip Days Five through Seven - Transition from Poland to Sweden

On our Fifth Day, we made the move from Warsaw to the #3 family in Malmo, Sweden. This involved a flight on Finnair through Helsinki to Copenhagen where we rented a car and drove the 30 minutes to get to the #3 home. 

Our first flight was not very full so we had no one next to us and could stretch out. The opposite was true for the second flight which was packed and uncomfortable. Neither was particularly long so it was bearable. 

Our luggage arrival was the opposite of our Warsaw experience with our bags being the first off the plane. Then it was on to get our rental car. Copenhagen Airport uses the shuttle bus system to get to and from the rental car center. I intensely dislike these because it is a huge hassle when you have many bags. For this particular experience, we had a driver who clearly was practicing for his Formula 1 audition. We were all being thrown around the vehicle as it made its way to the center. Then, suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and all of us were thrown forward. It was fortunate that no one was hurt though both Wife and I had bruises and soreness. 

As is usually the case with auto rental, the check-in process is slow and tedious. We were fortunate be at the front of the line. 

Car enabled we headed out to Malmo. We had our usual drive of terror getting out of the parking garage as I, the driver, am trying to get the vehicle to do what I want it to (in this case having the seat STOP giving me a massage, and the navigator, Wife, trying to keep me from driving into poles, other cars, other people and on the road in the right direction. 

It is an easy drive over a long bridge to go from Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmo, Sweden. It actually takes less time to do this drive than it did to go to the north part of Copenhagen where the #3's used to live. 

We pretty much chilled the whole weekend, Wife and I being tired from our initial trans-Atlantic flight, two hard touring days in Warsaw, and beat up from the rental car bus incident. We did do some food shopping, and I treated the 3's to a trip to their relatively new Costco where they experienced the full-on Costco weekend experience and purchased massive quantities of meat, poultry, and shelled pistachio nuts. 

But on Monday, it was back to touring. But that is the next post.  

Eurasia Mega Trip 2025 - Days One and Two - de-I and Wife Show How Veteran Travelers Role with the Punches

Day One and Two are all Travel. Getting from the US of A to our first agenda stop, Warsaw, Poland. 

On paper, this was a reasonably simple voyage. Pick-up a flight in Albuquerque. Fly to Chicago. Connect to our fight to Warsaw, Poland. Get to our Airbnb and there you are. First two days of travel done. But in the world of air travel there are always surprises that require the traveler to adjust. The travel of the last two days was a classic example. 

Our Monday morning flight from Albuquerque to Chicago was sold out. And it took off quite a bit late for number of incremental reasons. There were many on the flight with tight connections. The flight crew asked that all the passengers who did not have tight connections, let those who did deplane first. To my amazement, everyone did just that. 

It was no sweat to Wife and I as we had a 5 hour layover. Despite all that time, we found when we went to board that we were required to get the connecting plane's specific boarding passes as we were on another airline. Minor hiccup in the scheme of things. 

A couple minor things on the flight; wife's video remote didn't work, they didn't give us menus, etc. nothing major.

We arrive in Warsaw Poland. We have been warned by the EEU's new biometric entry/exit system could lead to long delays at arrival. That turned out NOT to be the case. We were off our plane in very short order, and while to process took a bit of time, it was not actually much longer than normal. 

That was offset by our bags not arriving. You would think that with all the travel de-I and Wife have done over the decades that this would be a common occurrence. But I've actually never had a bag misplaced. After waiting and waiting, Wife finally found the lost baggage office. Our airline app told us the bags had been loaded on the plane. A few calls and they said that maybe our bags didn't get on the conveyor underneath for some reason. We're told to go back to the baggage carousel and wait another 15 minutes or so to see if they came up. Damn if they didn't. 

Great! Now we have bags. We are too early to check-in to our Airbnb. We've been instructed to call the person cleaning the apartment when we arrive. They will arrange for us to drop off our bags until the apartment is ready. Except the phone number given to us doesn't work. So we cool our heels in the airport. Finally, we get a message on Airbnb with the correct phone number. We can come and drop off our bags.

We do. Now we have to kill four hours until we can get in the apartment. We try walking around but are too tired. So we find a park bench and just wait. 

At last we make it to the apartment. It is pretty nice. After the keeper shows us around, we are unpacking. Wife turns a bedroom light on and there is a huge electrical snapping noise followed by lights being off in about 25% of the apartment. We call the keeper back. The circuit breaker box was hidden behind a panel in a closet. Find the proper breaker. Lights back on. Later find a tiny bulb in a fixture had burst and their were small glass fragments on one of the beds. (Since I slept in that bed, I can confirm I got them off and did not wake up a bloody mess.)

We decided to go to the supermarket near by to get some things for breakfast (which turned out to be a very good idea). For dinner, we went to an Italian pizza place because it was close. 

After dinner, we relaxed and just settled in. Transition complete. Voyage has commenced. 

 

A Peak Behind The Curtains Of ElderFleet Command or How A Mega Trip Is Created

 Any reasonable follower of this blog would be sure, absolutely sure, that de-I and Wife would be toning down the extent of their travel. I mean, it has certainly been stated often enough on these posts the need to accept the limitations of one's age, to slow down a bit as it were. How then do we end up with a 10 week trip covering two continents, five countries, and 6 cities? (Which I am calling EURASIA MEGA TRIP 2026) Let's see if we can peel back the decision-making process used by ElderFleet to decide where and how long to send their star duo, Wife and de-I on their adventures.

A Trip is Born

The genesis of the current trip goes back to October of 2025 when our joyous return to El Campello convinced us to book again for October of 2026. So October of 2026 is committed to and we casually put out thoughts as to what else we might do on this trip.

The Flap of the Butterfly's Wings

The famous analogy for Chaos Theory. In this case, the event is a seemingly innocuous statement from Wife.

"You know de-I, if you didn't plant tomatoes and chiles that require us to stay until mid-September, we could leave earlier and travel longer." 

The Red Flag in Front of the Bull

I asked Wife (this is still while we are in El Campello, in fact, during the first week we are there) where she wanted to go. We bounced some ideas, checked some options, and then decided to check an area we'd meant to go to but never had gotten to...the southern coast of Turkiyë. Looking quickly on Airbnb, I (amazingly) find an apartment that seems to be exactly what we look for. Since it has free cancellation up to a couple of weeks before arrival, we decide to book it for three-weeks in September before doing much research on the area. 

Now we have our month in October and three-weeks in September of 2026 booked.  

The Return of Incremental Planning

• There is a gap between the time we finish in Turkiyë and when we arrive at El Campello. Madrid is a good place to go. We've changed over there but never really toured it. 

•  We want to stop in and see the #3's as long as we are in Europe. We should try to do that before we go to Turkiyë. Add another week of travel.

• Now I have to find us reasonable airfare to and from Europe. I have my air travel shopper mode going. A few months later, an excellent deal on points will get us from Albuquerque to Warsaw, Poland with one stop. It is not far by air from Warsaw to Copenhagen which is where you fly in to get to the #3's. 

• And we've wanted to visit Warsaw anyway. So let's add a few days there.

• We still need to get back. A few months later still and another good deal shows up going from Brussels, Belgium to Washington, D.C. And I can get a good self-connect flight from Alicante to Brussels and then from Washington, D.C. to Albuquerque. Book that.

• It requires a couple of days in Brussels. Well we haven't been there since we were first married. 

 Et Voila - EURASIA MEGA TRIP 2026 is conceived. 

 

When you realize all of ElderFleet Command understands the type of planning done by de-I and Wife, you understand better why we have had to resort to the Press Gang to man the Eldership. 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Landing Elder Base Albuquerque Completed

The Eldership docked at Elder Base Albuquerque at roughly 20:45 on Wednesday Apr 8. 

Captain Wife reported that all the crew made it back successfully (which is good since even one loss would be a 50% casualty rate...not good for promotion review in the future). After a day of getting all of the ship unloaded, she was prepared to command over to ElderFleet (a bit reluctantly as she realizes that the next voyage under the revolving command cycle will be commanded by de-I).

Wife and de-I will be assigned temporary duty related to ongoing maintenance at the Towers until their next mission scheduled for late August. 

de-I has been assigned post mission summarizing report duty the results of which will be published publicly on this blog in the next few days. 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Concluding With One Of Those Longest Days And Some Irony

We are cooling our heels in the United Airlines Lounge in San Francisco Airport. As is frequently the case returning from Asia, you travel a long time (in this case around 32 hours) but end up arriving the same day as you left because of the time zone differences. 

If you been following our travels in recent years, we are still fighting to find the formula for these long distance trip returns that gives us sufficient rest so we don't get sick. I really thought we had this one figured out as we had our longest leg (9 hours) going overnight through our natural sleep period. And we were flying a really great plane, ANA's Boeing 777 which has one of the largest business class seats around. Ideal set up for reasonable sleep. 

However, fate conspired against us. During the meal service, we encountered extreme turbulence which caused the meal service to be delayed right in the middle by an hour in the middle of it. That was an hour of precious sleep lost. Then for some reason ANA wakes everyone up 2 hours before landing for breakfast. Most other airline wait until an hour or an hour and a quarter before landing. So a bit more precious sleep lost. And for scheduling reasons, we have a very long layover here for the last flight. We will see how this all plays out.

And to add that bit of irony mentioned in the title, we were looking forward to some basic Western fare at the United Club. Nope. Asian. Asian soups, Thai Curry, Chinese Stir-fry. And very mediocre versions of those. Guess will have to wait for home cooking to get our Western food fix.

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Days Thirty Nine and Forty - A Little Lagniappe From Malaysia

On Monday, we relaxed, packed, had our last (or thought it was our last) Malaysian meal and began preparing ourselves for the long trip home. Today, we used the same service to take us back to Kuala Lumpur. They upgraded our vehicle because they had one in JB for a delivery. It was really nice with captain's chairs that reclined. Very de-I worthy 🤣. This driver drove even faster than the one taking us down. He cut 45 minutes off of the time it took to get to JB. I guess if you fail to make it on the professional auto racing circuit, you get a job with this limo company. 

We are staying again at our 'happy transit place' at the Kuala Lumpur airport, the Sama Sama Hotel. We have a very early (7:15am) departure so we wanted to eat on the early side so we could go to sleep early. We debated eating at the hotel. But it is quite expensive, at least by Malaysian standards, and is a bit pretentious compared to what we've been eating. So we decided to go to the airport itself which is a quick 5 minute golf cart ride from the hotel. There are a myriad of food options (around 20) on the land side part of the terminal. 

Wife declared she had a craving for Chicken Curry Rice one more time. So began the search. The food options are on three different floors and we checked them out...as in checking out each and every one. We found a multitude of chicken curry with noodle options, but no Chicken Curry Rice. We arrived at the very last eating place option, 

 

 A very traditional Malaysian 'diner' type of place as we'd been enjoying during our time in JB. Sure enough, on the menu was Chicken Curry Rice

 

 Wife was so happy. What a lovely little lagniappe for Malaysia to give to her.

Honestly, as much as I wanted to have another Curry Laksa or Curry Mie, my system is suffering from over eating. So I opted for something I wanted to try but hadn't ordered yet, Rojak

 

 This is basically a fruit, vegetable salad in a very thick dressing that was sweet with a chile spicy kick. It took me a while to adjust to the temperature (cold), texture (very crunchy), and flavor but ultimately, it really hit the spot for my over indulged system. I also had a last cup of great, black, Malaysian coffee

Wife then proclaimed that she wished she had ordered one of the places 'famous' egg tarts. 

 

 Which even have their own special section

 

 We ended up ordering a couple to take to our hotel room for later. 

All in all, it was a lovely, unexpected last meal for our trip and even though this was an airport restaurant, we spent no more than we'd been paying in JB (which was about 50 to 60% less than the hotel restaurant would have). We even had a nice kibitz with the buggy driver back about our meal and all we'd eaten and liked in Malaysia. 

And because you are THE MOST WONDERFUL BLOG FOLLOWERS, I offer you one last...

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

During our restaurant search, we walked past the airport police and overheard a lecture being given. Not to the police, BUT TO SOME WOULD BE CRIMINALS!

 

 Evidently these would be criminals are rather inept compared to the professional gangs of China and it has become an embarrassment.

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Day Thirty One - Get Thee Back To Asia For Real! Transitioning Again

Not much to write about today. Yesterday was just a travel day. We packed up, cleaned up the Airbnb per instructions, and were whisked the 3 hours back north to Perth International Airport. By Pooh Lee Shah Carriage Services. They promise the smoothest most stress free ride and delivered in spades. (😱)

 Check is was a bit bizarre as at the Malaysia Airlines Business Class check-in there was a family checking in with about a dozen people. And there was just one check-in agent. Finally, the ground staff saw the problem and whisked us to another area to get quickly checked-in. 

Our flight departed and arrived early. It was just a narrow body plane so the seats, even in business class, were not great. Malaysia Airlines catering, however, was again, very good. 

When we arrived, we used the automated passport control which defeated us last time. This time we were successful. Our bags were already out. It was our fastest arrival through KLIA ever. Once at the Sama Sama hotel, we found we were again in the executive floor. Not sure why this happening. Have we become recognized as frequent guests?

Today, we drive 3 hours to Johor Bahru for the last part of our stay. 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Day Twenty Two to Twenty Four - Since When Is Australia In Asia?

The more fact checking of the blogs readers might state - "Hey de-I, I don't want to be a party pooper but last time I looked Australia is NOT in Asia. It is its own continent. So why the heck isn't your current series entitled "Asia-Australia Mega Tour 2026?" Well the truth is I forgot to correctly title it in the beginning and to change it now would mean going back and editing 18 individual posts and I haven't gotten up the motivation to change it yet. But now that I have been outed, I might have to do it. 

Anyway, back to the action!

 Last day in Phuket

My partner in travel crime! 

 

 We went to an actual 'tourist restaurant' for our last meal. Sadly, like most tourist restaurants, it had pretty food that was toned down for the international market. However, these deep fried prawns were great.

 

 The less than pleasant KL interlude

We had decided to do an overnight in Kuala Lumpur to rather than have a very long travel day going from Phuket to Perth Australia. In our attempt to seek out good sleep, we decided to get an apartment with multiple bedrooms rather than our regular Sama Sama airport hotel. But we were also trying to save money and when you cheap out you get...a place that stunk had hardly any amenities, and little in the way of furniture.

Wife making the best of the one couch using the high chair as her end table. Don't be fooled by the smile. She and I were pissed.

 

We had planned to hang out in this apartment until check out time at Noon then go to the airport as our flight didn't leave until almost 8pm. But we were so bummed by the apartment that we got out of there as soon as we woke up. At the airport, we were able to check in despite being so early but were told we couldn't get into the business class lounge until two hours before flight time. Fortunately we have membership in another airport club company and were able to go to different lounge first. There we were met by the #2 clan who had just flown from Medan. We did got to the Malaysia Airlines Golden Lounge early and this time they let us in. They had some interesting food options including these two made to order soups. But don't ask me their names.

 

The timing of our flight from to Perth, Australia had us arriving at 1:30am. We did get a hotel for the stub of the night that was left which was welcome. But it was still a pretty tired crew in the morning. I went off with 2B to get our rental vehicle. We had a most helpful person at the rental company desk who helped us get a larger vehicle for all our luggage. This was the first of many pleasant people exchanges we've had so far on this trip. To the hotel, pack up the vehicle and off for the 3+ hour drive to Gracetown, a beach front community in the famous wine region of Margaret River. 

 We'd barely gotten out of the hotel when 2B goes to adjust the rear view mirror when...

 

 It falls off. 2B is trying to navigate driving on the left for the first time in a long time, with a huge vehicle, in busy traffic, on a road with narrow lanes, all while four other people are trying to suggest what the heck we should do. We pulled off the road, tried to reattach it and failed. We decided to push on with our trip.

We got to the town of Busselton which is only 45 minutes from our destination. We found a location for the rental car company. But it was just a franchise operation operating from another business with no one actually there. However the nice person in the office let us all use the office toilet. 

The next idea was to find a dealership for the make of the rental. This was successfully found. A maintenance person, took time to come out, look at the situation, and declare he really didn't have an idea of how to deal with it. But they recommended a glass company not far away. 

 Happy travelers? It's a fraud. We were all frustrated.

 

 We got to the glass company and again, the people were really friendly. A tech came out and said, "Sure, I know how to fix this. We just glue it on."

 

 Which he promptly did in about 10 minutes telling us to "Be gentle with it."

We finally made it to the rental.

 

 

We ran into Margaret River to buy provisions and had a French picnic meal with us all being exhausted.

 On Saturday morning we were off to the weekly farmers' market in Margaret River. Normally I'm pretty skeptical of farmers' markets as a lot of the produce sold is being purchased from commercial production. But it was very obvious looking at what was offered here that the produce was local and seasonal. AND we met a lot of interesting and friendly people.

This guy actually knew where New Mexico was! His family had roots back to Russia who emigrated to the U.S. the turn of the 19th/20th century and made their way to Arizona to live. They were pacifists and found the U.S. to not be friendly to that life choice and them moved on to Margaret River Western Australia.

 

 The young lady in this picture heard we were interested in seeing the local Australian Rules Football team and became very animated because a lot of her friends are fans or are involved playing.

 

 Wife enjoying a high quality beef filled roll

 

 Vendor of said roll

 

 2B perusing the market options

 

 #2 purchasing organic beef and lamb for us to grill. The guy turned out to be from New Zealand and we discussed the tough state of affairs currently in the country.

 

 2.4 enthusiastic about the market

 

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

  'Down Under' Special 

 You want high quality eggs? This is the place to come.

 

We all know grass fed garlic is the best

 

 Education of their elder population is extremely important in Western Australia

 

 You know fire danger is significant when 'High' is the second to the lowest rating you go all the way up to Catastrophic.

 

 There be secret alien type things going on in Western Australia as well as Nevada USA

 

 Clearly a place for people like me

 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Day Thirteen - Medical Tourism

Background:

On March 5, returning from Ghana, I incurred a major problem with my right foot that caused substantial pain and swelling, and prevented me from walking. While not initially sure what the situation was, going to the Emergency Room and talking with my primary care physician we were able to confirm over a 10 day period that I had incurred what is called a major gout flare-up.

Very little information was given to me by either medical source related to this situation. Doing my own research, I found out a lot more about gout (it relates to the buildup of uric acid crystal in one’s joints) and its treatment. Further, when I added information related to having a single kidney, the information and cautions related to standard treatments for gout were significant. I settled on a change in behavior related to what I was eating, hydration, alcohol consumption, and periods of foot elevation. This allowed me to reduce the flare swelling substantially, and return to normal walking. I managed the long flight to SE Asia with no deterioration of condition.

Arriving in Medan and discussing the situation with 2B and #2, 2B did further research. This lead to an identification of inter-connectivity between kidney functionality and the occurrence of gout flareups. In short, one can have positive and/or negative influences on the other. This led to a conclusion on my part that I needed to deal with this issue in an integrated fashion.

At this point, the Pu Lee Shah clan adults strongly recommended I take advantage of the Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok. It is the ‘go-to’ place for high quality medical treatment for Americans in the Foreign Service in SE Asia. In evaluating this as an option, we discussed the advantages of the speed of medical evaluation and recommendations, and the high likelihood of being able to get the desired integrated advice. Neither of these (speed nor integration) were very likely to happen back in Albuquerque. We made a reservation for me (using #2's top notch assistant) for yesterday.

Report on the Hospital Visit:

As Wife and I wanted to disrupt our stay in Phuket as little as possible, we decided to go up and back to Bangkok the same day. We were able to make very affordable reservations on Air Asia, leaving Phuket at 7:30am, arriving Bangkok at 8:50am, and returning leaving Bangkok at 7:55pm and arriving 9:10pm in Phuket. It takes an hour to get to the Phuket Airport from where we are staying so we were out of the door at 5:30am. I had allocated 2-hours to get from the airport to the hospital and due to traffic and construction we used up all but 20 minutes of that.

Here was my schedule at the hospital (Wife also a consultation during this period as well).

·      11:00am - Register as new patient with the hospital. Get confirmation of all your appointments.

·      11:30am – Blood taken for lab work

·      Noon – Ultrasound of kidney, bladder, and prostate. Urine sample taken for lab work

·      Between Noon and 1pm – Grab some lunch at hospital snack area

·      1:00pm – Consultation with Nephrologist (kidney specialist). This was delayed a bit because it took longer to get the urine lab done.

·      3:00pm – Consultation with Rheumatologist (joint inflammation specialist)

·      4:00pm – Check out and pick-up prescription

By 4:30pm, roughly 5 and half hours after we arrived, we were done. We were able to catch a Grab rideshare back to the Bangkok airport within minutes and the ride there was only 20 minutes. We were so early, we were able to book a seat on an earlier flight and got back to Phuket at 7:30pm which was earlier than the time we were to leave Bangkok originally. This was good because we were beat. I had communicated with our transfer service and were able to get it changed. We got back into our rental at around 9:21pm and collapsed.

Report on the Medical Findings and Recommendations:

The most important information I sought from this hospital visit was a thorough evaluation of my kidney function. Prior to the donation in 2008, I had been told I could expect my remaining kidney to deteriorate at a small but steady rate after the operation. In fact, such deterioration is the norm for all aging people. However, if you only have a single kidney, and have decreased your overall kidney function capacity, that deterioration might be more meaningful. At the time, I didn’t think much of it as the period projected seemed a long ways away. Oopsie. That time has arrived. 😬  While we have tracked certain kidney performance markers consistently, this is the first time since the donation that I have had a Kidney Specialist actually do a full examination. What he found and reported was as follows:

·      Overall, my kidney function is working reasonably well.

·      It physically shows no signs of deterioration.

·      It is doing the job it should be doing in terms of recycling proteins (one of the two primary functions).

·      However, its overall filtering capacity (taking the bad things out of your blood) has diminished. It has gone from ‘good’ (where it was when I donated) to ‘borderline watch list’.

·      I won’t bore you with the specific metric but the ‘low risk’ range goes from 60 and up. I am at 59.3, so just barely in the ‘increased risk’ category.

So the overall diagnosis is that I would be advised to be careful with my diet and make sure I am hydrating to decrease the stress on my kidney. And this means being really careful with any drugs that I might use for the gout that are hard on the kidney. However, decreasing the incidence of gout would take pressure off the kidney as well. A conundrum.

So then it was on to the consultation with the Rheumatologist. Here is where the decision to do this at Bumrungrad really paid off. The doctor had the results from the kidney specialist. She went into great detail as to the affect of high uric acid in the blood, how it comes about, how it affects gout, and how it interrelates with the kidney. In her opinion reducing the uric acid count in my blood was a prime objective both to control the gout and help the kidney. She recommended a course of medications tailored in dosage by starting lower than normal to gauge the results and make sure I was not suffering any ill side effects.

She has scheduled a tele-medicine follow-up in April. I will need to get blood work done prior to that meeting and sent to her.

Some Conclusions:

Like any visit to a new system, especially one not in your home country, there were periods of confusion. But nothing really bad. The ability to get all of this done in five and a half hours really boggles the mind. Plus the almost seamless integration of the kidney specialist with the gout specialist was exactly what I had hoped for and was exceedingly skeptical that I would get in Albuquerque. I got adequate time and information that allowed me to make reasoned choices. I found the conclusions and recommendations to be balanced and relevant.

Initially, I told the gout specialist that I would be looking for someone in the U.S. so I had better access ongoing assistance. However, as I have reflected, this doctor is going to be looking at lab work and adjusting medication appropriately. Is that something I need physical access for? I am inclined to continue working with her and this hospital for at least the next year. There is an excellent chance we will be back in SE Asia next year and I would have the opportunity to do another check-up to see how things are progressing.

I’ve mentioned the time efficiency working with this hospital. A comment on costs would be appropriate. The total cost for my visit was $1,030. Of this the actual charge for the doctors time was $320. The remainder was for the lab work, the nursing, other personnel, and the drugs prescribed. It is true that I could have gotten most of this done paid by insurance (maybe, if it was all approved) at home, but it would have taken me months to get the appointments and as mentioned previously, I am not sure at all about having the advice integrated. I very much appreciated having all of this done super-fast and efficiently.

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Days Ten, Eleven & Twelve - Transitioning To Thailand

We have left Pulandia/Indonesia and have arrived in the major tourist destination of Phuket, Thailand. 

Last Saturday was our last day in Medan. We mostly were packing though we did go out one last time with 2's. Sunday we were up early to catch our flights. We went via Singapore on Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines is in the same alliance as United so I have some carry over status and we were able to use the club before we departed and got priority boarding. Singapore Airlines is considered one of the top in the world in terms of service. Although we flew Economy, they served a hot meal on both flights even though those flights were only an hour and half long. How they can pull that off is quite the feat. 

Even though the flights were a good connection with one hour journey's to and from airports on either end resulted in a long day. We were pretty tired by the time we got to our place in Rawai, which is a bit calmer than most of the beach locales in Phuket. Thank goodness we are thoroughly experienced users of the Grab ride-share, delivery system. We were able to order groceries and a dinner meal and have them delivered to us within an hour. 

Today, Monday was recuperation. We took a short walk just to get our bearings, ordered more groceries as I decided to cook something rather than order out. Did some laundry. Tried out our mini-pool. 

On Tuesday, unfortunately, we have a jaunt up to Bangkok to do some medical tourism. There is a super quality hospital that does very fast work, very inexpensively. I want to check out how my kidney is doing and get advice on how to deal with my gout given only having one kidney. We'll be up early flying again. Hopefully, we can get everything done in a day.

 Road to our place

 

 We would be 3D10

 

 Our place

 

Hmmmmmm

 

 First glimpse of Rawai Beach

 

 

 SIGNS OF THE WORLD

 In order:

 People who are ventriloquists, Dwarfs, Soft shoe dancers, Overweight men, stooped over men, Formula 1 racers

 

In case of Tsunami, run you ass off!