Travel day. We leave for the Siem Reap airport about 10:00 and go through fingerprinting and all again. Interesting that the things they won't allow on the plane include hand grenades and dynamite, along with the usual scissors, fireworks, etc.
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| What? We can't take our hand grenades? |
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| Flying over the Gulf of Thailand |
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| Bangkok from the air |
The flight to Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok takes about an hour. Chap and Mam are continuing on to ChiangMai, so we say our good-byes and the Tom and Sue and Greg and I get a taxi to a hotel Suvarnabhum near the BIG airport that we will leave from. Greg and I will leave just after midnight, but Tom and Sue don't leave till tomorrow. We have lunch at a cafe here on the 6th floor veranda. Then we look at photos, nap and mess around for a while. There is supposed to be music back on the 6th floor at 7:30 so we go back there and have drinks. Tom and I have ice cream. The live music never materializes, but they have nice music playing and it is a pleasant spot with a gorgeous full moon.
Greg and I get a taxi and head for the airport about 9:00. Long lines but we have no problems. There are delays due to problems with the water system on the plane, but we finally board about 1:00 AM and take off for London. Good thing we have a 3 hour lay-over in London!
Watched a few movies and Beth was able to sleep some. Thai Air is pretty nice, with more legroom, nice hot towels and free drinks and food. Due to congestion at Gatwick, we did a few loops before finally landing. 6,259 miles from Bangkok to London in 13 hours. Another 5,100 , 10 1/2 hours, to go to Houston.
Both legs of this journey had planes that had many empty seats, so we were able to spread out a bit. Greg managed to sleep some and we both watched some more movies. I enjoyed the photography in "Bears" and Woody Allen's "Magic in the Moonlight" was pretty good. Greg says "When the Game Stands Tall" was predictable but not bad.
We reached Houston according to schedule and breezed through customs. Our friend Jim was there to greet us on this beautiful sunny 65 degree day! Home again Home again and though we weren't up for dancing a jig, it was good to be home. Takeout Chinese for dinner since our cupboards were bare, and we lasted till about 8:00PM and crashed for about 12 hours!
Thai phrases we actually used: Sa wadee Ka - hello
Kop kuhn ka - thank you
Ped Nit Noi - a little spicy
Alloy mok mok - delicious
Ka - yes
Sounds like an uneventful trip back home, glad everything went so well. It sounds like you had the trip of a lifetime, congrats!
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