Journey's End

We are home now and it's time to complete the story. But first if you look back over the past few posts, as far as Mui Ne in Vietnam, you'll find a few photographs have appeared.

Our flight from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Bangkok was the shortest of the whole trip at just 35 minutes in the air - followed by an hour to clear all the formalities to be allowed into Thailand, then another hour in a taxi into the city to find our hotel. That was not as easy as we expected because our taxi driver had never heard of the hotel and couldn't find it. Eventually he had to phone for directions, but it was worth it. Last time we were in Bangkok (also on a brief stopover) we had stayed in one of the big luxury hotels on the outskirts and travelled into the city on the elevated railway called the Skytrain. This time Norma had picked out a "boutique" hotel near the river and the Royal Palace. It turned out to be practically in the river and had only 12 rooms, but very friendly and a similar standard to the other hotels we had stayed in. We arranged a late checkout and a return taxi to the airport for our flight home, scheduled to leave just after midnight the next day, and set off to explore.


Among other things we crossed the river to the Wat Arun temple at sunset, visited several markets including the Flower Market which was only a short walk from our hotel, took a trip upriver and back on the Express Boat (quite an experience especially the return trip at rush hour), and almost by accident found ourselves wandering through the main backpackers area.


Our flight back to London in a packed British Airways 747 was tolerable. Since it was overnight with a time shift of seven hours we both slept quite a bit of the way. Then finally it was on to Edinburgh, arriving about 9 a.m. This flight was also full, but the passengers were very different - all business suits, huge briefcases and no checked baggage. We felt a bit out of place, especially carrying a large coolie hat!

We collected the car, visited Uncle Tam who seems to have done well without us and arrived back in Kinnesswood by lunch time. Thanks to our kind neighbours, all is well at home. We now need to sort out our photos so we can find an unsuspecting audience to show them to. When we get to that stage, hopefully soon, we'll post some of them on Flickr and put a link up here.