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Published: October 20th 2019
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October 18 – Today is the start of our long trip back home. I didn’t sleep well again, and woke up and started reading at 6am. Becky got up at 6:30 and we packed up the rest of our things and headed to breakfast. I had my spicy Thai breakfast again and I think it was a little less spicy this time, but still noticeably burny. But it’s tasty, too. After breakfast we paid our hotel bill, gathered up the last of our things, and headed to Julie’s to say goodbye to her and Keith. We said our goodbyes when the van came to get us, and promised to get together the next time they’re in Switzerland.
We arrived at the ferry just as one was pulling away, so we had about 20 minutes to get out of the van while we waited for the next ferry. It was nice to see the views from the ferry in the daylight today, and there were a lot more people on this ferry than there had been on the first. There was a pick-up truck on the ferry full of something white and smelly. We finally heard that it was rubber, which
made complete sense once I thought about it. The rubber was in round shapes like the bowls that they collect it into when tapping the tree. We had seen many rubber trees being tapped on the island.
After the ferry we were taken to the airport and waited there for a couple of hours for our flight. It’s a small airport, and being that our flight was with Bangkok Airways, they had free snacks for us to nibble. The flight was short but they still served us a snack.
In Bangkok, we got our bags and I got two Halloween Krispy Kreme donuts. They were too cute not to. I put them in my bag so we could find the airtrain and get to the hotel, hoping they wouldn’t get too crushed along the way. The airtrain was easy to figure out and we only had to go six stops. From there it was either one or two stops by metro (it was unclear) or a short taxi ride, so we decided to get the taxi. But…we couldn’t find a taxi. So in the end, we just walked to the hotel. It was only about 15 minutes walking,
but it was quite warm and humid, which made it slightly less appealing. We walked along a small river path which seemed a little sketchy, but had school kids on it, so it seemed ok in the end and was pretty.
We got to the hotel quite sweaty, checked in and took showers to cool off. We stayed at a Radisson this time, and the room was nice, but the sliding bathroom door did not stay fully closed, which was hilarious. I ate my donuts while Becky showered, and really enjoyed the green tea Frankenstein one. Later we headed to the lobby to meet Megan, a friend who worked with us for the last two years but had moved to Bangkok a few months ago, for dinner. On the way to the lobby we stopped on the top floor to look around and found a gym and rooftop pool, both of which we would not have time to use. If we knew ahead of time, we could have gone swimming instead of shower, but it was fine.
Megan arrived around 6:30pm and we walked over to a nearby rooftop bar – the thing to do in Bangkok –
for a pre-dinner drink. I opted out for several reasons, including still being full of donuts. The views were great and it was nice to go up there anyway, even if I was dressed in my best safari look compared to their evening wear. Next we grabbed a tuk-tuk to Indulge, the fusion restaurant where we had reservations. We were supposed to have dinner with Becky’s cousin’s wife who lives in Bangkok, but she had just arrived that morning from Belgium, and had a cold, and she wasn’t up for a night out. I wouldn’t have been either, even without the cold. Jetlag is a good reason on its own. I ended up with an Asian style pork burger, a good transition from Eatern to Western food. We both had a great time catching up with Megan. She’s hilarious and it was great to see her. She’s had some fun adventures in her new home in a short time already. I was exhausted by the time we finally got back to the hotel and we went to bed around midnight.
October 19 – We woke up early at 6am to finish packing and get to the airport. We took
a hotel tuk-tuk to the subway, took the subway one stop and then the airtrain to the airport. We arrived a little more than two hours in advance, and check-in was very smooth with no wait. Security was also quite quick, but when we got to passport control I could see we would be there a while. It took half an hour to get through, since everyone has to repeat a photo and fingerprints on the way out as well. We had just enough time to get find some food and a bubble tea, scarf it down and get on the plane. On the plane I realized that the flight was longer than I’d remembered – 10 or 11 hours. It didn’t even bother me. I just figured it would be more time to watch movies, which was great. Becky and I decided on all the same movies – Yesterday, Tolkein, Colette and Mary Poppins Returns - and watched them at the same time, so we were watching together. We had lunch and dinner, along with some snacks in the middle that we picked up in the back of the plane along with some drinks. I enjoyed the movies and
also some games like Angry Birds and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Turns out Becky and I (together) have millionaire potential.
We finally arrived in Paris at CDG around 6:15pm, went through security, took a bus to a different terminal and went through an easy breezy passport control which took about 30 seconds each. I swear, most of the stamps in my passport are from Paris and Amsterdam, coming and going from Europe. Our flight home did not leave until 9:55pm, so we had some time to just sit around, peruse duty free and the internet and try not to remember that we’d been awake for about 20 hours by then.
The flight to Basel was short, less than an hour, and we slept and read a bit on the flight. Jeroen picked us up at the airport to take us home and it felt great to see him, get home quickly, pet my cats and get in bed. Another good trip done.
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coba grills
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