Happiness is not a matter of intensity
but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.
-- Thomas Merton

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Trek Home

I headed to our hotel restaurant for their breakfast buffet.  While I was there Matt called to tell me that Melissa’s cousin and her son had come to visit and I could join them in the lobby.  This was family I had not yet met.  

The little boy’s name was Posh and he has an English tutor.  He was eager to speak English.  He asked if Matt or Melissa had any US coins.  He collects coins.  Matt went up to their room and came back with a penny, a nickel, a dime and four quarters with emblems of four different states.  Posh was tickled.

As we checked out of the hotel we noticed that they were decorating for Lunar New Years.  

The driver to the airport did not terrify us.  We checked in our eight bags. We are going home with two more bags than we had when we came.

The Bangkok airport has many statues.  Spaced throughout the ticketing area are these statues with different colored faces.  The green giant is Mangkorakarn.  He had been an ungrateful buffalo who was reincarnated as a giant and cursed to die by arrow.

We went through the fast track security, passport control and headed to the tram to take us to our terminal.  I would call it a bullet tram.  It went so fast that even Yves became concerned.

All over the international terminal are these little robots that clean and vacuum the floors.

Our first flight was from Bangkok to Taipei.  It took three hours.  Yves slept most of the way to Taipei.

We tried out two airport lounges during our four hour layover.  We left Taipei around 11:30 p.m. for an 11 1/2 hour flight to LAX.  That same flight took us 14 hours from LAX to Taipei.  When we figured out we shaved off 2 1/2 hours going the other direction we were all delighted.  But it was still a long flight and we were exhausted when we landed.  We were scheduled to land at 7 p.m. but arrived at 6 p.m.  We sailed through customs and baggage claim.  Our driver was waiting for us.  We were back to my house by 8 p.m.  We ate dinner and headed to bed. What an amazing trip. Now we begin the trek of recovering from jet lag.




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