Thailand - travel days

 

Up early in Krabi and drove to the airport for our flight back to Bangkok where we said goodbye to Ammy. That evening she would meet a new group and again organize, cheer, photograph, educate and amuse them.

Emma had arranged for us to stay in a hotel near the airport for our last night and now we turned to her as our group leader. A nice hotel with a pool and a restaurant and I took my last Thai massage. We all met for dinner, just  little deflated as this was the end of our busy, fascinating time together.

We got up very early, 4:00am, to get to the airport in time for our flights. Amelia was going to Macaw to visit family, Judy and Gaeten to Vietnam and Cambodia, Karen and John back to the UK and the rest of us to Vancouver and on.

Our last group photo, at the airport.

 

Bangkok airport has some fabulous sculptures

and is bright and airy.

Then it was into my indulgent first class pod for the flight to Vancouver.

I had no idea how I was going to deal with the 12 hour time difference so just slept when I could and watched movies when I couldn't.

The flight from Bangkok was slightly delayed in landing so I had less then an hour and a half to run, heart pounding, through the airport following signs for USA departures. Had to go through security again, US customs and was one of the last people to get on the flight to Phoenix. 

Rick and I had talked about cancelling this part of the trip, to the US, given the political insanity that was just beginning - tariffs, lies, bullying and aggression, but I wanted to remind myself that the American people were not accurately represented by the current president. Many are very nice. And, guilt aside, I didn't want to deal with a southern Ontario winter.

I met Rick at a hotel in Phoenix and we rented a car the net day and drove to Clarkdale, about 30 minutes from Sedona.

Met Donatello, our friendly, next door neighbour. A Pit Bull/Mastiff cross, a very well behaved, big puppy.

 

On the first morning we were reminded that food insecurity is not just a Canadian problem as a truck pulled in to the parking lot next door and distributed food. Having grocery shopped we could understand why. Food prices here were more than in Canada and when we mentally factored in the exchange rate, much more!