I must admit I woke up excited to be heading home-six weeks was LONG time to travel and I was just ready to be done backpacking. Had we seen everything there is to see? Certainly not. Absolutely not. But 17 cities in 41 days left us a bit exhausted. On to our last day!
We were at breakfast at 8am. My last day of toast & eggs. I might never eat another scrambled egg.
We walked to the boat docks to catch the commuter boat a few stops to finally see the Vimanmek Mansion. I had two reasons for wanting to see this:
1. The structure was made without a single nail. It's the largest teak wood structure in the world. I thought that was pretty cool.
2. Entrance was "included" in our admission ticket to the Grand Palace. And gosh darn it, I wanted to collect every piece I could of that $14 entrance fee ticket.
We caught up on blogging as we waited for the boat. We waited an exceptionally long time-we traveled this route before (you'll remember from our Bangkok day 2 post) & the boats came quite frequently, but they sure were not frequent today. Happy Husband was a bit frustrated by this wait-as we had a busy day. We eventually boarded the boat.
As we walked, we noticed more of a police presence on the street & that photos of the King & Queen were decorated. Of course I had to stop & snap a pic.
We sweated the 25 minute walk to the Vimanmek Mansion. I was thankful that I opted for a dress & to rent covered clothing upon arrival. We arrived-but couldn't find the entrance. But we knew it was here-we'd been inside before!!
Another tourist couple told us it was CLOSED!! Closed-again!!!!!!!! Something about a national holiday-which made sense with the longer than usual boat schedule and the quieter streets. Ahhhh! I was so mad-we'd come here twice & I'd already paid for the ticket and I couldn't get in. We later found out it was the birthday of a monk & no alcohol could be served for the next 2 days.
We walked back another 25 minutes (thankfully most of it was in the shade) with a stop at 7 Eleven. Chris got iced coffee and I had lychee pear soda (yes, emotional eating). We got back on the boat. What a huge bust.
As we exited the boat we saw Thai massage advertised. I couldn't leave Thailand without experiencing a famous Thai massage. I also liked this location better than those on the tourist street-I didn't want a massage while sitting in the middle of the street. I wanted to relax.
I changed into one size fits no one clothing & was shown to a large "bed" to receive my massage.
I decided this time I was going to say something if it wasn't hard enough. Well, that wasn't in her vocabulary. So I demonstrated by squeezing on her forearm. She said OK, but there was no change in pressure of her massage. I thought with one little tool, I could increase customer satisfaction. I'd make a placard that says "soft, medium, hard" that customers can point to. And a picture of the human body where you can point to tender areas or "please massage" areas. These were the things I thought about during my "relaxing" Thai massage. I'm not sure what constitutes a traditional Thai massage, but this lady just squeezed down, along major muscle groups. She would reach a tender area or a knot & not give it any additional attention. I will say this massage was better than my rub down in Cambodia, but nothing compared to the masseuse I went to in GR. I just wanted a decent massage-obviously not for $10.
My the time I finished my massage, we had 10 minutes left until we needed to check out of our hostel! We still needed to shower & pack. Speed racer back to our hostel and they were kind enough to give us an extra 45 minutes to shower & pack up, which we did. Our packs were lighter-we'd used up toiletries. It was lovely to throw away my broken umbrella. We put our guidebooks in our packs as opposed to our carry on. We packed our bags one final time-and without snacks or water and properly packed-they seemed really light.
I made one final 7 Eleven stop & we were off to the airport! I was so excited to start the journey home!!!! There are many aspects of life on the road that you take for granted-because they just become "normal." One such sight was the pink & purple taxis. I'm glad I snapped a pic.
The bad news: our flight from Taipei to Houston was completely booked and Chris & I were not seating together. We'd have to trade seats or not sit together for the 14 hour flight home. We had already begun to pray that someone would switch.
We went through customs & got our final passport stamp. Chris may have also done a "we're going home" dance. I had one thing on my mind: McDonalds. Crispy, golden French fries. Yummmmm. Even the airport was decorated with aspects of Thai culture.
There was heartbreak: there was no McDonalds in the international terminal. Our only option was Burger King. I may have thrown an internal adult temper tantrum-but pouting wasn't going to get me deliciously crispy fries. We settled for BK.
We converted our Thai Baht bank into USD & border the plane. We had a 3 hour flight to Taipei. I slept until dinner was delivered & then watched a bit of TV before drifting back asleep.
We landed on time in Taipei, which was good-we only had 45 minutes to catch our international flight. We exited the plane & was directed to a line for transfers-a LONG line. Chris held our spot in line while I went to investigate. The agent told me we would be booked on another flight. I told her absolutely not. Our flights were on time-we could make our flight-you sold us this flight schedule. She told me to just go through, so we did security again & made it to our gate. They checked passports as you entered the waiting area so that the plane boarded quicker.
We were praying-I didn't want to be separated from Chris. The longest we'd been apart the last 6 weeks was two 10 minute 7 Eleven trips. I loaded in an earlier zone than Chris. Thankfully I had a window & he had middle-we would be asking someone to switch middle to middle-unless the other two people in my row were together. As I approached my row, I saw a little old lady on the aisle. Thank you Jesus! That meant the middle seat was traveling alone & could switch. I had Chris' seat traded before he even loaded the plane. The middle seat woman said yes without hesitation. She didn't mind at all. We happily took our seats together & snuggled up in the nice EVA blankets.
And on for a 14 hour flight. I took an ambien which knocked out 8 hours of the flight. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 took care of another couple hours (I laughed so loud Chris scolded me-it's funny). Spaghetti breakfast and a gin & tonic helped finish up the flight. Before we knew it, it was 11:30pm & we were back on US soil. Side note: Chris is an amazing sleeper. 10-20 seconds after his head hits the pillow-he's snoozing. Poor guy didn't sleep a wink on the flight.
There is a new automated passport control which is AWESOME. 25 people can scan their own passport & claim items for customs. You get a print out & hand that to the passport control guy. 5 minutes & we were collecting our luggage.
We put on our packs & headed out through customs. The customs officer wanted to know where was the rest of our luggage. I said we're backpackers.
Thankfully, Houston still has Uber & we caught a ride back to Mitch & Yen's. We threw in a load of laundry & climbed in bed. Their house wins the award for nicest place we stayed.
We were welcomed home to this sight:
Chris' co-teacher & partner picked us up & we had glorious Chick-fil-A for dinner. The best part of being home: drinking water from the tap.
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