Into the Sunset...

[This is the last of the Thailand posts. Please scroll down to read prior posts. But we are not done with Thailand... yet. One week from today, I move from Almaty, Kazakhstan to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I will finish out my time in a warmer and well worth it location (literally and figuratively). Details to come. For those who wouldn't visit me in KZ (I don't blame ya), all I can say is Thailand may be more appealing... PEACE]

The first day of 2008 involved a ferry back to the mainland, a taxi to the airport, and our final domestic flight back to Bangkok. There was an afternoon of pirating some last minute booty and souvenirs. Speaking of “booty”, we hit Patpong, yet another red-light district, but with (yet another!) Night Market. This area was Lady Boy Central. As Tone Loc said, “Sheila was a man!” I felt bad for all the duped dudes hanging all over the girls or guys or whatever! But it was fun to take in the sights on our last night in Bangkok.

This kid shared the floor with us on our ferry back to the mainland

Good snaps behind every corner

And I thought the McRib sandwich was only native to the Salesianum cafeteria...
Spent the last morning exploring one of our favorite Bangkok areas – the Khao San Road. This area caters to young travelers and has the funkiest goods - everything from travel packages to Laos, hip-hop gear, to beautiful, yet affordable, prints and paintings. It was also here 2 weeks ago that we picked up some used books and vowed to come back. All kinds of cozy brick streets are in this area with cheap eats and souvenir stalls. Eventually made it back to home base and crammed everything into our bags. Melancholy ride to the airport, got to the gate, and flew back to reality (ie 90 degrees at the Thai beaches / 9 degrees at the Kazkh airport!)

If you’ve made it this far (phew), seriously THANK YOU for reading the recap. I decided to end it with the following pictures of the last shimmering sunset of 2007 from the boat trip. As they say in Thai, “Ma goong rai jed teksee. Hong suam yu tee nai!!!” (translation: My shrimp costs fourteen taxis. Thank you for the green toilet!)