Ruth: 2016 goes down as one of my very best years ever, but now I am looking forward to heading home. Our bikes are packed and our flight leaves from Bangkok tomorrow.
Nothing left for us to do now except enjoy the food. A plate of any of these delicious curries costs CAN$1.20.
Now that we are back in the Bangkok area we are hiding in our air conditioned room to escape the 34 degree heat and high humidity. The temperatures we experienced on the trip were much more comfortable further north. Highs were often in the high twenties, but considerably lower in the mountains in Laos. Our coldest morning in the mountains started at only 4 degrees warming up to 20 by noon.
On our last night before cycling to our hotel near the Bangkok airport, we stayed at a classy resort that was quite a notch up from our usual accommodation. It was located on a deep bend in a river with a lovely deck hanging out over the water. Our host warned us in the most eloquent English that the place would not be quite as tranquil as usual because he was having a reunion of school friends that night. As a group they had recently worked together to have trees planted all over the country in honour of their recently deceased King, Rama IX.
It turned out to be such a lovely evening. We were warmly welcomed and included in a boat ride down the river to watch the sunset. Later we learned that our hosts are members of the royal family, tracing their ancestry from King Rama V. No wonder they spoke such lovely English and were all educated abroad. A long way from the minority villages in the North, but sharing the same friendly warmth that we found wherever we went in both countries.
As our boat pulls away from the shore and the sun sinks slowly in the west, we bid a reluctant farewell to beautiful Thailand and Laos....
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