Slight Return

Saturday 25 October - Sunday 26 October 2008
Bangkok - Abu Dhabi - London

So this is it, then. The end. But not quite yet. I woke up and finished off Pete's cereal again, well, I have a reputation to maintain. Then I hit up Chatuchat market again as, like the good Doctor, I was gonna need a bigger bag to carry my suit and other things back home. I thought I could find the place where we bought James's, but I should have known better - that place is a maze. I did find the "nice" part of the market though, full of arts and crafts, and eventually found a nice large cheap bag with wheels that I bartered down from 600 to 500 THB (about 8-9 GBP).

After that we hit up the main shopping centre for lunch and a Thai massage (and not the oil massage that I had last time). It wasn't as painful as I thought it might be - very relaxing actually. I had a look at some noise cancelling headphones and tiny child-like laptops called notebooks but couldn't reason myself to buy any, especially given that the pound had devauled against the baht from 61 THB to 55 THB (a 10% drop) in the five weeks that I had been abroad, with most of the change was actually in the last few days, making everything more expensive.

I showered, packed and headed to the airport, looked in the shops for headphones again but the cheapest were 90 GBP, and then killed time as ever through wifi. I boarded the plane and was by the window but it was dark outside and not much to see apart from the street lights of Abu Dhabi once we arrived. I drank, ate, slept and watched TV. Nothing to report here.

We arrived in Abu Dhabi and I had a over a couple of hours to kill. No wifi this time so I had to resort to Niall Ferguson's Empire. That man is a god amongst historians. I like it, I think it's good. However Abu Dhabi airport has the most annoying announcements ever. There's barely a minute that goes past without something being announced in a very annoying way, totally preventing any sleep. Plus they have departure lounges for planes holding hundreds of people with about 60 seats in it.

Anyway, for the London leg I was on the aisle and with an escape door row so I had about two miles of leg room this time, somewhat uncessary given my short legs but not bad all the same. I dosed for short periods of time but didn't sleep that well. From Heathrow it was a short tube journey to the flat, and the comforting familiarity of drizzle, cold and the encroaching darkness of the oncoming winter.

But just for a short while...