Back in Bangkok

After a surprisingly bumpy flight, but with a pilot who keeps Channel 9 Air Traffic Control on throughout the flight (especially nice when the ride is rough), we breeze through Immigration and Customs at Bangkok's magnificent airport and find our way to the empty taxi queue.

A taxi for the four of us costs 700 Baht - sounds like a lot until you find out how much a Baht is worth. It's a drizzly but quiet 3-40 minute ride to the Hilton in what they would call a big SUV (about the size of our RAV 4)with a friendly driver who speaks no more than a word or two of English.

We check in and find out they'll only upgrade one room to the Executive level - cheapskates. It turns out we can upgrade the second room for a surprisingly modest rate and that's what we do.

Now it's off to bed at about 1:00 a.m. local time, or 11:00 a.m. yesterday back home.