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Friday 1st March
 This is now my fourth time to have spent time in Thailand, and it co-incides with the time I ask myself what am I going to be doing in the next 6 months. I already have plans to return to the UK, maybe on a more permanet basis, maybe not. So why is it I have chosen Thailand out of a number of places I could have visited for a visa run (which is really the only reason I've skipped out of TW.) I had two main choices, Here or Kuala Lumpur. Hong Kong would have been good too but as much as like HK I've been there over 6 times now and this trip is only a few days. the next time I go to HK is when I want to stay a month or so to study Cantonese - whenever that will be, I don't know. I would have chosen KL because Paul Farrow, my good Ozzy buddy though you'd not easily guess it, is passing through KL on the way to Mulu, and Kees and Aiai, my friends from TW have just relocated there. We'll miss those guys at Jason's parties! The mock surprise on Kees' face as I've managed more than 6 minutes in a conversation with Aiai!(Kees said something to do with back legs of a donkey.?)
So I'd tried to book my ticket with Taiwei through her new job as travel consultant (in what seems like a bit of a rip-off travel agency - but you didn't hear it from me) but I couldn't get the deal that Paul had gotten so it seemed pointless to spend the amount of over half a ticket home just to travel 5 hours away. I got my ticket for TW$9000 (gbp180 - ish) from David's travel in Taipei. Not too bad a deal.
My flight was at 8:30 on Friday morning which was the last day of my visa - beyond this date I'd have to pay a fine on leaving TW. As it was so early I pottered around the house until really late (and let Gina sleep.) I did sleep for a couple of hours but was up at 4 to ship out. Left the house around 5 and got into the airport with time to spare - which was a shame because I was flying from terminal 2 and it's the most boring airport terminal. Sitting around for over an hour with nothing to do and the yearning for sleep is tortuous.
While hanging around I met Dion, who's in Tiawan to meet up with his Taiwanese girlfriend. He's a surgeon and also uses his spare time to be in the US Reserves. We got talking about my visit to Ukraine last year and the number of children and young people who need medical attention so we exchanged emails and maybe something can be arranged. The future will see.
At last it was time to board and I did so only to be beset with more waiting. First the flight was delayed while a connection flight had been held up from the US, during which a passenger from the previous flight came on board to retrieve a lost passport. Eventually up in the air we were treated to the movie 'Behind Enemy Lines ' - not a bad show - Gene Hackman as usual hard-assed general and new guy I haven't seen before - name not known.
Approaching BKK aiport and another hold up. On of the landing strips was under construction so we had to circle for 30 mins -Doh! Eventually got in at 12:30 and after going through customs, the first thing I did was to buy a phone card to call Steve. I was sold a 100b card to be used with the purple phones - the purple ones are the least numerous in all of Bangkok but I wasn't to know that until I actually left the airport. (Whine, whinge - go on, get it out of your system!)
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Last updated 29/01/2002- Created using Tripod Freeform by Rob
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