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Photos by MJ Klein

On our last day in Thailand, we got up very early in the morning to catch the first flight out of Khonkaen to Bangkok.  We had to take a cab from the old airport, which is now the domestic airport, to the new airport – the one with the unpronouncable name.

This is the departure level at Bangkok’s international airport.  We were getting ready to check in when we ran across this interesting service:

This is a luggage wrapping service that is available right in the departure lobby.  For 120b, you can get your luggage wrapped up nicely.

The guy cuts out the wheels and handles so you can maneuver the bag around easily.

If you’ve ever retrieved your bags at the baggage claim, only to find that they’ve popped opened due to mishandling (like we have) then you’ll love this service!  Our bags arrived in Taiwan in pristine condition.  The wrapping made them a lot easier to identify too.

The new airport has some interesting things on display.  This is the famous Naga that we’ve mentioned a few times in other installments of this series.

This plaque explains the scene, which is important in Thai mythology.

This sculpture is quite large and impressive!

The nearby gift shop has a decorative plate with this scene on it.

There is a display honoring the King’s late sister, Princess, Galyani Vadhana.  I recommend that you read Brunty’s article about a recent ceremony he attended to honor the late princess.

This is a sushi restaurant we’ve eaten at before.  Believe it or not, Hui-chen and I enjoy hanging out in airports checking out the restaurants, but….

We always check the boarding times and then….

Go shopping!  By the way, on this trip, like many others, we took advantage of duty free shopping on board the aircraft and purchased a few items.  I got a beautiful watch that I enjoy very much.

We bought quite a few gifts for the family on this trip.  It’s one of the nice benefits of owning our own business and being able to travel in connection with the business.

Finally it was time to head to our gate.

It’s a long way to the gate and quite tiring.  Good exercise though.

Whenever I’m walking through this airport, I feel like I’m passing through a giant caterpillar!

Due to our status as elite fliers we were upgraded to First Class and placed on the upper deck of the 747.  This is one happy passenger!  Hui-chen got a glass of champagne right away.

A flight attendant took this photo of us.

This is the upper deck, in case you’ve never see what it looks like.

The view out the window that day was impressive.  These next shots are the new airport from the air.

The big highway leading to the airport.

Surrounding areas of Bangkok.  It was a great day for shooting photos out the window of an aircraft, but the severe angle of the window on the upper deck made it a bit difficult at times.

Not sure where this is, but our flight takes us over Cambodia and Vietnam on the way to Taiwan.

Normally I don’t eat airline food, but Hui-chen enjoys sampling the airline cuisine.

Notice the glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream.

This is a shot of the personal video system in First Class.  In addition to uncensored “R” rated movies, there are video games, television shows and of course, the flight monitoring system shown here.

You can see our flight path in red.

We are approaching Taiwan.  On this trip I did not see Pratas Island because of the heavy cloud cover.

This is the first glimpse of Taiwan – our beautiful mountains peeking above the clouds.

Click on this (or any other) photo and view the large size to appreciate how the clouds are spilling over from East to West.

Industrial complex?  Yup, we’re approaching Taiwan alright!

Kaohsiung area.

Check out the beautiful scenery in the following photos:

The setting sun cast a reddish glow on the clouds – just lovely.

As much as we enjoyed this trip back to Thailand, it was good to get back home!

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