July 27 – Travel Day

It’s hard to call this day the 27th, since we got out of bed at 2:30 am Bangkok time to make the final push to get to the airport in time for our 6 am flight. Quick showers and shoving the last few things into the suitcases was accomplished early and we were off on schedule. Fred drove his car, and Jane went with us. There was little traffic at that time of the morning, but we did pass a small “parade” of farmers in their version of tractors on the highway. They had been in town to protest the farmers’ debt, asking the government to do something about it. I later saw in the Bangkok paper on the plane that the Prime Minister had agreed to personally take charge of the situation.

We left Thailand with a couple more bags than we came with, but while full, they were all well under the weight limitations. We were plenty early, partly because we beat the “2-hours-ahead-of-time” crowd by about ten minutes, putting us at the front of the line. The plane was a bit late taking off, but was uneventful, and as short as a 6-hour flight could be. Arrival in Tokyo was a bit early, and in spite of the recent typhoon that came through here, the sky is bright blue.

The flight to Honolulu doesn’t leave for another 6 hours, so we’ve got some time to kill now.