all good things must come to an end

So, in an hour we take our taxi to the airport. Sigh.

For our last day, some sightseeing: the great Palace (think the Versailles of Thailand) and the great National Temple (think Notre Dame plus the Sainte Chapelle). Except, since thailand was never a colony of anybody, hasn't really been invaded, or had a French revolution where they destroy the statues and take off the gold, everything is intact--and it's amazing. Our pictures don't do it justice--you simply cannot imagine the effect of tons of buildings in gold mosaic and porcelain, all the paintings perfectly maintained, in such a small thing as a picture window.

By 10 am, it was blazing, sweltering heat. so humid, that in-breaths felt like drinking water. This I don't remember from georgia! And not a single fountain or garden--just one tree, taken from the sapling of THE famous bodhi tree in India where Buddha attained Enlightement. Here's the two of us in full tourist regalia complete with audioguides, melting in the heat:

Unlike seeing monuments in europe, this site was alive with people of all sorts USING the space, to make offerings to buddha or the king (same thing, I think, for Thai people), kneel, pray, school children, people meeting, talking--living history. This below is one little Buddha statue in the palace: Thais offer pieces of gold leaf, which don't perfectly stick on right away, thus the fluttering papers of gold.

On the way back home to pack, we stopped off at a favorite cafe (main criteria: packed full of Thai and we are the only white people) for one last Pad Thai noodle, thai iced tea, and a frozen guava smoothie.

Our flight leaves at the excellent hour of 3 am- let's hope the pilot has had lots of coffee! about 6 hours to Kuwait City--then we have the morning there, hoping to leave the airport and go have a look around, make sure the Americans did a good job liberating the country!

then at lunch time, back on a plane to cold and grey Paris, where JeanYves' lovely family will pick us up, take us in, and make a fire to keep us warm! For the first time in a month, I have shoes on my feet to be ready for the cold- and it feels like my feet are in prison.

Don't ask us yet what is the end result of all this travel, what it means, how it's changed us: for that we'll have to wait till we get back and see what percolates up, I think. we miss our friends and family and cat, that's for sure. And I'm nostalgic for some spiced winter apple cider. But...., well, we'll see.

Lots of love to you all, thanks for following the adventure, and for those of you In Toulouse, get ready for the dinner party buffet where we use you as guinea pigs to test our new recipies and bore you to death with all our pictures. :)

love,

Cyn and JY