Leaving Bangkok

Flying out of Bangkok.  First flight of three.  Air Cathay is alright, clean good space and food even on the short flight.

We had a few Thai Baht to spend at the airport, not worth changing back to Canadian.  The shopping in the international area was mostly limited to high end stuff and food.  No cheesy Thai souvenirs, no book and magazine shops.
Dried fruit it is then.

Long layover in Hong Kong.  Too bad we can't leave the airport.  I'd love to go downtown and see if I could get near the protests.  No chance of that of course, but it is a very interesting time in history.
The local press has been very interested in how Beijing will deal with the calls for more democracy.  That has been a refreshing aspect to our trip, hearing Asian perspectives on news. I get tired of the limited and rehashed news I seem to get at home.  Everyone seems to be telling the same story, with the same experts, same questions and same conclusions.   Stories are so complex.   Certainly the people we met at the GA gave us a very real and close up view of stories we've seen from a distance.   When someone says "The government won't report it, but we know 4000 men left to defend the town and none have come back...where are they? Did they all just disappear? "  or someone from another continent tells us how the government says their is no strife but  " we've seen the hundreds of bodies floating down the river.  There is no peace in that land"......
I hope to maintain some of these contacts, they certainly inform my prayers and my view of the world.