Departure from Bangkok and flight to Melbourne 16 February 2024.

We have enjoyed a terrific 4 days in Bangkok staying at the Hilton Millenium on the Chao Praya river.

Over the 4 days we have done a variet of trips on the river, visited the Royal Palace and also shopped at Markets.

We fly home today with an early morning pick-up from the Hilton by our Blacklane driver and then about a 50 minute drive to the Ariport and flight home via Thai Airlines.

We have a wake up call for 4.30am and then shower and finalise packing and then take our luggage downstairs to check out at 5.20am and our driver is waiting.

The drive is quick and at this time of the morning there is none of the traffic jams and traffic chaos.

We arrive at 6.10am and then proceed to the segregated Business check in and are processed quickly and we are through Immigration and customs within 15-20 minutes and make our way through the terminal past the big dragon and find the Thai airlines lounge.

We depart the lounge at 7.30am to walk the nearly 15 minutes to our gate.

Boarding is prompt at 7.45am and we are seated and looked after by the cabin crew with a drink and towels etc by 8.05 am.

We depart 5 minutes ahead of schedule, we order our meals of breakfast and then a dinner for later .

A smooth departure and an enjoyable first segment of the flight with and enjoyable breakfast.

The photos here depict the River Chao Praya and the various craft used by several of the major hotels, including our Hilton Millenium Hotel to take passengers and guests to Stathom Ferry terminal to then travel up and down the river on Tourist boats and hop on - hop off boats.

Ken used these tourist boats to visit several tourist sights. These included the Grand Palace and other Religious sites.

There is also a Tuk Tuk vehicle, which we rode to several areas. Used to be cheap but now comparable to Uber and Taxi fares.

This has been a successful holiday from the time in Singapore through the Oceania Cruise and then our stay in Bangkok.

The flight home was enjoyable and following breakfast Ken slept almost 5 hours and Jeanette had 3 hour sleep.

Then we were served a dinner meal of high quality covering several courses .First class in every way.

We landed at 9.16am in Melbourne some 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

We were processed through the Immigration and customs inside 10 minutes and after a short wait our luggage was nearly first off.

The process allowed us to exercise our custom declaration and exit, after Jeanette declared a small bottle of cashew sauce and topping.

Gavin arrived as we met him near the Car park lifts and after a quick trip of 45 minutes we arrive home at 10.20pm

It is too late and we are too tired to unpack we fell into bed recognising a wonderful 4 weeks holiday. A highlight was the visit to another 3 Vietnam ports with beautiful people.

We realise how fortunate we are to be able to undertake these holidays.