I had a restless night, no doubt already in travel mood, so by 7 am I was out walking to the skytrain (what I have been calling the metro, although it is above ground). The metro was packed, which made me and my backpack very unpopular. But it was a short ride of only seven stations. I then transferred to the rail link to the airport, which only took half an hour.
Fortunately Cathay Pacific didn't give me any pushback when I checked in, and armed with my boarding passes I found a place to have breakfast and try to spend my last bahts (I ended coming back with the equivalent of US$ 20, as I did with Indonesian, Sri Lankan, and Indian paper money).
The flights were mostly on time. It took two hours to go from Bangkok to Hong Kong, a three-hour layover, and then 12 hours to go from Hong Kong to San Francisco. All along I had been worried that someone was going to look at my passport picture and say "Hey, you are not the same person as the hirsute guy in the passport", but it never happened. Mostly I scanned my passport and then faced a camera that did some face recognition and approved me. Even entering the US it took me less than 5 minutes to go through immigration!
I took BART from the airport to Pleasanton, where I had to wait for one and a half hours for DJ, who came to pick me up after a long day at work and a two-hour lacrosse practice with the brand new Turlock City League! He then brought me home, where I arrived after nearly 24 hours of traveling. It was 11 pm, but I was wide awake because I have 12 hours of jet lag to adjust to.
So I am home, safe and sound, ready to tackle the problems of daily life. Thanks for worrying about me and I will get back on blog writing mode next time I go gallivanting around the world.
Finis
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