Sept 24 - 27; Bangkok

Our taxi picked us up at Krabi Boat Lagoon Marina at 0700 for the short ride to Krabi International Airport. The Air Asia flight into Don Muang Airport landed 20 minutes early and after a 30 minute taxi ride we checked into the Skyy Hotel in the Sukhumvit section of Bangkok. This is a city of around 10 million people; anything you want or need can be found here. I had a general health check up at Bumrungrad International Hospital, which is well set up for international medical tourism. Our hotel was about 200 meters away from the hospital, so transportation wasn't an issue. Anyone interested in health check-ups or medical procedures can check them out at www.bumrungrad.com. Later, we met up with Stuart & Sheila (sv Imagine) for a great hamburger at the Firehouse Pub & Restaurant. After, we went to the Above Eleven Bar and Restaurant on top of the Frazier Suites, which afforded a stunning view of downtown Bangkok. The morning of the 25th was my check-up; we later went out to Limoncello's, a wonderful Italian restaurant we stumbled across. The next few days were spent sight seeing. One of the highlights was a Chao Phraya River trip; we bought a ticket and stayed on all the way up to station 30; total time was about an hour each way. We've seen our share of wats (temples) and National monuments! It was time to get to Chiang Mai. Pic: Beautiful scenery along the river. Long-tail water taxis are plentiful.