Shut down Bangkok Restart Thailand

We arrive in Khao San Road exactly at 5.30am as advertised. There are the usual tuk tuk drivers jostling for position. It's only a mile or so walk and we've been on a bus for 10 hours so an early morning walk suits.

We are once again at the Tavee Guest House, known and loved, it has been a parenthesis around our holiday and feels good. As we're early we do have to wait for a room to become available and be cleaned but we're in one of the nicest rooms and it's great. Even the little dog is pleased to see us and sits quite happily on my knee for half an hour. I miss my Lexie dog.

Shopping calls today so we head off to the MBK Shopping Centre, it's Meadow Hell on speed. Several roads are closed with sandbags, the army are camped out in little camouflaged bivouacs on street corners and there's a sense of the trouble in the city we didn't experience 7 weeks ago. After a 5 km walk, avoiding the protest areas as best we can we head straight to McDonalds for a McFlurry. Seven floors of retail nightmare and we're done, as we head out we see the clean up process starting at the end of the protest that happened right outside the shopping centre. The elections have ended today in the provinces that were disrupted at the beginning of February and we missed it.

At the airport we spend our last baht on a bag of crisps and two sweets. We leave with nothing... Nothing that is except lots of lovely memories and very special experiences. Now where next.......