Ottawa
All packed and ready to go. It’s hard to say goodbye to family and friends. But in this age, you’re never really out of touch, for better or worse.
After a routine flight, we had a lengthy layover in Istanbul. Interesting airport, Istanbul – it’s open 24 hours and has flights departing throughout the night to unusual places, like Tbilisi and Yerevan and Rostov.
Exhausted by the overnight leg from Ottawa, we stretched out on the airport benches and slept like a pair of aging hobos.
Left Istanbul at 1:25 AM for Bangkok.
Sight or Insight of the Day
We witnessed a Dostoyevskian scene in the main departure hall: twenty or more young men, lined up two by two, each pair manacled together by clunky handcuffs, each man clutching an identical duty free bag like children heading for a sleepover. Strange and kind of unsettling.