Epic day - Last day in Thailand

Plan for the last day. The flight leaves at 9.30pm. Get to the airport at 6.30pm, giving me a decent buffer. Visit Goodnews team, pickup shirts in town and visit the highest building in Thailand.

There's no way I can do the day justice in a brief blog post apart from bullet pointing:

- Kanchana and I get a taxi.
- 15 min to Goodnews team office
- Hang out there for a couple of hours, have lunch
- 20 min taxi in to the city train station (only place I know I can leave my backpack so I don't have to lug it around). That was the only unpredictable part of the trip, from here on the rapid transit is very efficient.
- Spot an interesting back alley, end up getting a hair cut (might as well while they're 4 NZD)
- 10min MRT (subway)
- 5 min BTS (elevated train)
- Pickup tailored shirts, buy some other stuff too
- 5 min BTS
- Arrive at Pathaya Thai BTS station knowing that the highest building is around here somewhere... except I didn't write down directions, I don't have a smart phone... the buildings around here are too high to see something ten blocks away and I don't like my chances of getting help on the street... uh oh.
- Orange jacketed scooter taxi guy asks me where I'm going... Ha! Scooter. Down town Bangkok (see the post on courageous people). I tell him about the tower to buy me time while I do an internal cost/benefit analysis...  "How much?" "50 Baht" "Helmet?" Amazingly, he hands me one (guess they take tourists as well as locals, usually tourists stick to Tuk tuks and taxis, for obvious reasons!). There's no way I'll find the tower myself with limited time, there's no way a taxi will get through the traffic, it's too far to walk. What the heck, I have to get to the top!
- A 30 min taxi ride becomes a 8 min scooter ride! We ride up the inside, the outside and between traffic, through back alleys, down the wrong way on narrow streets. Now this is a cheap thrill! (as long as we don't crash!). Now that is an awesome way to get around Bangkok. You should have seen the smug look on my face when we rushed past tourists in tuk tuk's! Haha.
- Tower, 3pm - go to the wrong entrance, some nice guy walks me to the right one.
- Up tower, rush around, take photos, get my complimentary drink and rush back down.
- Scooter taxi
- BTS
- MRT
- Station - pick up backpack
- MRT
- BTS
- Airport link (elevated train) - buy a token and wait for the train, ask the guy next to me if this is the express train... nope. doh. Race back downstairs, get token refunded and get the express arrive at the platform with 3 mins to spare.
- Nice smooth ride to airport
- Arrive at... 6.33pm! Don't know how I managed to get so close to my target! Phew.