Somewhere far above Vietnam, I sit in the tail end of an Airbus A340-400 watching
Mamma Mia! on my in-seat entertainment console. I have left behind Thailand, which faces an uncertain future as factions vie for political power in the capital and ripples from the unrest and the global economic crisis wash up on the country's shores as diminishing prospects for a stable and prosperous future. I'm headed toward an American that less than a day ago elected Barack Obama as President, opening a hopeful new era in my home country. As my taxi pulled away from the hotel off of Petchburi Road where I first encountered Bangkok nine and a half months ago, my boyfriend of the past 15 months stayed behind and hailed his own taxi to return to his family's home on the other side of the city. We will be apart for a minimum of six months and quite likely as long as 10 months.
It has been a momentous day on many levels.
I have already chronicled the changes in my life that brought me to Thailand, settling in Phuket to work as editor of a fortnightly English-language newsmagazine. I suppose this post opens a new story, the beginning of another adventure.
Whatever. I'll try not to pontificate as much this time around. Keep it light. Learn to write like a blogger rather than a print journalist filling space. Work on suppressing my Protestant tendency to explain myself.
The prospect of returning to my country as it struggles with the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen is strangely appealing. Somehow I feel that I want to be there to go through it with my fellow Americans. The thought that I might return to a country in the midst of a transition between President George Bush to President Barack Obama makes me even more enthusiastic.
Yes, I've decided to return to California. My main reasons for leaving Phuket are that my employment here has not turned out the way I hoped. I settled down here with intention of staying for at least a couple of years -- at least enough time to leave a definitive mark on Phuket Post. But a number of things have led me to conclude that I won't be able to do what I want to do, and I won't bother my few faithful readers with the gory details.
Today is as good as any to make this announcement. I purchased my return ticket this morning, and I'll depart Bangkok in the early evening of Nov. 6 and land 20 minutes later in San Francisco. Thanks to crossing the International Date Line, I'll get back the full day that I lost in mid-January when I came here. If only the flight were 20 minutes long. Total travel time will be along the lines of 16 hours. Ugh. I don't think there's a longer possible flight in the world than Bangkok to San Francisco.
On a gloomy, overcast morning, I stood outside for an hour beginning at 6:30am. I read RSS newsfeeds on my iPhone while I waited for the minibus to pick me up and take me to Ranong, Burma so I could get a new 90-day entry stamp on my visa.
But the minivan never showed. I called the company that arranged the visa run at 7:30am only to learn that the driver of the minivan thought I had cancelled and never stopped at the pickup location. So no visa run for me today. I hopped on my motorbike and drove back to the apartment feeling totally frustrated.
The morning set off a bout of culture shock, and for much of the rest of the day I just slept at the apartment, listening to jazz and reading news of the presidential campaign back home.
Find the latest issue here, as well as an archive of recent editions dating back to March 2008. These are all the issues I've worked on so far.
During the past two years, I've traveled across the Atlantic to Europe and around the Pacific to Mexico and Thailand. 
