Day 45 - Istanbul (to Bangkok)

 Our last day in Turkey :-(  - all good things come to an end I guess. Our flight was not scheduled until evening so first stop today was some leather shopping. Only ourselves, our tour leader Ahmet and Len and Pam remained while our other group member Arthur, had rather a lengthy sleep in. The visit to a couple of leather stores proved fascinating and the store we ended up in catered to different tastes depending on which level of the store you were on. Sue and Pam luxuriated in the feel of chinchilla and mink on the rather expensive floor - I forget the figures quoted but rest assured it was several years salary for some of the coats. In the end both Sue and I ended up purchasing a leather jacket each from last years run-out range and we looked pretty damn good in these I must say :-)  Len and Pam also invested wisely in various items of leather apparel so we all left satisfied at having scored reasonably priced bargains. After leaving the leather store we headed back to town via the PASIAD office. PASIAD or the Asia – Pacific Countries Social and Economic Solidarity Forum is associated with the Gulen movement and as such we found the visit informative and interesting. One of the hosts at PASIAD was another Ahmet who had been extremely helpful earlier in our journey with car hire and ferry bookings so it was good to catch up. From here we traveled back to the Sultanahmet area to catch up with Arthur who had finally surfaced and then made our way to a waterfront restaurant for our final lunch together. A seafood lunch went down well with all of us and then it was time to say goodbye to another of our group. But first we also said our goodbyes to Len and Pam who were staying another night in Istanbul. Then off to the airport and dropping off Arthur at his new hotel on the way. Thanks must go to Ahmet, our tour leader for his assistance at Turkish Airlines check-in counters which helped to smooth our departure. And off to Bangkok we headed shortly after 8 pm

.