The plane flew over a thunders storm near southern Thailand. It was dark by then and the sky was covered with cloud all around. With every thunder strike a chunk of clouds would light up, then the flash would propagate to adjacent chunks. Like a ripple wave of luminance on the cloud cover. Watching this thunder storm was my best memory of that flight. I could not get a good photo of it with my camera.
The second most beautiful thing I saw was the hazy horizon. It was an hour before sunset and we were flying over Myanmar. I could see the famous blue haze around the horizon which astronauts often see from earths orbit as a strikingly beautiful blue lining around the planet.
When I was 13 years old, I wanted to be an astronaut. I had memorized the entire chapter on our solar system from the school text book. I had seen photos and read about the blue haze against the pitch black darkness of outer space. I knew the scientific explanation of how diffraction of sunlight in our atmosphere causes that beautiful phenomena. I dreamed of being able to see that when I grow up. But I had decided to give up this dream soon after realizing the reality I was born into.
I was only a couple of weeks short of my 26th Birthday that day. While watching the blue haze I realized that although the dream of being and astronaut was given up, that which inspired dreams inside me have always been there acting as a major driving force in life.