Tuk Tuks
I had very low expectations regarding flying with China Airlines. (Note to self: Never ever read reviews of the airline that you are about to fly with a few days prior to traveling! Just hope and pray that you make it safe and sound to your destination.)
So having read a few bad reviews prior to leaving for Thailand, I was prepared for a less than perfect flying experience. However, I didn't think that every single one of these flights would NOT leave on time! What are the chances of that? My SFO to Taipei flight left 45 minutes late. My connecting flight from Taipei to Chiang Mai departed at least 30 minutes late. My return flight from Bangkok to Taipei was 35 minutes late. And the final flight back home from Taipei to SFO was at least 30-35 minutes late. No apology or explanation from anyone including the pilot was offered on any of these four flights.
I knew it was going to be the longest 18 hours of my life as I was standing at the gate getting ready to board the plane at SFO. It was SO disorganized. The flight attendants barely spoke English and they were trying to collect everyone's boarding pass and herd the cattle onto the plane, but they lost ALL control of the situation and at one point everyone just started to push and shove their way through. As the nuns in Catholic school used to say, “Leave room for the Holy Ghost!” I don’t appreciate my body parts commingling with other strangers’ body parts, at least before we’ve been properly introduced! I know it's not PC to say that I felt like I was in a freakin' third world country. Damn, do they teach manners in China (or Taiwan ...sorry)? I guess not. But I was already PO 'd, and I wasn't even on the plane yet!
OH MY GAWD! So I get on the plane, find my seat, and end up sitting next to a couple of breeders and their toddler, who actually turned out to be very well behaved (thank you, jeebus!). But I was more concerned about the old Chinese (or Taiwanese) couple sitting in front of me who spent the entire flight coughing up their lungs (mainly the old man), and NEVER once covered his mouth. Needless to say, I only got about 8,000 five second cat naps 'cuz my hypochondriac mind kept me wide awake thinking that this raggedy old couple was about to start a freakin' epidemic on the plane and I was going to be the first one to be quarantined and sent directly to the CDC for testing, and there goes my effing two-week vacation in beautiful Thailand that I've already postponed once before and that I've been looking forward to FOREVER!
All I kept thinking was PLEASE JEEBUS, PLEASE let it ONLY be lung cancer or emphysema, or bronchitis and NOT freakin' tuberculosis or some heinous incurable airborne disease that they caught from their small remote rural village in China. Maybe they just had walking pneumonia, but damn them to hell if I ended up getting sick because of them and having them ruin my vacation! Then they bought six cases of duty free cigarettes, so maybe it was just smoker's cough after all. But then, I realized that it was an entire family of these hackers that were sitting all around me, and occasionally each one of them would cough up another lung or two.
So just my luck AGAIN, on my return flight home. I ended up sitting next to an old Indian couple who, YES, hacked up their lungs also without covering their mouths. The woman kept coughing, but the man coughed and then he would make these sounds like he was getting ready to spit out some phlegm (or hurl a freakin' hairball). NASTY! Yes, I know...TMI (too much information)...but I'm trying to paint a lovely visual picture for you so that you don't end up flying on China Airlines the next time you decide to travel to Asia. I'm trying to spare you from the potential contraction of diseases, my friends.
And now can we talk about the food? I'm not quite sure what half of the things I ate were (or didn't eat because they were raw and looked like a prime opportunity for food poisoning). I'm adventurous when it comes to food, but damn, airplane food is just plain nasty...especially on China Airlines.
Also, the service was atrocious. WOW! The flight attendants ran the show like the Chinese Communist Party. Geez, I’m sorry for asking for another sip of water...I've only spent 18 hours on a plane and I was a little dehydrated!
Needless to say...these were ALL flights from hell! (Lesson learned: Don’t fly China Airlines!) Fortunately, I’m not dead thanks to multivitamins, calcium supplements, vitamin B, and good ‘ole vitamin C!
Next time I'll travel by longboat, elephant, or tuk tuk...
