How Bout That Ride In?

Today is the start of a three-week trip throughout southeast Asia with my brother Robert, a not as good looking older version of myself, and Clayton, a not as good looking older version of myself. I will attempt, in some type of periodic fashion, to keep this blog up-to-date on our wanderings of Vietnam, Thailand, and China. Wish me luck.

It’s Monday or Tuesday, May 13^th or 14^th, I don’t really know, my internal clock is doing double backflips. We passed an International dateline or two on the journey and finally have arrived in Taiwan after 20 hours of travel. We were blessed with supreme seats on the flight, middle of the last row of the airplane right next to the toilets. Of the 200 or so people on the flight we were three of the five white people I saw. We were the minority, the three white Americans sitting in the back of the plane making inappropriate jokes about the complementary slippers each person received. Being in the back of the plane didn’t feel cool like it was in middle school to be at the back of the bus. Clayton summed up his deep perception of the matter perfectly—I feel like we are peasants.  

On the flight, they made announcements in Chinese, English, and then what I can guess is Taiwanese, which I am assuming is a language. My ignorance of Asian culture and language is evident. This should change quickly, hopefully. There are double the number of flight attendants than other flights I have been on, all Asian and all working their butts off. I got up to go to the bathroom and opened a closet door by accident. A flight attendant stopped me and I slowly and articulately asked where the bathroom was. She smiled, pointed around the corner, and said in perfect English, “It is around the corner.” I need to learn more languages.

It is 6am on Tuesday in Taiwan, but my body is telling me it is 3pm on the Monday prior, not that my internal clock is that accurate but you get the picture. I had a few hours of horrible sleep on the flight, which is surprising because I can never sleep on an airplane if I don’t have a window seat. The whole ‘putting your head back and sleeping sitting up’ doesn’t work for me, and I am too tall to do the ole ‘high school head down on the tray table trick’ for any extended period of time. But I was managing all right in the middle seat of the middle row—that was until my travel buddies decided to take advantage of my open, drooling mouth. Don’t worry, they just put a piece of paper in it. A piece of paper torn from a magazine that has sat in the seat pocket of the back row of an Asian airline for who knows how many international flights. Might as well build up my immunity to Bird Flu at some point.

All in all it was a tough journey. We travelled half way around the globe, experiencing the miracle of flight, and I managed to watch most of Gangster Squad, eat two strange meals, almost pee in a closet, get yelled at for not putting my tray table up and seat belt on, and sort of sleep a little. It could have been worse. We could have taken the boat.

One more flight before we land in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). And then the real adventures begin!