As Ryan mentioned, our plane ride was completely uneventful, which is more than all those souls on that Air France flight told St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. That about wraps up why I feel that an uneventful plane ride is about the best description ever. As Ryan also mentioned, we must have gotten quite a bit of sleep as the flight seemed short. I don’t remember the flight to the Philippines feeling that short. I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I had the blanket over me, my neck pillow around the neck and my Kitty Carlisles on and the stewardess felt the imperative to wake me up and ask me about Chicken or Beef. I thought airline etiquette stated that Kitty Carlisles over the eyes meant “Do Not Disturb.” Not in China Air parlance, apparently.
I woke up to the little map with the little plane flying over Japan and the countdown stating that we had four hours and 26 minutes left to go. Some quick math told me that I’d slept for more than eight hours. And since it was working out so well for me, I slid the Kitties back on and tried for a few more hours – got me through one movie and the start of another and then the stewardess came around asking about Scrambled Eggs or something that sounded like Rice. Being white, I went with scrambled eggs, tea and OJ.
I believe Ryan also mentioned that we were stuck in Taipei, though I believe that he called it “relaxing” at the café with the same song on an endless loop.
And that’s where Ryan left us.
After finding some Chinese fast food at the Terminal 1 food court (choices of Burger King, Chinese fast food or ice cream and you know who categorically said NO to Burger King), we boarded a small bus for our tour, flanked by a couple Italian guys, a Canadian, a Brit and an indeterminate couple – I think they were American. Our guide was delightful. He told us “tour free so you come back and spend money.” It’s not a bad marketing ploy if you think about it since so many flights fly through Taipei and offer nice long layovers.
Ryan also mentioned that it was pouring buckets I think.
Driving through Taipei on this dreary afternoon reminded me of driving through certain parts of New York circa 1982. I kept getting that déjà vu of the lower east side. If you weren’t lucky enough to know New York in the early 80s, then maybe you can YouTube Welcome Back Kotter. Old 70s style architecture that didn't look "wrong" in 1982 now seems a little decrepit and out of place and time. And dirty - New York doesn't look that dirty anymore, but once upon a time it did.
We began our tour at Long Shan Temple – home to both Taoist and Buddhist worshippers. The architecture is what you think of when you think Chinese. It is set up like a big marketplace – a place of fellowshipping as well as praying. There are many statues of deities, incense holders and tables to place offerings of food. I am very curious about all of this and it is on my list of things to research.
Our tour continued on to Chang Kai-Shek memorial. During our drive, our tour guide gave us the Cliff Notes version of Taiwanese history, including a nice homage to Chang Kai-Shek. The people of Taiwan are very proud of this history and of their leader. They consider themselves fortunate to have remained immune to the fate of mainland China. At least this is all the opinion of our tour guide. If the memorial building is any indication, the rest of Taiwan feels the same as our tour guide. It is a massive structure flanked by the opera house (Pavarotti appeared there twice) and playhouse. It took five years to build and is of marble and this stunning royal blue tiling. The inside houses memorabilia such as medals, photographs, Chang’s sedan and a replica of his office. The old photographs represent such a slice of history frozen in time and to me were the treat of the tour.
Next we visited the Martyr’s Shrine, passing by the Presidential Office (the red and white house haha!). Our tour guide informed us that their old president was in jail for laundering money I believe he said. I of course immediately had to feel a certain pride for a country who had the balls to bring a leader to justice for crimes. Yes, America, that is a poke at you.
Martyr’s Shrine is their war memorial. Military service is compulsory for men over 20 for 2 years in Taiwan. Buckingham Palace type guards (minus the furry hats) gave us a statue-esque welcome. One must have to develop such a knack for meditation in order to do this job – I can’t imagine any other way to get through a shift standing perfectly still, not reacting to stupid tourists. Though I did see one of them shift his eyes.
Our last stop was Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world followed by the Sears Tower and until Dubai gets done with theirs. With no skyscrapers flanking it, you don’t get a real sense of its grandeur. Again, let’s compare it to New York circa 1982 where the Empire State Building still looks impressive next to the buildings surrounding it; where the view from the WTC is only of rooftops. Also, to us, it looked like this:
Ah, yes, a rainy foggy day in Taipei.
We then returned to the airport where Ryan, apparently being much better at telling time than girl, sprung on me that our flight departed at 8:30, not 10:30 (20h, not 22h). I was so tired that it was like being told that it was Christmas and my birthday all wrapped into one. We tried a different Chinese fast food for dinner which was equally tasty and fought the sleep demons for a couple more hours waiting to board our flight to Phuket.
Again, I was asleep before the plane even took off. And woke up to Ryan poking me to put my seat back up when it was time to land.
Our flight to Thailand had exactly no Thai people on it and 3 white people (Ryan and me inclusive). The rest was an airplane full of Chinese tourists. So customs took FOHOHOHOHOEHEHEHEHEHEVAH! Ryan and I spent much time when booking our flights contemplating the eventuality that any number of people could be made unhappy by the fact that we didn’t have an exit ticket. But, we’d asked Vlad about it and he said that in all the countries he’d visited only one time had somebody gotten their knickers in a twist over his lack of exit ticket and 1. It hadn’t been in Thailand and 2. They’d solved the issue by buying the cheapest fully refundable ticket they could get on a moment’s notice. When I finally got to the customs agent, I was a little nervous, but I had my story all set – we weren’t sure when we were leaving, but that we’d be going to either Malaysia or Vietnam and getting there by some mode of ground transportation (at that point, I think we’d left California something like 32 hours earlier, and the way I looked, I don’t think that it was a stretch to make anyone believe that I’d no intention of getting back on a plane ever again). The customs agent said exactly 0 words to me. They don’t give a shit. You’ve got 30 days to get out and on day 31 the meter starts ticking.
Finding a cab at 1:00 in the morning leaves very little room for bargaining down the price, so our ride down to Patong Beach was comparatively very expensive at 650TB (almost $20). But when you’re approached by exactly 1 taxi driver, it’s hard to use his competition for leverage. Plus, everything I’d read indicated that it would be in the vicinity of 550TB to get down to Patong, so a few extra bucks to make that happen in the middle of the night did not seem unreasonable to me.
We’d booked a room at Lamai Apartment in Patong Beach via internet as our arrival being so late I didn’t want to have to futz around with finding a hotel. We booked it for 2 nights. The price was relatively “right” though Ryan seemed to be under the impression that once here we could do better. Our room is clean and comfortable and for the $15 each night has cost us thus far offers quite a few amenities: air con, free wifi, soap, shampoo, q-tips, and a red light (as in "Roxanne, you don't have to turn on the red light") which totally cracks me up! An additional fee will be charged for the plentiful assortment of medium, large or x-tra large condoms or for the beer, soda, water and juice found in the large fridge. The one drawback to our room is the lack of windows – well, there is a window, which is about an inch away from the wall of the neighbouring building.
Yesterday was our first day here in Patong. We left the hotel at about 11:30 a.m., walked around a little bit, spent $10 on an excellent Thai lunch of pineapple fried rice and yellow curry (asked for red, but got yellow, didn’t care, it tasted great) and these delicious fried shrimp cakes. Decided to go back to the room to enjoy a bit of air conditioning around 2:30 p.m. Fell asleep again and woke up at 2:30 in the morning. Now, when I woke up at 2:30 in the morning, Ryan was awake watching some movie or reading, I don’t remember, but while our room lacks windows, it does have these little airvents along the ceiling on the wall facing the hallway. There was light coming through the slits, so I assumed it was still light out, while convinced that I’d slept longer than that. Indeed, – it was the artificial light from the hallway. Fell back asleep. So, just about our entire first day was wasted sleeping, but judging from the number of hours that I was able to sleep, I’d say my body needed it. I will say this though - I do not intend to spend my time here in the hotel room getting more naps than Kitten (I'd say Kermit, but Kitten naps more).
Today we’ve explored a bit more and booked some diving for Monday, Ryan’s birthday. Since I had no idea what to get him, I figured you can’t go wrong with a day of diving. And we’ve been “guaranteed” Whale Sharks. I think that’s a nice present! The owner of the shop told us a story that one of her instructors was with a student recently – it was his first open water dive (the student’s) and he saw a whale shark. I don’t feel that is right. What's left to anticipate when you see a whale shark on your first dive - makes our star fish seem, well like star fish!
From all we’ve seen thus far, Patong is set up to be party central and while it’s fine to explore right now, I can’t imagine that we’ll end up here. We are in the dead season – high season starts on October. There are still a lot of people here. I know that Ryan and I will have to reconcile our loathing of crowds with our wish to be divemasters which has to be in a touristy area, but I’m not sure that there needs to be a Starbucks wherever we end up and rows and rows of bars and Irish Pubs. A quick read of the Lonely Planet description, “The sort of people drawn to this teeming, neon-lit atmosphere will adore Patong, while the more peace-loving souls (you know who you are) might want to stay far, far away,” is pretty indicative that Ryan and I should probably not spend too much time here.
At any rate, we’re here for at least another week as we’ve negotiated a reduced rate at the hotel and we probably need that much time before we subject our bodies to further travel and to make some sort of sensible plan of attack.
P.S. We just got back to our hotel and paid for our week and got a different room. It’s an upgrade – it has all the same amenities as the other room PLUS a window.
P.P.S. I am posting more pictures of Taipei. I've also caught up the photo gallery with pics of St. Lucia and Bequia. The site again is gallery.me.com/scubalex.
P.P.P.S. We'll be getting our news from Aljazeera from here on out. Praise Allah!
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