A pleasant surprise

Our plane to Bangkok arriving [Enlarge]

We were second in the queue to check in to our KLM flight from Taipei to Bangkok. Why does Dutch carrier KLM fly from Taipei to Bangkok? Because Bangkok is just a stopover en route to Amsterdam. As always, Glenn asked very politely for a seat with extra leg room. The check in desk person allocated us a pair of seats at the front of a section with no neighbours, which was very nice of her (as we've noted before, Asian women love Glenn).

After immigration we searched for ways to spend our final 122 Taiwanese dollars (GBP 2.02 / USD 4.02) on food. The best value, we eventually decided, was two Starbucks toasted paninis costing 55 and 65 dollars. That's all we needed, because we would be getting another sandwich or something later during our lowish-priced flight.

Thirty minutes before boarding we went to our gate. The plane was a 747—our first 747 ever!—and it looked like it was going to be full. As we sat waiting there was an announcement "Could passengers Malte Isla and Livett Glenn please contact a member of staff." Our first thought was that they'd done something to our luggage. Detonated it in a controlled explosion? We showed the man our boarding cards to say who we were. He told us that because the flight was overbooked, we were going upstairs to business class! Oh yeah, baby!

We said a few posts ago that we feel that travelling by boat or train is really travelling, and flying is cheating. Well we were wrong. Flying is best, KLM is our new favourite airline and Holland is the Greatest Country In The World. We really should visit some day.

As we supped our pre-flight champagne we checked out the dinner menu options, and donned our active noise reduction headphones to flick through the available movies. After we took off, we dined on a smoked halibut and salmon starter followed by a choice of Siam perch, sweet and sour pork or beef Penang (we both had the beef), and fresh fruit salad with opera gâteau. We swilled it down with a surprising Austrian red, Johanneshof Zweigelt 2006 ("cherries, herbs and oak"), then finished with a glass of VSOP cognac. After dinner we reclined in our lie-flat seats with massage function and we hoped that maybe there would be a strike at Air Traffic Control or Bangkok would be fog-bound which would prevent us from landing. But sadly the four-hour flight came to an end in no time.

We don't know why we were chosen over the other 386 economy people for an upgrade. But we don't care. The only downside to our flight to Bangkok is that it's going to be very hard to go back to a tatami mat on the floor after this.

Day 578
Taipei to Bangkok

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

The other China

Taipei 101 [Enlarge]

Taiwan is the first place we've been to that isn't a fully recognised nation state. Most countries in the world, ours included, don't recognise it because if they do, China will break off diplomatic relations with them. It's a choice laid down by China: have a relationship with us, or have a relationship with Taiwan, but you can't have both. Sadly China wins nearly every time.

Why are the Chinese so anti Taiwan? Because China and Taiwan are locked in a strange stand-off. They both agree that Taiwan should be a province of China rather than a separate country. Where they disagree is that they both claim to be the legitimate government of the whole territory of China!

The problems result from the Chinese civil war, between the Nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists headed by Mao Zedong. Mao won and established the People's Republic of China, and Chiang was driven out to the island of Taiwan where he established a new capital for the Republic of China in the city of Taipei. And that has been the status quo ever since.

During the Cold War most countries recognised Taiwan as the One True China, but as the might of mainland China grew they started switching over, and by the end of the seventies almost all had abandoned poor Taiwan.

Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall [Enlarge]

So now bizarrely, we have two states calling themselves China. And even more bizarrely, mainland China is happy for Taiwan to call itself 'the Republic of China', but not happy for it to call itself 'the Republic of Taiwan'. This is because the prime concern of mainland China is that the two countries are both part of China. It is a secondary objective that they have a single government. If Taiwan ever does change its name, it will be invaded forthwith.

We found ourselves in Taiwan not knowing anything about the place, and also not having a clue what we wanted to do there. We are really, really tired and we need to take a rest. We are still on English teachers' hours, waking up at stupid o'clock every morning, alarm clock or no. So we're sorry to say that we've made a complete mess of being in Taiwan, and haven't done very much here at all.

This post therefore will be an anti-post. A description of all the things we didn't do in Taipei.

Firstly, we didn't go up the current world's tallest building, Taipei 101. We went in it, but not up it. We couldn't be bothered to pay a fortune and go through a ridiculous airport-style security screening. What the hell are we going to do: hijack the observation deck?

Consequently, we didn't go up the world's fastest elevators, 60.6 km/h (37.7 mph).

We didn't walk around the famous markets or restaurant districts. We didn't eat Taiwanese cuisine. And we didn't see any temples or museums containing a lot of the riches of China, 'rescued' by the fleeing Nationalists.

We just kind of existed here for a few days, getting annoyed at our inability to motivate ourselves to do anything. We did discover that Taipei has an 'earthiness' that reminds us of Hanoi (maybe it was all the mopeds). It also has a wonderful sweet, spicy smell that reminded us of the suburbs of Mumbai.

Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall gate [Enlarge]

We did do some stuff. We found it quite easy to get around Taipei, although it was really hot. The MRT (subway) is good, and every time we stopped to look at a map a friendly Taiwanese person asked us if we needed help. The Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall felt similar to Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Mausoleum (but without the pickled corpse). There were old black sedan cars and awards from across the world exhibited in a huge, windowless, marble monolith of a building. The main gate to the place is also huge (see picture—that's us at the bottom of one of the pillars).

So there you go. We're going to Bangkok now, and then we're going to find a nice quiet beach in the south of Thailand for a rest. Because this has been such a rubbish post, we'll make it up to you by letting you in on our future plans. After Thailand, we plan to go down the Malay peninsula by train to Singapore, then travel through Indonesia (and maybe Brunei) and onward to Australia.

Day 574
Naha (Okinawa) to Taipei

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.