Arg! I take it back about Asiana’s leg room. Obviously this applies only to trans-Pacific flights, because the plane they wedged me into for a four-hour flight from Seoul to Manila was built for dwarves. Short dwarves. Short dwarves with stumpy legs. My right leg was actually twitching above the knee by the end of the flight.
And little did I know that I was on the Korean Honeymoon Express. Apparently, the Philippines is to Korea what Hawaii is to America: a lush, exotic, sunny aphrodisiac of a beach destination for newlyweds. No sooner had I found my seat and gotten comfortable that my neighbor asked if I could switch seats with his new wife, as they were on a honeymoon. He didn’t have to point her out to me: they wore matching shirts.
Five minutes later, my new neighbor also asked if I could switch seats, as he was also on a honeymoon and his wife also didn’t have a seat next to him. And before I even had a chance to sit down in my new seat, it happened a third time. Call me Cupid, matchmaker of amorous Koreans.
I ended up firmly wedged between an old woman most certainly not on a honeymoon, and another couple with bright blue patterned matching shirts. I don’t know if they were on a honeymoon or not, but the guy had immense difficulty keeping his oversized paws off her, there was lots of intimate whispering, and had they been slightly skinnier or the rows less ridiculously cramped I would not have been surprised to see him attempt to mount her right there and then.
This plane load of romance landed a long four hours later, and it was all I could do not to sprint off the flight. The twitching held me back.
November 17th,2008
Philippines |
2 Comments
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So near the end of my 14-hour flight from Chicago to Seoul, I began to wonder: is it possible for your butt cheeks to fossilize while you’re still alive?
What if your body melds to the seat “cushion”–will it still be considered a proper flotation device in the unlikely event of an emergency water landing, or will it instead ensure that your head faces straight down into the water?
Do the laws of physics permanently alter the taste of food above 30,000 feet? I mean, it looks like a piece of melon, but my taste buds tell me I actually ingested a green slice of slimy alien ectoplasm. Who to believe?
There’s really not much you can do to sugar-coat a 14-hour flight, especially if you’re flying in peasant-class. That said, I do have a few wonderful things to say about Asiana Airlines.
Generous leg room, a top-notch personal in-flight entertainment system for everyone, and electrical outlets on every seat. Why do you have to fly a Korean airline to get these?! Oh, and I’m told the Asiana stewardesses were rather cute, but I really don’t notice these things so I can’t confirm.
I have no plans to visit South Korea on this trip (although it’s kind of interesting to be just a few miles from North Korea), so off to Manila in a few. Now that my bottom has been permanently re-molded into airplane seat shape and devoid of sensation, another couple hours in the air should be no big deal. Buns of stone.
November 16th,2008
Travels |
2 Comments
I hadn’t even left the country yet and already I was scrounging for food.
My flight landed at Chicago’s O’Hare airport at 6:30pm, and I casually settled in by an electrical outlet with my laptop for a few hours of wait. My next flight wasn’t until 1:00am, so over six hours to read, write and catch up on emails.
At precisely 9:08, I sensed that something was wrong. I looked up–nobody there. Huh? What just a few hours ago had been hallways teeming with business travelers, families, airport workers, stewardesses, little kids, tourists and security personnel were now empty hallways teeming with…nobody. Eerie.
It almost felt like any second a few hundred people would pop out from behind a screen and shout “Surprise! Boy did we have you going, haha.” But no.
So I roamed the halls in search of food. Nothing. Closed, closed, closed. Oh wait, is this one open? No, closed. The lights were on just to fake me out. O’Hare after 9:00 was deserted, although I did occasionally cross paths with a zombie-like traveler stumbling along in the opposite direction, ragged boarding pass in one hand and weary, vacant look in the other.
I walked from the farthest reaches of the Terminal 1’s C Concourse, down alone through the tunnel, and across both sides of the B Concourse in search of food. Hungry, with a backpack that probably weighed more than my teenage brother laden with dumbells, and burning what my famished stomach insisted must be at least 5 calories a minute.
I even walked all the way to Terminal 3, where I knew the Chili’s restaurant was. Closed.
I must have looked pretty hungry, because a Thai airport worker even offered me a banana and granola bar to tide me over. Bless her soul.
And then, when I had almost given up all hope, I saw a golden light. Well, more like yellow. McDonald’s arches, to be exact. The last remaining eatery open in the world’s second largest airport at 9:49pm. Eureka!
McDonald’s as my last meal in the U.S.A.–how perfectly, poetically fitting. I’ll have Chicken McNuggets, Fries and a Diet Coke to go, please.
November 15th,2008
Travels |
2 Comments
Several years ago I stumbled across AirTreks.com, a round-the-world airfare specialist. I blame this site for everything, because I immediately subscribed to their monthly newsletter and I’ve been drooling ever since.
For my round-the-world ticket, I purchased the Star Alliance RTW ticket. All major U.S. airlines have partnerships with airlines in other countries in order to provide travel to virtually anywhere in the world seamlessly with one ticket. The Star Alliance is United Airlines’ alliance, and features partners such as Thai Airways, Egypt Air, and a whole host of others.
With their RTW ticket, you can fly up to 39,000 miles on up to 16 flights on United or any of their international partners. Best of all, although once you buy the ticket you are committed to the flight segments (e.g. Chicago to Manila), the dates of each segment are flexible without charge. This means that there is flexibility to prolong or shorten a stay in one country as needed or desired. Very cool.
On the other hand, 39,000 miles and 16 flights is not as unlimited as it sounds. Just going around the world in a straight line is 26,000 miles, and even getting from the midwest to the Philippines requires a minimum of 3 flights. Plus, you can’t cross from one continent to another and then cross back.
With the outline of my itinerary in hand, it boiled down to minimizing down to as few flights as possible, and trying whenever feasible to cross overland from one country to the next.
Could I cross from Thailand into Cambodia by bus? Can you travel from the Senegal into Mali via train? Do you need a special permit to cross overland from Bangladesh into India? (You do.) If you’re going to fly from western Africa to northern Africa, who is the Star Alliance airline partner in the region so that you can do one nonstop flight instead of two flights with a connection? (Egypt Air). In instances where overland border crossings are not possible, are there cheap regional carriers available?
For Europe, none of this is a big deal: a comprehensive Eurail train pass will grant you virtually everything you need. But for most every other destination, this made for an interesting challenge. Keeping a true round-the-world, multi-continent itinerary under 39,000 miles and 16 flights is no easy task! This involved quite a bit of quality time spent in my local Barnes & Noble perusing the country-specific Lonely Planet guidebooks to ferret out the answers.
And I maxed it out: the final flight itinerary is some 38,850 miles–just shy of the 39,000 mile limit.
You’d think that in a year you could hit just about every interesting place in the world.
Alas, not so.
With well over 200 countries on the globe, and many with enough interesting things to see to keep you occupied for months, even a year-long trip requires some major decisions.
Plus, there’s the weather, visa issues, access, cost, safety and a whole host of other considerations. Thailand’s beaches may be awesome, but not during the monsoon season. France may have the Louvre, but it’s ridiculously expensive and crowded in July. Libya may sound fascinating, but will they issue a visa to Americans? Easter Island may look really cool in pictures, but it’s also out in the middle of nowhere. Ghana is supposedly one of the friendliest of African countries, but you have to have a yellow fever vaccination to enter. Iran…well, maybe not Iran.
So planning the right trip, in the right order, is something of a logistical challenge. Here’s how I approached the task:
- First, I wrote down all the countries that I really, really wanted to visit. And the countries next to those that looked interesting. Threw them into an Excel spreadsheet, sorted by continent.
- Next, I went to the Lonely Planet website and wrote in next to each of those what the ideal months of the year are to visit, as well as the months where it’s best NOT to visit.
- Since round-the-world airfares usually only work in one direction (west to east or east to west–you can’t jump back and forth between the same continents), I determined the order in which I had to visit the regions in order to visit the most number of countries on my list during favorable times of year.
With a mid-November departure, this meant that I ideally had to hit southeast Asia, northern India, and western Africa by the end of February, when weather conditions in these regions are optimal. Therefore, traveling east to west, starting in southeast Asia.
It also meant dropping some destinations. No time for island hopping in the Pacific. The Australian continent was out. As was any south African destination.
Europe is a tricky continent, at least if you’re budget-conscious. Winter is cheaper, but not great for most activities. Summer, as I mentioned, is both a madhouse and budget-killer. So visiting the popular western European countries during the shoulder season of April and early May made the most sense. Throw north Africa in between west Africa and Europe and the schedule works.
July and August are peak tourism months, so I picked less-visited spots there, with the ex-Soviet states of Armenia, Georgia and neighbors. And while Brazil may be a hotspot during our winter, by virtue of being on the other side of the equator August is their winter, therefore less crowded and actually a better time to visit the Amazon.
Thus the general outline of the itinerary was born. Next up: plane tickets.
After years of talking about it, it’s finally time!
Time to drop everything and explore the seven corners of the globe on a year-long, round-the-world trip.
Well, perhaps a little more than seven. Here’s the itinerary:
November 2008: Philippines
December: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma
January: Bangladesh, India
February: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana
March: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
April: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece
May: Central Europe
June: Eastern Europe
July: Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan
August: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela
Armed with a backpack, a couple cameras, a few clothes and a healthy dose of wanderlust, it’s time to head west and see what’s out there.
I’ll be posting updates (and pictures) via this blog as I go. (Special thanks to my friend Tom Karels at www.etomco.com for the awesome blog site design.)
First stop: Philippines!
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