We’re here!  As we walked off the plane and the warm humidity hit me, my travel crankiness started to melt in the tropical climate.  The already long 14 hour flight to Taipei felt even longer due to the truly atrocious quality of the food.  I would say the meals qualified as the worst airplane food we’ve ever had.  The other pet peeve was the fact that they only like to give you water in small, gulp-size glasses and they don’t do it very often.  I can’t imagine how dehydrated you’d get if you drank alcohol or coffee too. But the plane was nice and had some clever touches like a little mirror in the seat back in front of you, as well as a little cup holder, so you can have your drink there without having the tray table down. Plus, they used paper cups instead of plastic, and would re-use them if you handed them over. Every little bit counts, people. It’s little things like this that make me happy.

Our culinary adventures have been very disappointing thus far. The Taiwan airport still smells as musty as I remember it and is still horribly short of vegetarian or vegan food. Having ulcers on top of being vegan makes locating sustenance a big adventure for me right now anyway, but they literally had nothing I could consume.  Luckily I packed a big bag of snacks for the trip. The new Bangkok airport is all beautifully futuristic and awesome, but for some reason every potato chip-like product they sell contains whey.  Even the plain old salted ones. Thank goodness for that vegan junk food standby that can be foudn in innumerable countries- the Oreo.  My most pleasant surprise came from the home team at LAX- at this ice cream place in the international terminal, they sell Organic To Go pre-packaged sandwiches and stuff- Vegan chicken nuggets, vegan chicken sandwiches, salads and noodles dishes.  They’re cold and could have more flavor, but I was just ecstatic to see something with a large sticker proudly announcing “Vegan” on it.  I  put ketchup and mustard on my bland sandwich and had a flashback to about 15 years ago when I last ate a McDonald’s hamburger.  They tasted similar.  I guess I never realized most of the flavor of those little things actually just came form the sauce.  McDonald’s- ew.  Anyway, sadly, my vegan sandwich was followed up by Mike ordering a horrifyingly undrinkable margarita at this Mexican place that was a waste of decent tequila. So here’s my official travel advice to vegans (and vegetarians)- pack at least a meal’s worth of food when you travel, especially if you’re headed to someplace unfamiliar.  It will save you so much grief. And to everyone- watch carefully when someone makes your margarita and tell them to stop pouring the sickly sweet mix in when you can tell there’s already plenty in there.

I meant to take photos for the blog, but my awesome yet massive new laptop bag backpack wouldn’t fit under the seat, so I had to jostle the nice lady sitting in the aisle every time I had to get something from it.  So the camera remained in the bag.  I know that you want photos, because that’s what I want when I look at your blogs.  I promise to be better about it- starting tomorrow.

Mike’s inability to sleep on the plane has adjusted him nicely to Thai time- it’s 3am here as I write this with him snoring next to me.  But my ability to instantly pass out on a plane has worked against me.  During a total of 18 or so hours flying, I slept for around 7 hours.  So I’m about ready to hit the town. Except that the town is asleep.

We can’t wait to hit beach after we fly to Phuket in about 8 hours! Let’s see how many mosqito bites we wake up with in the morning.

Tags: travel food vegan