22 October, 2024

We have arrived safe and sound in Taiwan, with bikes and bag.

The taxi from Howard’s was 15 minutes early – it was his first time doing an airport run. As we chatted to Dennis he said that he had only flown once and that was to Cancun for their 25^th wedding anniversary (29 years earlier). That was the first and last time for him. They bought an RV and were going to become snowbirds when he retired. They took one trip to Florida and after two weeks decided it wasn’t for them and came home. I am a bit of a home body he said. Ralf and I are definitely not home bodies. We love to travel, to meet new people, see and experience different countries and cultures. I could not imagine being a homebody.

Although I plan everything down to the nth degree I, was very stressed last week. What Ifs. What if the taxi doesn’t show up, what if the first flight is delayed, what if the bikes don’t get to Taipei, what if, what if, what if. In my defense it has been a while since we have flown anywhere or that I have had to plan a major trip. My sisters were laughing at me on the week-end. They were all very excited to be following the Blog again.

Ralf, of course, had an answer for all my What Ifs: I will drive, we have insurance for delayed flights, we will rent bikes or change the trip to be trains. Then he put his arms around me and said thank you for planning our trips.  Breath out and thank God I have my wonderful hubby to keep me calm.

I hadn’t checked in on line, because of the oversized bike bags. Yes, they are still oversized even with folding bikes but smaller than before! We arrived at the airport at 5:30 a.m. and walked straight to a sleepy young man at a United Airlines check-in. Everyone else appeared to either have checked in on-line or were doing self-check-ins at the various terminals. The sleepy young man presented us with boarding passes and told us to take the bikes to the over-sized check-in and our other bag to the regular check-in.

Amazing you pay all this money for a flight but you have to carry your own bags to the luggage place!! We usually have to with our bikes but regular luggage, times have changed.

Then we went through security or at least we lined up to go through security. That took about 30 minutes. Once through security we had to check in at U.S. passport control. 1.5 hours. I felt as if I was at Disney waiting to go on space mountain – just as you thought you were ready to get on the ride there was another switchback and you were back to where you started.  What a night mare.

People were trying to push ahead because they hadn’t left themselves enough time.  I guess they figured because they had checked-in online it would be easy to get through all the other lines. Nope.  We eventually got through and headed straight for our gate. We stopped and got a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. My god it was ridiculously expensive for a couple of slices of white toast and an egg and plastic cheese.

The flight to SFO went smoothly and we were able to head straight for our connector, after looking at some of the artwork.

The sleepy young man at Montreal told us the bikes would be checked all the way through to Taipei.  I was so excited when I saw them by our plane, ready to be loaded.

A young Taiwanese fella asked what we were looking at and we then had a lovely chat with him and on older lady, who was younger than us but would never dream of cycling around Taiwan. They asked us where we had cycled before and was astounded. The lady said it is so good that you like to do this together. The joys of travelling and being open to meeting new people. The young man was visiting his Grandparents in Taipei. The lady was going home.

Onto our next flight and lots of turbulence as we came across the Pacific Ocean. It is always a little scary when the Captain orders the attendants to take to their jump-seats, which he did several times. We tried to sleep and managed to get a few hours in between feedings.

The food was o.k. the attendant was very cheerful and would sing the choices: chicken & rice or 7 Veg with noodles. I think it was the only way he could get through his day.

On arrival at Taoyuan Airport everything went like clockwork. So organized, quickly through passport control – welcome to Taiwan said the border officer. Then through the doors to baggage claim and wait for our bags. Not much of a wait the blue bag was already making its way around the carousal and somebody showed up with our two bikes on a luggage cart.  I was taking a photo of Ralf, when an airport worker asked if we liked a photo together. I am beginning to like Taiwan. There were lots of signs indicating no importation of meats, etc and as we left the arrivals area there was a little dog having a sniff at all the bags.

We checked to see if the regular taxis could accommodate the bike bags, we opted for limousine service. We were taken straight outside and there was a large Mercedes Benz Van to bring us to our hotel.

The hotel entrance was hidden but our taxi driver found it and helped us to the (elevator) lift with our bags. Ralf was about to give him a tip, but he ran away. Tipping is not customary in Taiwan and could be considered offensive. Taxi drivers will accept a tip, but not this fella he was away like the wind as soon as we were in the lift.

The room is clean and very nice. We had a shower and I wrote the first draft of the blog, then off to sleep. Hopefully we won’t have too much difficulty adjusting to Taiwan time as it was 10:00 p.m. when we hit the hay.