Looking back, I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my life my “what to see” list when traveling started to tip in favor of places to eat rather than sights and attractions to see. While Kaua’i is a beautiful island with stunning beaches, mountains, canyons, and jungles, as I made my list of what I wanted to do, it pretty much read like a list of local types of food I wanted to try. Along the way, I discovered Lonely Planet’s Kaua’i guide, a book that uses 296 pages to detail the island and does a lot of work to present it through a environmental/sustainable/locavore lens. Excellent resource.
Our first afternoon in Poipu Beach we decided to start with the nearby town of Koloa, a five-minute drive from Poipu. With its little town feel that would be right at home in an “old west” movie, our first stop was the highly recommended Koloa Fish Market. Known for good local “grinds”, I was anticipating a chance to sit down and enjoy some great food. We got the great food alright, but since there was no place to sit down we had to take the food back to the condo.
Everything’s on the chalk board inside this tiny market. The friendly staff readily explained things that we later realized were written right in front of our face. (Hey, it happens to the best of us!) With four of us, two of whom are not large eaters, we decided the following would be enough:
This mixed seafood plate has seared ahi tuna encrusted in sesame, boiled shrimp served with dipping sauce, seaweed salad, and poke. Poke (pronounced “poe-kay”, which means “to cut or slice” in Hawaiian) is a common side dish in the islands made from raw fish marinated in soy sauce and other ingredients. We ate a lot of poke and every bit of it was fantastic. Most often, it is made from ahi tuna, the quality of which is amazing. We also had it made with octopus, crab meat, and salmon.
Now, I will say this about seafood in Hawai’i. It is really wonderful and all, but I get really fresh, really inexpensive seafood in Thailand so there was a point where I was thinking that it was all fine and dandy, but not really that exciting. This echoes a problem that Michael shared with us. When he has guests from the mainland, there are a lot of very interesting types of food for them to experience because Hawai’i has a hodgepodge of Asian cultures that make up its heritage and a lot of the Asian food here is better than what the visitors may experience back at home. When he has guests from Asia, though, they are more likely to think something like, “yeah, we’ve got this back at home.”
Of course, that didn’t stop us from trying as many different things as we could!
Another thing we tried is the plate lunch. Well, the styrofoam box lunch. Today’s offering was a mix of laulau (pork steamed in taro leaves and ti leaves), kalua pork (slow roasted, traditionally cooked in a fire pit), rice, lomilomi salmon (minced salted salmon with chopped tomatoes and green onions), and a little serving of poke. Both types of pork were wonderfully tasty. The lomilomi salmon was fine but it was hard to identify that there was any salmon in there. We tried some a bit later in the week that had more noticeable amounts of salmon.
For dessert we shared a piece of the fish market’s homemade sweet potato and haupia pie, a market specialty. Haupia is a coconut milk dessert thickened with arrowroot or corn starch. It is very similar to a Thai dessert and is lightly sweet and salty with a thick, gelatine-like consistency. This version is served with a sweet potato base made from purple sweet potatoes, again something familiar to people in Thailand. It is served on a cracker-crumb crust. It was very nice, not overly sweet but pretty filling.
All in all, our first meal in Kaua’i was a thumbs up. Relatively inexpensive, good food, simply prepared.
Unrelated to the lunch at the Koloa Fish Market was our search for malasadas, the fried dough that came here with Portuguese contract workers, thousands of whom came to Hawai’i in the late 1800s. We were looking for for the one-woman stand known as Kaua’i Malasadas, located in from of the K-Mart at Kukui Grove Shopping Center in Lihue. Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be seen, so we stopped at Kaua’i Bakery & Cinnamons in the same shopping center to try some of the different malasadas.
The options included plain, chocolate cream filled, vanilla cream filled, and filled with both chocolate and vanilla cream. Lightly sprinkled with sugar and not too oily, I was nonetheless underwhelmed with these fried treats. They are donuts without holes, something that I can’t get incredibly worked up about.
After our long journey to reach Kauai, we spent our first day relaxing. Tawn was a little under the weather, so extra napping was called for. We were renting a 2-bedroom condo with my parents in the Poipu Beach area on the south side of the island, and all of my cousins and aunts and uncles were in houses nearby, although at this point we didn’t all know where exactly everyone else was staying.
The beach was literally just around the corner from our condo, maybe a two-minute walk. The nearest area was very rocky but a sandy area (Brennecke Beach) was another minute or two away.
The weather was extremely pleasant with a nice breeze, so I went walking down by the water, first with Tawn and then later with my mother.
A beautiful tree we saw. I stopped by a nursery later in the trip to find out what type of tree it is. It is called a “monkey pod”. Looks like something out of The Lion King.
The sun starts to fall towards the horizon. We saw some beautiful sunsets while on the island. Interestingly, Kauai is twice the size of Singapore, but has about 80,000 residents compared to 5 million on Singapore.
One thing we saw plenty of on the island were these wild chickens. Without any snakes, mongoose, or other natural predators, their population is pretty out of control.
In the next entry, I’ll share a bit about the food we had.
After some 29 hours traveling, we had safely made it to Honolulu and had just one more short hop to our destination: Lihue, Kauai. To get there, we had to take a 20-minute flight about Hawaiian Airlines, which has a codeshare agreement with Continental.
We exited our plane from Guan (pictured) above and walked downstairs where we had to claim our luggage and go through customs. As you can imagine, since Hawaii is a bunch of islands they are particularly concerned about fruits, vegetables, uncooked meat, plants, and anything else entering the state that might harm local agriculture. About forty minutes after landing we found ourselves outside in the fresh (and very pleasant) air, and made our way to the inter-island terminal.
The inter-island terminal is a ten-minute walk from the main terminal and is also connected by these buses called Wiki-wiki busses. In Hawaiian, “wiki” means quick, so “wiki wiki” implies very quick. In place since 1970, the buses really are anything but that. Ostensibly a new moving sidewalk system has been opened but I didn’t see it.
Since our bags were checked through (we placed them on a belt outside customs so they could be connected for us), the walk was leisurely and we proceeded through security. We realized, though, that we still had better than an hour before boarding time, so I walked around the inter-island terminal to get some pictures.
For the longest time, the state of Hawaii had two dominant airlines: Hawaiian and Aloha. In March 2008, Aloha went out of business, at least in part because of predatory practices by Mesa Air Group (who operate many regional affiliates for major US airlines) who decided to open their own island carrier called “go!” Hawaiian continues strong, though, and consistently ranks with the best on-time percentage and fewest mishandled bags of any US carrier. Here is their fleet of Boeing 717s (a modernized version of the 1960s era Douglas DC-9) at Honolulu.
The airport has lots of open air areas, although since I was last there in 1994, they have enclosed and air conditioned the gates. The walkway in the picture above is open air. The garden below in the picture below is viewed from the left edge of this walkway.
One of several beautiful gardens in the airport which passengers can spend time in. What a peaceful place to wait for a flight!
As the sun set, I caught this nice picture with the Hawaiian Airlines maintenance hangar in the background.
Throughout the terminal are wall-sized enlarged photos taken from different eras of Hawaiian Airlines’ history. Talk about a walk through the past!
1960s – Hawaiian received their first Douglas DC-9 aircraft in 1966 and along with them, these funky flight attendant uniforms and hot boots! Go, Nancy Sinatra, go!
In the 1970s, the carrier updated their look both in terms of livery and flight attendant uniforms. I’m curious where they got the California surfer boy? Must have flown in from the OC and been accosted on the ramp by the flight attendants!
This picture, probably from the 1980s, is very pretty, showing off both the beauty of the islands as well as of the airplane.
One reminder of Aloha Airlines is this mural from a route map they had published in the early 1960s, based on the aircraft shown, a Fairchild F-27. Beautiful illustration, isn’t it?
Speaking of nice illustration, the toilet signs are appropriately decorated with aloha shirts for the men and muu-muus for the women.
As night fell and departure time neared, the gate area started to fill up. Among our fellow passengers, a group of elementary school students and their parents, flying to Kauai for a weekend outing. The flight attendants gave them a special shout-out when we landed.
Our aircraft, almost ready to board. Watching their ground crew move, you can understand why they have such a good on-time record. Despite the islands’ laid-back culture, they certainly hustle when there is work to be done.
The interiors are a bit old and dark, but for such a short flight it was fine. Service was friendly, along the lines of Southwest Airlines. For our 20-minute flight, the only “inflight service” was the handing out of containers of POG – passionfruit, orange, guava juice – and then quickly collecting them. Seriously, we took off, leveled at about 5000 feet (versus 35,000 for a normal flight), and then were descending almost as soon as we had leveled off.
Finally, about 32 hours after leaving Bangkok, we landed smoothly on Kauai, retrieved our bags in the open-air bag claim, and waited for my parents to arrive and pick us up. At last, we were there!
I’ve reached the age where I’m willing to spend a little more money so I can be comfortable when I travel, and being able to get a few hours of good sleep in the midst of a 30+ hour journey seemed like a good investment. This was the logic behind paying $60 apiece to rent three hours in day rooms at the Plaza Premium Lounge, a public “arrival lounge” in Hong Kong Airport’s Terminal 2.
Unfortunately, a few things kept the investment from paying dividends. This particular lounge is located below the train station. While it has soundproofing, you can still hear the “whoosh” of the train arriving every twelve minutes. If I had used earplugs, that might not have been a problem, but the coffee I had with my egg tarts earlier in the afternoon, or maybe just the rush of adrenaline brought on by travel, kept me from really relaxing and sleeping.
Nonetheless, I got more rest than I would have just wandering around the city or dozing in an airport chair, so I was thankful for that. The lounge itself was nice and the facilities were in good shape. The staff gave us a bit more than three hours before calling to wake us so the time to shower and change wasn’t held against the three hours we had paid for. Maybe that’s because they weren’t busy that time of day or maybe that’s just how they do it in Hong Kong.
Whatever the case, a little before 8:30 pm we were showered, changed, and checked out. We collected our bags from the locker facility nearby and did some rearranging with the packing. On the Air Asia flight, we had to prepay for our luggage, so managing the weight distribution was critical. At least for their international flights, Continental offers free luggage check-in, so we could move things out of our carry-on and into the luggage for the rest of the trip.
The check-in counters were deserted two hours before departure. United does the check-in and ground handling for Continental, which operates only two flights a day (to Guam and Newark). UA providing this services is a recent development, brought about by the merger of the two airlines. It took a few minutes for the agent to finish our check-in as there was some confusion about the assignment of my frequent flyer number. (Continental and Taiwan’s EVA Air have a reciprocal mileage program agreement and I was using my EVA mileage program number for these flights.) The agents were friendly, though, and resolved the problem in short order.
After the confusion was cleared, our bags tagged, and boarding passes issued, we headed through security and immigration. Unlike many international airports I’ve been to, Hong Kong places security before immigration, which makes more sense to me than at airports like Singapore where you don’t go through security until you are entering the gate. Who’s protecting the immigration officers there?
Uncertain what food would be served aboard our four-hour redeye Continental flight to Guam, we stopped for a bite at the popular local eatery Tsui Wah, a branch of which is located in the airport. I’ve noticed that many airports are moving from having just random restaurants or only fast food chains to having branches of popular local restaurants. San Francisco Airport is a good example of this. There you can eat the food from some of your favorite local restaurants inside the terminal. Good idea, in my estimation. At least you get something more interesting than Burger King and Starbucks, again and again, airport after bloody airport.
I think this photo says it all. We ate at a full branch of Tsui Wah on our two days in Hong Kong while returning, too.
Tawn ordered this dish, which if I recall correctly is a Singapore style curried noodles. I tried a bite and it was tasty and a bit spicy.
I ordered the baked pork chop smothered in tomato sauce and cheese, served over rice. It took about ten minutes for them to prepare but was worth the wait!
Hong Kong International Airport remains one of my favorite airports. While Singapore may offer free internet, some outdoor gardens, etc. I find HKIA a much more modern, user friendly, and well thought-out airport. The interior also is bright and open, making the travel feel just that much more exciting. It reminds me of a classic European train station, done up in a modern version.
Another benefit to HKIA: it is children friendly. There’s this good sized play area near the main food court. It features many segments of play airplanes, allowing children to burn off energy and learn more about aviation before getting on their flights.
The segment about the cabin, left, has all sorts of little details like the stickers on the “overhead bins” showing row numbers. Parents could actually use these as a learning opportunity for their children, pointing out the stickers and practicing how they’ll look for the row numbers once they get on their real airplane. It has all sorts of educational possibilities, not to mention just being fun!
The table in the cabin interior play area is covered with photos taken at the old Hong Kong airport, Kai Tak. The Wikipedia entry for the airport describes it very aptly:
“With numerous skyscrapers and mountains located to the north and its only runway jutting out into Victoria Harbour, landings at the airport were dramatic to experience and technically demanding for pilots. The History Channel program Most Extreme Airports ranked it as the 6th most dangerous airport in the world.”
This minute-long video beautifully illustrates just how crazy landings into Kai Tak were. Take a look.
Departure time was 10:30 pm from gate 20, one of the closet gates to immigration. HKIA is a very spread-out airport but unlike the design of Bangkok, there is a convenient train system that will shuttle you to the more distant gates in just a few minutes. In Bangkok, nearly every gate requires a hike, most of which is through a shopping mall of duty free stores.
Boarding started about 20 minutes before departure for our nearly full flight. Unlike many trans-Pacific flights, this one was served by a narrow body aircraft, a Boeing 737-800. During the boarding process all passengers were put through additional security screening, which is normal for flights heading to the US thanks to our overzealous policies. However, unlike most airports where this screening is done before you actually enter the gate, here in Hong Kong they have the screening in the ramp leading to the jetway.
The result? Passengers had to surrender water bottles they had purchased or filled inside the secured area of the airport, without an opportunity to get more water before the flight. This is extremely cruddy, resulting in passengers not being able to bring their own water onto the flight. To top it off, the United customer service agents failed to mention this procedure either at check-in or in the boarding announcements, making it all the more inconvenient and, because it was unexpected, irritating.
On this segment of the flight we had been able to purchase exit row seats (an extra $89 per person) in order to have a little more legroom and get some rest on the overnight flight. Again, our “book the window and aisle” strategy left us with an empty middle seat and some extra room. Note those little “SUV back seat” screens hanging throughout the cabin. More about those in a moment.
View of a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A310 next to us. Beautiful design on the tail. HKIA is a great place to see planes from all over the world, with the exception of Latin America which isn’t well-represented.
The four-hour flight to Guam was uneventful. Cabin lights were on and off – mostly on – for the first two hours as we went through lengthy announcements and then a meal service that, for a red eye, seems should have been delivered immediately after takeoff. The “meal” was half a turkey wrap, some fruit, and some almond cookies. About as much as you would expect for an American airline, I think.
There was no individual inflight entertainment. This plane is equipped with those “SUV back seat” style monitors throughout the cabin so we all watched the recent Harrison Ford movie “Morning Glory”. Well, as much as we could see it on the tiny monitor four rows away. Headsets were distributed for free and we were encouraged to keep them for use on other flights.
I managed to doze a bit on the flight but then it was time for descent into Guam. We touched down some twenty minutes early and taxied to gate 10. As we arrived, I was unsure what to expect, immigration-wise. This was our first point of entry into the US, although Guam is a territory rather than a state. As it turned out, we ended up having to go through immigration, but didn’t have to reclaim our baggage and go through customs.
The process was like this: when you arrive in Guam the terminal has these flexible partitions down the middle of the hallway. You are shunted into the “secure” side if your flight has arrived from an international destination. Then you go into the immigration queue just like at any other international airport. After clearing immigration you end up outside security in the ticketing and check-in lobby, so you re-clear security and head to your gate.
Back at our gate about fifteen minutes after clearing immigration, we spotted our plane for the 7.5-hour flight to Honolulu. As you can see, from a visual branding perspective, the CO-UA merger is also a merger of identities: Continental color scheme with the United name. That being the case, it has been much faster to update the legacy Continental planes than the legacy United ones.
Boarding was already underway when we reached the gate, but the procedure was very strange. Between the gate area and the jetway there was another set of immigration booths, so we had to go through immigration a second time within forty-five minutes, essentially reentering the US. I guess the implication of this second immigration check is that there must be passengers boarding locally in Guam who entered Guam without going through formal immigration procedures. Very odd.
The view from my window seat. The plane we arrived on from Hong Kong is the second plane back. Interestingly, the Guam airport seems to be located on a graded hillside and I noticed that the arrangement of the aircraft parking areas is a bit like terraced rice paddies, albeit not at a very steep grade. Look at the building just above the left side of the jetway. Notice how it “steps up” about a meter? It is hard to see in the picture but the ramp is level at the plane’s parking area but then slopes up to the next parking area. You can see the slope where the yellow cargo pallet carts are parked just beyond the wing of our plane.
Anyhow, our flight pulled back just as the sun was rising, the same time (6:30 am locally) we had departed from Bangkok the day before, although 24 hours had not quite passed thanks to time zone changes.
On our way to runway 6-Right we passed this Continental Boeing 737 in the Star Alliance livery. I wonder if some day all the Star Alliance airlines will merge (once foreign ownership laws change) and simply brand the airline as “Star Alliance”?
Our climb out of Guam on a cloudy Saturday morning.
Our plane, a Boeing 767-400, is a twin-aisle jet with a 2-3-2 arrangement of seats in economy class. Unlike the plane from Hong Kong, this one was equipped with individual seatback monitors with a choice of something like nine channels of movies and TV shows playing on a 2.5-hour loop. If you happen to tune in at a random time, you will find yourself in the middle of a movie and have to wait until the loop restarts.
It is certainly better than squinting to watch the show on a screen half a cabin away, but given the recent advances in inflight entertainment technology (not to mention things like iPods and iPads!) the quality is still pretty low. Interestingly, though, since this flight was technically a domestic flight (although nearly twice as long as our Hong Kong to Guam flight), you had to pay for a headset or else use your own.
The seats did have pillows and blankets provided, something rare for a domestic flight. Seat pitch (the point on your seat to the same point on the seat in front of you) is about 32 inches, typical for economy on many airlines and if you empty out the seatback pocket of magazines and the person in front of you doesn’t recline all the way, it is reasonably comfortable.
Despite being a domestic flight, free meals were served and they weren’t that bad, either. This was a breakfast flight and I had sausage and eggs served over fried rice. You have to appreciate that Continental tries to appeal to the local customers with the fried rice, and it strikes me as a better choice than hash browns.
Tawn opted for the French Toast, which was just about basic as French Toast can get!
About three hours into the flight, flight attendants passed out ice cream bars as a snack. Thanks to the dry ice on which they had been stored, these ice cream sandwiches were as hard as a rock and I had to wait about ten minutes before I could manage to break off a bite without chipping a tooth! One wonders what would happen if they offered a snack of, say, fruit or carrot sticks. Nonetheless, I can only greet an ice cream sandwich with a smile.
About four hours into the flight, we crossed the International Date Line, suddenly gaining back 24 hours of our lives. In fact, this flight was so funky because of the IDL that when I tried to book it on Continental’s website, it wouldn’t let me. I had to go to their ticketing agent in Bangkok to get it done. The reason? We left Hong Kong on Friday evening, arrived Guam Saturday morning, departed Guam Saturday morning, arrived Honolulu Friday afternoon, then connected to a codeshare flight to Lihue on Friday evening. That “back and forth” with the dates confused Continental’s computers, I guess.
About 70 minutes before landing the flight attendants passed out snack trays with turkey sandwiches every bit as dry as the ones I made for our Bangkok to Hong Kong flight! Also included were a Twix bar and cheddar cheese flavored crackers. Not the culinary highlight of the flight.
The skies were beautiful as we approached Honolulu. Sadly, I should have been sitting on the left-hand side of the plane for the best views of the island. However, I did film our takeoff and landing and will share it here if you’d like to view it:
Watching palm trees swaying in the breeze, we pulled into our gate next to an Air Canada jet (bet the crew is glad to be working that route!) and after about 29 hours had finally arrived in Hawai’i. But we still had one more flight to reach our destination… stay tuned!
With exactly twelve hours to kill between landing in Hong Kong and that evening’s departure to Hawaii, we decided to head into the city for some lunch and a little window shopping. Something I love about Hong Kong is how easy and convenient it is to get into (and around) the city from the airport.
Tawn in his travel outfit and clear tote bag, waiting at the Admiralty MTR station as we connect from the Airport Express line to the Island line on our way to Causeway Bay.
Something that amazes me about Hong Kong is the effectiveness of its transit. Granted, this is partially a function of the relative density of the city, but I think a lot of credit goes to the design of the system. With a population of 7 million residents, the MTR (the rail portion of the transit system) carries a daily average of about 4 million riders. The main lines run with eight cars (the maximum) at all times and they seem to usually carry a crowd despite trains arriving every few minutes. I can only hope that one day Bangkok manages to develop a transit infrastructure that is as integrated into residents’ daily use as Hong Kong’s is.
Our destination was Causeway Bay, the heavily built-up shopping district on the northern side of Hong Kong Island. This wonderfully retro pedestrian flyover is built along Yee Wo Street right at Pennington Street. With the Hong Kong trams running down the middle of the street, it is easy to feel caught in a bit of a time warp. Notice the stairs on the opposite side of the picture.
When we passed by an hour later, there was a queue of people, mostly office workers, forming up the stairs. We couldn’t confirm what they were queuing for, but Tawn thought it might be for a restaurant behind the scaffolding. My suspicion is that it isn’t for a restaurant, as that would be a crazy amount of potential customers on a short lunch break. I should have explored because if a place is attracting this much attention, it must be worth knowing about.
The first stop was at the Causeway Bay branch of Taipei’s favorite dumpling house, Din Tai Fung. There are those who say that the branches outside of Taiwan don’t live up to the standards of those inside the country. My experience in Singapore has been positive but I was curious to see how the food compares in Hong Kong.
I’ve written about Din Tai Fung on other occasions so won’t go into a lot of detail other than to say that with the exception of the Xiao Long Bao (upper right) and the spicy shrimp dumplings (lower left), the food was a bit bland. We were actually considering sprinkling salt on everything. Perhaps they’ve stopped using MSG, to the detriment of our taste buds!
After lunch, we went to do a little shopping. Well, window shopping. Reportedly, the rents in this shopping area of Causeway Bay, which feature global retailers such as this Sogo shop from Japan, are among the highest in the world, nearly equal that of New York’s Fifth Avenue and London’s Sloane Street.
Seeing the crowds, I’m reminded of Tokyo’s Shibuya district. This is true even more true at night, when all the lights are on and the streets glow nearly as bright as day.
After some shopping we headed to the Excelsior Hotel for an afternoon treat. On the way there we passed the World Trade Center mall, which has this odd quasi-pedestrian area outside. It is open to traffic as a driveway but there aren’t many cars. Because of that, it feels sort of like a set on some Hollywood (or in this case, Hong Kong) movie studio back lot.
The coffee shop at the Excelsior (which is a part of the Mandarin Oriental group) features Portuguese style egg tarts from Macau’s famous Lord Stow’s Bakery. I found out about this when MIA Xangan Wangium posted some pictures on Facebook from his recent trip to Hong Kong. Good to know both that Jason is still alive (although not posting very frequently here on Xanga – hint, hint) and that there is a convenient source for these tasty egg tarts.
The thing about Portuguese versus the Chinese style egg tarts is that the tops are lightly caramelized so they are a bit like eating creme brulee. Very rich, but with a coffee or tea to cut through the richness, they are a wonderful afternoon treat and well worth a trip into town from the airport.
We did a little more shopping after the tarts. This is at Lee Gardens, another shopping center in Causeway Bay. I took a dozen shots of this scene and this is the only one that turned out. A clerk, who seemed a bit self-conscious about the pictures I was taking, was wearing the same jacket that she was placing on the mannequin. I kept trying to get a good shot of her arranging the jacket on the mannequin but those didn’t turn out. Finally, as she finished she turned and shot me this look, almost like a mannequin come to life.
This is another shot that almost came out but didn’t quite. I was shooting this nursery delivery truck when a bellboy at the hotel walked by pulling a trolley bag. I missed the perfect shot by just a split second and his head is slightly cut off. Nonetheless, I find the composition pleasing.
By about 4 pm we were getting tired, a combination of about four hours’ sleep the night before, a very early departure time, and the wear and tear of travel. Instead of continuing our shopping or meeting up with friends for an early diner, we decided to head back to the airport. We went to the Airport Express station, which has this beautiful check-in lobby, before boarding the train.
On the way to the airport, we were both nearly wiped out. While Tawn will probably not like this picture because it doesn’t show him in as refreshed and smiling a way as he usually presents himself, I think it is a beautifully contemplative portrait, nicely composed, that really captures the sense of both stillness and motion that we were experiencing on our journey.
With a little more than five hours before our flight, we decided to get some rest. Hong Kong Airport features a lounge in the public (pre-security) area of Terminal 2 where you can rent day rooms in three-hour increments. Each room is a tiny, although well-appointed, single bed and bathroom. The rate was a little steep – $60 for 3 hours – but knowing we wouldn’t get much opportunity for decent sleep for the next 20 hours or so, we figured it was worth it.
Well, I’m back and reasonably well recovered. Recovered enough, at least, to start sharing the story of our trip to Kaua’i. First part of the story, our flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong. This may be a bit more detailed than you are interested in, but I’m going to cross-post it as a trip report on Airliners.net. I hope you enjoy.
The alarm rang too early, but since the first leg of our four-flight trip from Bangkok to Lihue, Hawai’i departed at 6:30 am, perhaps that was inevitable. A quick shower, a double check of critical documents and must-bring items, and a few minutes to whip up some sandwiches to eat onboard later, and Tawn and I were headed downstairs for the waiting taxi.
As we walked across the condominium driveway, a small toad hopped into the bushes, startled by our approach. On the 25-minute ride to the airport, the taxi driver pandered to us, selecting English songs from his MP3 player. “YMCA” by the Village People, “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer, and “Ice, Ice, Baby” by Vanilla Ice were among the selections. “Do you really like these songs?” I asked the driver in Thai. “Of course,” he responded with all seriousness. “Don’t you?”
Air Asia’s ticket counter was its usual early morning chaos, although once we pushed through the masses of infrequent travelers, we found the online check-in queues had only a few people waiting in them. After our bags were tagged and our travel documents checked, we headed for immigration.
As of late, lots of letters to the editor of the English-language Bangkok Post newspaper have been inspired by complaints of the long queues at Suvarnabhumi Airport’s immigration counters. However, at 4:50 this morning, lines were about ten people deep and it only took a few minutes to clear immigration.
Just beyond immigration is this epic sculpture taken from Hindu mythology of “The churning of the Ocean of Milk.” More about that story here.
After a latte and some duty free browsing, we headed to our gate. The airport is laid out in the shape of a massive letter “H” and our gate was at the far end of the upper right leg. We had checked in close to the near end of the main terminal in the center of the “H”, so it was a bit of a walk.
A lonely, dimly-lit pier stretched out ahead of us as we traversed one moving sidewalk after another. The airport authority has made some attempts to warm the interior and make it more welcoming, especially in a well-publicized desire to rank as one of the top five airports in the world. This jealousy of peer airports such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Seoul should be a good motivator, but unfortunately the airport authority is run by people who either know little about airports or else pay little attention when visiting the competition. Compare the above photo with one later on from Hong Kong to see a night and day difference.
Boarding began about 6:00, an orderly affair. We had purchased “hot seats” – designated as the first five rows and the two emergency exit rows – for an extra 250 baht (about US$ 8.50) per segment, per person. This gets you priority boarding and, in the exit rows, a smidgen more leg room and a fixed (not reclinable) seat in front of you.
A look at the leg room in the exit row. About 36 inches, which is 3-5 more inches than you get in most American economy class seats. In a three-seat row, we reserved the window and aisle seats, betting correctly that few people would choose to upgrade to a middle “hot seat”, thus effectively getting us three seats for the price of two. If someone did come along with that seat, we could always offer them the window or the aisle instead so we can still sit together.
This flight was operated by Thai Air Asia, one of four subsidiary companies that together make up “Air Asia”. The fleet is completely made up of new Airbus A320 aircraft. The interior was clean and the black leather seats look sharp. Flight attendants are friendly and attentive and seem very capable.
As the sun rose over Suvarnabhumi, a final passenger count was done and the main cabin door was closed for an on-time departure.
After a quick safety demo in Thai and English, we taxied to runway 1-Left and since there was no other traffic at this early hour, we started our takeoff roll just ten minutes after scheduled departure time, climbing through the hazy skies of Central Thailand en route to Hong Kong.
Housing developments on the eastern edge of Bangkok, as seen on departure from the airport. The main part of the city is in the haze on the horizon.
Above, a two-minute video of the takeoff from Bangkok and landing in Hong Kong, if you are interested.
The captain greeted us aboard the flight, informing us we were cruising at flight level 350 – 35,000 feet above sea level – at a speed of 815 km/h (506 mph). The flight was smooth, crossing Laos, Vietnam, and the South China Sea on our way to Hong Kong.
Air Asia is a no-frills airline. Other than buying a seat on the plane, everything else from baggage to seat assignments to food has a price tag. While I get bummed when I see formerly full-service US airlines doing this, I have no qualms about Air Asia doing it because that has been the arrangement from the first day. Plus, they provide genuinely friendly and caring service, something most US carriers seem to be missing.
One arrangement they offer is the ability to pre-book your meals from a selection of more than 20 dishes such as pad thai, nasi lemak, chicken rice, and basil fried rice with chicken. Out of Bangkok the catering is done by local restaurant chain Seefah (“blue sky”). Dishes are around 100 baht, about US$3.30, and are reasonably tasty for the price.
While they announce a “no outside food” policy, I’ve found if you keep your dining on the down-low, it seems to be no problem. Before leaving home, I had used the last carefully-selected food items from the refrigerator to make two turkey and provolone cheese sandwiches, complete with homemade pesto-mayonnaise sauce. All in all, I have to admit they were a little dry, but still a tasty way to start the day.
Needing some more caffeine, I ordered two “Old Town White Coffees”, which are the three-in-one coffee, creamer, sugar mixes from the Malaysian chain Old Town Coffee. Maybe it is just all the sugar, but these are a surprisingly tasty treat.
Food and beverage service concluded, the flight attendants plied the aisle with duty free and souvenirs. I can’t imagine why people flying would want to buy some of these things, but it appears they do.
As much as I have had my qualms about Air Asia in the past, more recently I’ve come to respect them. Their once abysmal on-time performance has significantly improved. Their website, which would crash under the pressure of too much traffic, performs more reliably. And they keep their fares low and frequencies high. Kudos for that.
Interestingly, Air Asia is the official airline of the Oakland Raiders, despite Air Asia flying nowhere in North America. The Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes has explained it as something of a preemptive move, building the brand in anticipation of an eventual service to the Bay Area. Air Asia already flies to Paris and London through their Air Asia X long-haul subsidiary, so it would not be a surprise to see them begin flights to Oakland eventually.
Descent into Hong Kong seemed to begin quite quickly, less than two hours after takeoff. I’m reminded that there was a time in my life when a 2-3 hour flight seemed long. Now that I cross the Pacific several times a year, two hours passes in the blink of an eye. We touched down on runway 7-Left about twenty minutes ahead of schedule under skies as hazy as they were in Bangkok.
The north satellite concourse (with gates numbered as 501-510!), which seems to serve carriers heading to and from Mainland China. I like the design of the roof, which reminds me of a bird in flight.
We parked at gate N28, just a short walk from the main terminal. Next to us was this Qantas Boeing 747-400, which has a color scheme similar to Air Asia’s, I think.
Here is the transit check-in and duty free area just before immigration. Earlier, I wrote about how Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok fails to reach the same level as other regional airports such as Hong Kong. Compare the above picture with the fourth one from the top of this entry. While the chairs in Bangkok might be more comfortable, the whole setting here in Hong Kong looks more attractive and warmer. Maybe it is the use of – gasp! – carpeting. In either case, Hong Kong remains one of my favorite airports and sets the bar which Bangkok will have to reach.
We exited customs and immigration with minimal delay and entered the spacious and well-organized arrivals area, another distinction between Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Since we had exactly twelve hours between our arrival and the departure of our next flight, we decided to check our bags into the lockers and head into the city for lunch. An attractive atrium leads from Terminal 1 underneath the Airport Express train station and to Terminal 2, where the lockers are located. We were able to store our two large check-in bags plus a trolley bag for 80 HKD (about US$ 11) for up to 12 hours, quite a reasonable price.
Within an hour of touching down on the runway, we were boarding the Airport Express train for the 24-minute ride into the city. I’ll write about our day in Hong Kong in the next entry. Stay tuned!
Returned home from Hawaii and Hong Kong Sunday night about 10:30. Unfortunately, I came down with a case of food poisoning and was sick on the flight and subsequently unable to keep anything down until Monday afternoon. The only thing I ate this weekend that Tawn did not eat was some congee with fried dough sticks at a restaurant in the iSquare Mall in Tsim Sha Tsui.
A trip to the doctor and the prescription of some meds seems to have helped. I ate a bowl of (ironically) instant congee this afternoon and it is staying where it belongs. Drinking lots of electrolyte beverages to rehydrate and will hopefully have the strength to start sharing pictures and stories from my trip tomorrow.
A few weeks back the Thai Red Cross held their annual Diplomatic Fair in which embassies and consulates in Bangkok sell items imported duty-free from their home countries, with the proceeds going to the Red Cross. Most of my purchases were wines imported by the US embassy, offered at about a 30% discount of normal retail prices thanks to the absence of a duty.
I was especially tickled, though, when I found this wine for sale at the Hungary booth. IKON wine. This is funny because that’s the company I work for, IKON Office Solutions. Who knew we had a namesake wine? For the record, this was a very nice, medium-dry rose.
On the way to the airport in Bangkok recently, I managed to hail the most interesting taxi. The entire front half of the interior was decorated with coins and currency, almost all of it Thai and most of it commemorative or collectible.
The driver, who has been working on this collection for more than a dozen years, started collecting both out of interest, but also for the “good luck” brought by having the auspicious images of Thai kings posted in his taxi.
This one-baht note comes from early in the present king’s reign. His Majesty has been the monarch for more than 60 years and these days a baht (current exchange rate, about 30 baht to the US dollar) is just a coin used for change.
These early one-baht coins feature the three-headed elephant known as Erawan, borrowed from the Brahmanist traditions associated with the royal court.
Even more unusual is this 50-satang note. A satang is 1/100th of a baht. These days we have 25- and 50-satang coins and you only receive those as the result of rounding because of tax. There isn’t anything in Bangkok you could buy for 25 satang.
Talking about small amounts, these extremely old coins, with holes in them, are one-satang coins (1/100th of a baht). They were introduced in 1908, near the end of the reign of King Chulalongkorn, known as Rama V. The current king is Rama IX. One satang!? I wonder what that bought back in the day?
While it is common to see taxi drivers decorate their dash boards, particularly with items they think will bring them good luck, I don’t recall ever seeing so extensive and interesting a collection.
Apologies as we interrupt the regularly scheduled blogging…
Aloha and greetings from Kaua’i, the Garden Isle. We’re ending our last full day here and have had a lot of fun experiences over the last four days. Many tales to tell and stories to share including a beautiful beach wedding, some tasty local grinds, and some gorgeous scenery. Our return itinerary will include an overnight stay in Honolulu as well as two nights in Hong Kong. Hopefully some additional good stories to share with you from those two stops.
Until then, please enjoy the remaining few days of pre-programmed blogs. Mahalo!
christao408 