My international terminal travel experience thus far (DAD and TPE)

Airport experience thus far.

It has been a while since I have traveled any sort of real distance internationally. 5 years to be exact. The last several international trips don’t really count in my book because they were only an hour and a half or so even though they were technically to another country. South-East Asia is nice like that; go just an hour or so by flight in any direction and you are in a completely different country with a different culture, different food, and a different language. I’m one of the lucky ones though because basically everyone caters to English-speakers: I would feel really terrible for someone that doesn’t speak English or the local tongue, they must just be lost like all the time.

I started out by getting to the Danang International Airport (DAD) at a mere 90 minutes before my flight to Taipei, Taiwan. In other countries this would be absolute madness, but here I have never experienced a flight, international or otherwise, taking more than 30 minutes or so from taxi drop-off to waiting at the gate. I figure if I am going to have to wait somewhere for a long time, I would prefer it be on my own sofa rather than some uncomfortable-by-design chair somewhere in close proximity to strangers .

Danang airport kind of impressed me with the 1 hour or so that I had to wait before my flight boarded. There is much more than enough space for the amount of people that would ever be here all at once. It is nice to see, for once, a place that has planned for massive expansion before it is needed. In my home country they wait until the airport is completely overrun with customers, the complaints are expected, and the queues are massive before they even do anything about it and then it is several years before said upgrades ever take effect. It really is annoying to me that the USA is judgemental about anything that anyone does in this realm seeing as how the worst airports I have ever been to in any developed (and most developing) nations are all in the USA. It’s almost like they don’t give a damn.

Danang is also preparing to transiting passengers in the future, although I can’t think of anyone that would have a layover here. It does seem really unlikely since something like that would be far more likely to take place in Saigon or Hanoi. But I did notice these “sleep rooms” that for a mere $3.50 an hour or so you can rent a bed complete with plugins and showers and stuff for 3 hours. I’ve been in airports before that offer this sort of thing but they charge astronomical prices for them or you have to be a part of some sort of exclusive membership club which is also really expensive. My friend who travels a great deal more than I do – most of it for work – is always regaling me with photos of these luxurious lounges. Then he tells me that he has to pay Amex $1000 a year for access. I stop being jealous at that point in time.

Danang was mostly empty and that appeals to me. Finding the gate is a piece of cake and all of the gates are separate from the long hallway that everyone has to walk down. This is something that I believe most airports are converting to slowly but surely but as far as I know Danang’s airport was always like this and it just works extremely well. They have more seats that the plane you are getting on does, so there is never any of this experience where some people have to sit on the floor or stand like I will see often in other airports and again, it is just the norm in big city airports in USA.

My flight with EVA was fine. Nothing terribly special but certainly a lot better than the budget airlines that I now refuse to fly with unless I have no other choice. I was surprised to see that there were no entertainment units built into the head rests as I thought this was just stock standard with full-service airlines these days. The meal that was served was well, it was airline food so my expectations were pretty low. It was decent but nothing to write home about.

Now here I am in Taipei, whose airport has changed a dramatic amount since the last time I was here more than 20 years ago. I have to say that it certainly looks much much better than 2 decades ago, but they, in my opinion made a ton of mistakes in their design. It seems almost intentional that none of the gates have enough seating for the amount of people that are going to be getting on an airplane that is flying over the largest ocean in the world a few hours from now. I counted about 40 seats. I’m presuming, since my seat number is “K” that there are going to be three to four-hundred people on this plane. Where the hell are the rest of us supposed to sit?

If you walk around a bit you will quickly discover the answer to this: you aren’t meant to sit down, you are supposed to walk around and SPEND MONEY! I walked from one end of the long tube that is this airport (TPE) and all the stores are luxury brands with damn near nobody in them because they are selling $10,000 handbags. It’s duty free though! I don’t give a damn. If I ever meet someone that has designer handbags I will know that I don’t need to be friends with them. I don’t care how much disposable income you have, that is a massive waste of money.

There are of course like a thousand coffee shops as is the norm anywhere in Asia. Surprisingly, there were very few places to eat anywhere down this tube. I presume there is a McDonalds because I saw some people with fries containers but I never saw the arches while I was wandering around.

I eventually found a place to sit where I could type in quiet and eventually go back to my gate and lean against the wall with all the rest of the people who have the misfortune of traveling to Los Angeles.

Stay tuned for the next installation because I will be detailing in great detail how I feel about what I consider to be one of the worst airports not just in USA, but in the entire world. The dreaded monstrosity that I honestly feel can't be fixed. It is called LAX.