Nasty
All in all, it's great to be back home in Shanghai. The weather is chilly to be sure, but it's to be expected for this time of year. Things are slowly getting back into a routine again at work/school, and the recent holiday did everybody good.
The recent bicycle trip in Thailand was top notch, and details can be found here on my trip journal
http://www.crazyguyonabike.dom/doc/smiles
Cycle touring is becoming one mad hobby, as I am pursuing this relentlessly year after year, holiday after holiday. Next on the agenda will be to turn this hobby from amateur to professional, with the purchase of a new Montague folding mountain bike, better gear, and meeting with other cycle tourists to get some kind of club going.
All told, I took 7 flights during this recent trip, and they all went without a hitch or delay, including the stowing of the folding bike each time. It is really the way to travel, except for one problem. The typical folding bikes have very small wheels. The Montague bike aims to solve this problem, combining the durability of what you expect with a solid mountain bike, and the ease of folding it to take planes, trains, and buses when needed. The alternative of packing around a traditional mountain bike is just madness. I met a bike traveler at the Bangkok airport who was carting around two large bike boxes to Burma, and not surprisingly, was being docked an arm and a leg by the airline.
Unless you're planning to ride the bike from start to finish and back again, which few people are, then at some point it will need to be carted around at airports. The idea is to make this process as painless as possible.
As far as flights went, here is the detailed rundown of how I got back from Bangkok. It was the cheapest series I've done yet, at just over $100, and didn't take as long as expected. However, there were a zillion "check points" or stations I had to go through. Now that I guard the passport with my life, it wasn't lost. But there were untold number of times it could have been lost given the sheer frequency with which I had to take it out, show it, and put it back.
6:15am A waiting pre-booked taxi picks me up from the guesthouse and speeds off to the airport in a mere 15 minutes. He runs off and picks up a luggage trolley as we get there and hands it to me. For all that service he easily gets a 100 baht tip and the driver is thrilled. He deserves it. It astonishes me how fast the Thai taxi drivers move. This got me earlier to the airport than planned, which turned out to save the day.
6:30am. Shrink wrap the bike. Not necessary, but worth it. When the carrying bag is too small and ripped to pieces from over-use, why not.
6:35am. Check in for my first flight.
6:40am Pay a sports equipment fee. Typical Air Asia
6:50am Enter passport control. At this point I thought I was doomed. The peak season plague in Thailand would continue right until the bitter end. It is due to masses of Chinese people traveling during their break, the Thais themselves celebrating Lunar New Year, and the usual foreign tourists. Fittingly, everyone was leaving the country today. The lineups were astonishing, and would take well over two hours to clear, thus causing me to miss the flight. Fortunately I found another exit on the far side that was less crowded, got through in an hour, and barely got on board the flight. Now I understand why they insist you arrive 3 hours before an international flight. I truly hate this.
7:50am Squeaked on board the flight, 10 minutes before departure time. Air Asia may be stingy, but to their credit, they have an excellent punctuality record and their flights are rarely delayed.
10:30am Arrived in Macau, noting the change in weather. This would get worse later, but I would continue in shorts and a T-shirt. Entered the immigration line-up and waited.
11:00am Picked up luggage, then went upstairs and checked into my next flight. Spring Airlines. A painless process. Figuring there was time (there was not) I went to grab lunch and a coffee, in order to get rid of those annoying Macau dollars. Nobody else would exchange them in other countries.
11:30am Went back through immigration and security, and it was crowded. Nearly missed my next flight, but what was I going to do, skip lunch? I already skipped breakfast and it's not like they feed you on these cheap airlines.
12:00pm Got on board the next flight 15 minutes before departure.
2:45pm Arrived in Shanghai into a pelting rainstorm and fierce winds. Brutal. I was lucky in that my plane actually landed whereas many others were canceled or delayed due to the weather.
3:00pm Easily and quickly cleared immigration as the Pudong airport is known for being efficient. It helps to be a foreigner as that line is nearly empty. Some guys next to me were given lengthy questions as they had entered China previously and only stayed one day. Obvious suspicion. I have a good track record with China immigration and following the laws of this country -- and want to keep it that way. Case in point, I didn't shave my beard yet so it would still look like the passport photo. No questions were asked. Got the baggage and lunged for a taxi
3:15pm Taxi got me home in 45 minutes. Worth the higher price. Wearing shorts and a T-shirt, I simply wasn't up for the slog of taking buses, waiting in the cold, etc.
4:00pm Turned on the heat, promptly fall asleep, then was rudely awakened by a fireworks binge I had wanted to avoid by going to Thailand. Welcome back.
A side note about Macau, it is one of the most unusual places on the planet. Remarkably I've gone through there nearly 15 times now, and haven't stayed a single night in Macau. It functions as a transit hub to go to and from China and SE Asia using the cheap airlines. A major annoyance is that all those entries and exits from Macau clutter up my passport with stamps and take up limited page space. If only there was a way to get some kind of transit pass or other document without having to use the passport. Plus there is the ongoing bugaboo of what to put for the "address in Macau" when filling out those forms. It's a nuisance.
A helpful travel tip: bring along a pen for these flights. They pass out immigration forms on the flight and expect you to fill them out on board. There are stations on arrival, but the whole thing is a mess. Forms are often missing and the pens seldom work. Plus whatever time you spend filling in forms causes you to lose the advantage you had by sitting near the front of the airplane. In that case, it's better to bug a passenger or an attendant for a pen and save yourself 30 minutes or more on arrival. If you're sitting near the back of the plane, it doesn't matter what you do, the battle is already lost.
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