Leaving Taipei
Today I will head to a new country, Palau, not that I’m on a quest to count countries.
I woke a few times through the night before the 0615 alarm. Not a bad thing, as often I struggle to adapt flying from west to east and oversleep. Perhaps the fear of missing my 1225 flight helped.
I headed out at 0720 and was on the train to Taoyuan airport at 0745, arriving at 0820. Heading airside was a breeze despite some security queue but automated immigration. I was through at 0840 and in the lounge at 0900.
FOMO or rather, fear of missing my flight saw me arriving about an hour earlier than the permitted entry time into the lounge but it wasn’t enforced. The catering in the lounge wasn’t as good as that in the award-winning one at the other terminal, but it was certainly adequate.
Besides, I was feeling unwell, feverish and had a sore throat. I didn’t have much appetite.
Flying to Koror
I went to my gate about an hour before the 1225 departure to Koror, Palau. China Airlines’ A321 was very new with fancy coloured lights inside the long cabin, unobstructed by any separators or toilets in the economy class. A welcome PA was made in Mandarin, English and Taiwanese.
The flight was peasant with a spare seat between me and my neighbour. There were three toilets in cattle class too, all in the rear, with two on the port side and one on the starboard.
Unfortunately, my prawn noodle dish was stingy with the prawns. I would have been better with the chicken curry.
Arriving in Koror
We arrived on time at 1710 in Koror. The airside corridors and gate area were semi-open air like Nadi and Honolulu airports. At first, it felt sticky after the Taipei winter, but I soon acclimatised.
Everything from the building fittings, officer uniforms etc felt American.
As part of the arrival process, a pledge is stamped into one’s passport and one then signs it. Despite being in front of the immigration queue, the process felt slow and I was out at 1745. That’s quite long for a small airport.
I had pre-booked a transfer service to my hotel and had to wait for the other 10 people. To my surprise, the airline crew were overnighting after the 3h45 flight. My Air New Zealand crew friends typically do such duties as a return trip.
Transfer to hotel
At around 1820, we had all the passengers for the ride and we departed for a supermarket where we spent about 25 mins getting essentials, before dropping everyone off at their respective hotels.
I bought some snacks and water, in case my hotel didn’t have stores nearby. That proved like an overly cautious move my hotel had free filtered water and there were was a convenience store nearby.
I finally got to the my accommodation around 1915. The Taiwanese guide on the transfer service requested a USD10 tip, which he said was explained on the Kkday website (and indeed it was) and I would be required to pay the same on the return journey.
Because I had booked through Agoda (who probably sourced it from Kkday, this had not been communicated. It explains why this transfer service was about USD20 cheaper than all others! It’s something I would have to pick up with Agoda later.
The DW Motel was a spotless Japanese-run budget property, one of the cheapest around, but still expensive for me because it was Palau-pricing.
I concluded my day with a simple dumpling soup at a Chinese restaurant for USD10 whereas a meal at the Filipino-run one would have been around USD15.