Flight Nasty

In this day of rising income and relatively low airfare, it's rare to go for long without boarding an airplane somewhere. Which is why I find it hard to believe that I haven't been on an airplane since last May! (my sister's graduation from Skidmore)

Thankfully, that's about to change. My flight schedule for the next two weeks looks like this:

San Francisco-Taipei
Taipei-Bangkok
Bangkok-Siem Reap (Cambodia)
Siem Reap-Bangkok
Bangkok-Chiang Mai (Thailand)
Chiang Mai-Bangkok
Bangkok-Phuket
Phuket-Bangkok
Bangkok-Taipei
Taipei-San Francisco

Not frickin bad. Clearly there's a shortage of direct flights in Southeast Asia, so here's hoping the Bangkok airport has a Starbucks or two. (just kidding!)

I'm most excited to try new airlines. I'll be traveling on China Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Air Asia, and the speedily named 1-2-Go. Through the process of getting these flights, I've also developed fresh love for some healthy competiton. The Bangkok-Siem Reap leg, which takes 45 minutes each way, costs a whopping $275 round trip because only one airline flies it, and the only other option to get there is spending 20 hours on the crappiest road in world history. However, a one-way flight from Bangkok to Phuket (covered by numerous airlines) comes in at 499 baht each way before taxes. For those of you unfamiliar with Thai currency, that's $12.

Not bad.