Jys ~ Blah Blah Blah

Flying to Taiwan With EVA Airways (長榮航空公司)

This Taiwan trip was a last minute decision by FL and me. At first, we plan to go to Bali. In fact, we told all our family and friends that we’re going to Bali. We did quite a lot of research on Bali and the only thing we haven’t do is to book for the air ticket. Flying to Bali can be quite expensive without the RM 0 promotion. The cheapest I can find is RM 700+ per person! That’s the reason stopping us from booking and then the news that Bali will going to hang the person that bomb Bali few years ago had made us changed our destination to Taiwan.

It was the first week of November, we googled the air fare on all airlines  that we can find, MAS, Eva Airways, Thai Airways, Singapore Airline, China Airline and many many other airlines that we’ve never heard before and finally we decided to book with Thai Airways. The main reason is because it’s the cheapest among all, others need at least RM 2K per person and for Thai Airways, we can get it for RM 1600+ per person. And the second reason was, we will need to transit at Bangkok, which means we will be able to spend a day (when return) in Bangkok, hooray, I missed Bangkok, the food, the shopping.. So we booked and our departure date is 3 weeks later. (this is the first time i travel without waiting for months..normally booked with airasia 0 fare need to wait for months!!)

So after we booked our air ticket, we started to do research on our trip. About 10 days later, we got a breaking news from Bangkok. Yes, the Bangkok airport closed which caused by the riot. At first we were not so concerned about the riot because we thought it will go away in a day or two (we still got about 10 days before we fly mar..) but when there’s no news that the Bangkok airport will reopened, we started to panic. (we had stopped our research by then, no mood to do research already)

5 days before our departure date, we started to call Thai Airways, trying to ask them will they canceled our flight or not. If they confirmed canceled, then we can make other arrangements, maybe booked with another airline or so. If they informed us last minute, I will need to postpone my trip (which I don’t want to) and I also will need to ask for refund on the hotel I’ve booked. We tried calling them for 2 days and nobody answered the phone, on the third day (which is 3 days before our departure date) FL decided to go to the office to ask them.

We were given two options, first is to still fly with them, they will get us another airline to fly us there on our departure date and when we return, we MUST take Thai Airways. If there’s no flights or seats, then we will need to stuck at Taipei until there are flights available. And the second option, full refund lor… We don’t want to take the risk so we asked for full refund.

Immediately after we refund our ticket, we tried to search other airline. We understand that the air ticket will be more expensive cos it’s only 3 days before departure date but we’re willing to pay more (as long as still within RM 2k per person) and we were both surprised that we actually got a cheaper ticket from Eva Airways. 3 weeks before we search it’s RM 2K per person but 3 days before the departure date it’s only RM 1550. Hooray, even cheaper than Thai Airways (can choose our seats some more)!! We were both very very happy and thrilled, after so many things happened, we still get to go, ON TIME!! Yay!!

So on 7th of December, we booked a cab (RM 75) to KLIA. Our flight is at 3pm+ and we left our house at 12pm+. Believe it or not, I never been to KLIA, NEVER! I always fly with Airasia and long long time ago when I went to China, I fly from Singapore (and that time KLIA not ready yet). At about 1pm+, we reached KLIA..

So this is KLIA…

erm, I’ve always heard ppl said very nice.. very nice meh? Ok only lar…hehe…

The check in counter

we got our tickets!!

Unlike Airasia, we don’t need to queue to get on the plane, we just need to remain seated and wait the air stewardess to call up our seat numbers.

It’s quite spacious if compared to Airasia, and we can watch movies, listen to musics and play games too! It’s definitely easier for ppl like me who can’t sleep to pass the 4 hours+ journey.

we’re flying lo… it’s drizzling ..

We have this at the back of every seat. Cool…

the front. the remote control for movies, musics and also games

the back, can use to make phone calls and also sms. of cos need to pay one lar..

An hour later, they gave us a cup of drinks (fruit juice, wine, beer and etc) and a packet of peanut for snacks. After that, they served us dinner, I took fish with rice and FL took chicken with noodle. The fish taste great!! Meals on the plane are not that bad anyway. hehe.. After our dinner, I watched a movie and played some games (zuma) and time flies.. 4 hours later, we arrived on time (8pm) at Taipei TaoYuan Airport.

I’m very excited and I can’t wait to feel the cold weather (it’s winter there and it’s about 10-20 degrees)!!

Next: Arrival at TaipeiTao Yuan Airport (台北桃园机场)

Tags: Eva Airways, KLIA, Taiwan, Travel