FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Miracle. Mystery. Myanmar! (DTW-RGN/NYU, an RTW: DL F, PR J, 8M Y, 6T Y, TG F, UA F)
Old Dec 26, 2012, 11:15 pm
  #2  
SEA_lurker
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: either on a trans-Pac, or on an Amtrak
Programs: Amtrak (AGR) Select, AA Plat, DL Gold, Shangri-La Golden Circle Jade, HHonors Silver, BonVoy Gold
Posts: 67
Part 1. The Journey. (DTW-LAS-YVR-MNL-BKK...)

DTW-LAS (DL F): “Why am I boarding this aircraft?”

A dreary winter evening @ DTW. As the F line began forming in front of the gate at DTW’s largely deserted McNamara Terminal
for DL’s 8.45pm 757 service to LAS, I was having second thoughts. An all-too-brief trip into Myanmar, by way of LAS, MNL, and BKK?
At a time when neither my work, nor the rest of my life, felt amenable to taking a vacation, or as the rest of the world would say,
a “holiday?” As I walked down the jetway, I had a mounting feeling of unease, one that some of you might be able to relate to for
some of your trips, and this feeling congealed into a question that I posed to myself: “Why am I even going on this trip now?”

The roughly 4-hour DTW-LAS nonstop in F was uneventful, save for the usual light chop over the Rockies. It was nice to have
the moving map on the tiny IFE screen. DL markets itself as an airline that strives to make F glamorous again, but I was not at
all impressed by this segment. The FA ran out of the meat dinner choice by the time she got to my row, leaving me with a
dreadful vegetable lasagna as the sole option. Unkempt, nondescript, and near-nonexistent are adjectives apt for the appearance
of the FAs and the level of service that I had experienced on that flight. The one-way was purchased as a $400 “Q-up” fare,
and by the time we landed, I felt that I had overpaid.

Upon landing at LAS, I took the airside tram to the main terminal, retrieved my bags, proudly bypassed the tyranny of overpriced
taxis and slow-as-a-snail shared-ride services dominating LAS, and walked down to level zero, straight out to the city bus stop.
The WAX (Westcliff Airport Express) took me to the NE corner of Tropicana and The Strip, so I only had to cross the road and
walk for a couple of minutes to the place that I would be staying at. For fear of offending any FTers, I won’t even name the
hotel, but I’ll reveal a hint: this property, located on the south side of Tropicana, less than a block east of The Strip, used to
be known (in its better days) as the San Remo. The grungy, no-frills room, with its burned-out lightbulbs, barely-functional
internet, dusty light fixtures, and questionably-clean bedsheets (also, soap and shampoo are brought upon request by a
sleepy room attendant) provided overnight “training” for the expected rigors of the SEAsian trip to come…

LAS-YVR-MNL-BKK (PR 117 and PR 734; J)

For the price-conscious US-to-Asia J-class traveler, PR has been an attractive value proposition for many years: I remember
SFO-MNL-SIN one-ways pricing at $1k in J approximately 10 years ago. This particular itinerary, an approximately $1,400
for a one-way J-fare, represented respectable value as well (when coupled with my 70,000-mile one-way UA Star Alliance
BKK-FRA-IAD-ORD redemption on the return), so, it was time to board one of PR’s elusive, aging A340s, and see what the
fun was all about!

“Not Tacloban. Tagbilaran!”

Checking out at 2pm in the bright sunshine of a typical, just a tad chilly, winter day at LAS, I caught the WAX bus back,
and transferred to the internal LAS shuttle that took me away from the overcrowded horrors of the domestic terminals
and into the spacious and deserted international terminal (the place looked so good to me that I still don’t understand
why LAS has, more recently, opened a new int’l facility). The PR check-in line was staffed by chatty contract agents
(mostly female) of assorted ages who were all smiling and most cordial, a nice start to the trip. As a younger agent joked
with her customer about the customer’s domestic destination in the Philippines (and tagged the said customer’s bag to… TAG!),
a more seasoned agent assisted me with my sole piece of checked luggage. Heading to SEAsia with just a laptop case, a
tiny carry-on, and a (checked) rollaboard felt fantastic. Even better was the no-eyebrows-raised “Yes, of course!” response
to my question about switching out of my prebooked seat in the old J section into a window seat in the old F section, which
has far more legroom (PR no longer has F, and markets both front cabins on the A340 as Mabuhay Class, i.e. as J). Hence,
despite some indications that the old F seats may be reserved for PR’s frequent flyers and/or full-fare pax, discounted J
worked just fine, although the fact that the flight was less than 50% full in J may have helped. My “traveling light, citizen
of the world” vibe was undisturbed by the (very low-key) TSA agents who raised no fuss about my usual “opt out,” and I
headed straight for the J-class lounge, which is shared by all int’l carriers at LAS, and at this early evening hour was
being used primarily by BA’s LHR-bound pax as well as a few of us PR riders.

LAS – the “old” Int’l J lounge (Feb. 2012):



A view of The Strip from the lounge (double-pane tinted windows are in the way):



Legroom, seat 2A, PR 117 (A340), old F-cabin, sold as J:



The seat:



The LAS-YVR routing, per the moving map on the IFE, seemed odd. We took off from LAS toward the east, made a U-turn, and
flew directly west (270 degree heading) over the mountains; for a while, I was under the impression that we were aiming for
someplace between SFO and LAX, rather than for YVR. There were no announcements from the cockpit at all about this
seemingly unusual route of flight. We eventually made our turn toward the N-NW, after almost reaching the coast.
The remaining route of flight passed over SEA (Tacoma and Seattle were clearly visible from my port side window) and
Bellingham, before descending into YVR. A small and spicy plate of “glass noodles” with shrimp was served on the LAS-YVR sector.

“Out on Runway Number Nine… The A340 is Set to Go.”
(with apologies to Gordon Lightfoot)

The YVR transit facility for PR’s LAS-MNL pax was fairly dreadful. It’s a glassed-in room with vending machines (accepting only
Canadian coins), a few power outlets, and free internet that hardly works at all. There is no separate J-class area. It boggles
my mind how often int’l carriers choose to deny proper lounge privileges to transit pax (I remember a similar situation on MH’s
LAX-TPE-KUL run a few years back, where J-pax had to wait in the gate hold area at TPE with nothing to eat or drink, while
those boarding at TPE could use CI’s lounge). I was grateful and much relieved when PR announced the re-boarding of transit
passengers to MNL. YVR-MNL turned out to be an average, occasionally bumpy transPac ride. I managed to sleep through
approximately half of the 14-hour flight, in spurts of an hour or two at a time. The old PR F seat reclined to a nearly-flat
position and was quite comfortable; I didn’t feel like sliding. I woke up for good as we were cruising in a SW direction along
the E coastline of Japan. Before long, it was time for breakfast, and then, we commenced our descent into MNL, its tropical
skies cleared by morning showers:





Touchdown: MNL!



Asia’s First. Shining Through?



MNL’s PR J Int’l lounge was seriously underwhelming. I’d go as far as to call it shabby. There was no view. The internet was
not working (I tried both of the available wi-fi networks and could only get a weak, oft-reset connection on the airport's, not
the lounge's, network). The food was visibly not fresh. The drinks, other than the coffee, were not self-service, and tips were
expected by the staff (PR might have gotten this idea from the UA clubs, ha). The bathrooms weren’t much cleaner than those
in the Y-section of the terminal. An eclectic assortment of expat and backpacker types, some of whom seemed to have walked
straight off the pages of a Christopher G. Moore novel, filled the lounge. The quiet of the lounge was finally shattered by the
long-awaited announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen! Philippine Airlines flight seven three four, with service to Bangkok, is now
ready for boarding at gate N One!” [the announcer’s emphasis, oddly, was on the last syllable of “Bangkok”]

Waiting under the pouring tropical rain, and occasionally illuminated by lightning, parked in the darkness at gate N-1 was my
next ride, a haggard-looking PR A320. By this time I was sufficiently tired to not remember much about the flight, except that
I didn’t eat at all and – despite the departure weather – it was a decently smooth three and a half hour crossing. I slept most
of the way in the reasonably comfortable seat (think a cut above US domestic F, but nothing comparable to widebody J) and
landed a few minutes shy of midnight, essentially on-schedule (23.45), into a very busy BKK. Immigration queues were long,
with many pax obviously coming off UA’s and DL’s ex-NRT flights which arrive at this time as well.

The Myanmar tourist visa: a Bangkok perspective, Feb. 2012

The following day, bright and early and having intentionally skipped breakfast, I rushed to the Skytrain, having read many
horror stories about queues-around-the-block and other vagaries of applying for the Myanmar tourist visa at BKK rather
than doing it the proper way at one’s country of residence. The location of the embassy is clearly described by so many
online sources that I will spare the details. In brief, I took the BTS to Surasak, exited onto the north side of Thanon Sathon,
walked east on Thanon Sathon past the school, and turned left onto Soi Pan. Most of my concerns about not getting the
visa disappeared as soon as I showed up: a couple of dozen people were lined up outside the embassy entrance, and
another few milled around inside the small copy / office shop / internet café (located on the east side of Soi Pan, just
north of the embassy compound) where the visa applications are obtained and copied, and visa photographs taken.
The shop, with its pleasant and patient staff, was my first stop. The subsequent wait outside the embassy was quite
brief. Explaining my short-notice travel plans to the friendly and patient visa officer, however, resulted in a firm “no”
to the possibility of a same-day visa issuance. However, next business day afternoon was available, at a fee of 1,060
baht if I remember correctly. I received a yellow ticket and indeed collected my passport with the visa at 3pm the
next day, without hindrance. Now, it was time for the highlight of the trip...

Last edited by SEA_lurker; Dec 27, 2012 at 12:31 am Reason: formatting line breaks
SEA_lurker is offline