Taiwan Travels & Tastes

We have done our best to get to know this tiny but mighty country.  We’ve thoroughly explored the city of Taipei and spent a fair bit of time in several other cities as well.  Taiwan has so much to offer. We’ve traveled south, east, and west and lived in the north. In doing so, we’ve exhausted our Tpass, the 30-day unlimited travel card. Now, in these last few days here, we must pay ride by ride.  Clearly, though, we got our money’s worth. 

Taipei is a lovely, happy place.  Right here in the city are jungles, natural hot springs, museums, fantastic memorials, ancient temples, farmers’ markets, dazzling night markets, a green and blooming botanical garden, and a fantastic zoo with Giant Pandas, Koala, and just outside the zoo is the 2.5 mile long ride, Maokong Gondola, which many people take, gliding in glass-bottomed gondolas over the famous black tea plantations to the top of the mountain. Plus, there is a powerful economy here, driven by unprecedented growth in advanced chip manufacturing for AI, exports of cement and marble, and tourism. Those hundreds of skyscrapers are not just for housing people. Big business is going on here.

The tremendously large Yangmingshan National Park is just outside the city.  There are hikes there to the waterfalls, wide, top-of-the-world grassland treks, and many ways to get lost but found again along the net-like routes of the city tourist bus line in and around the park.  

We left the city of Taipei several times, like when we rode the bullet train with Tessa to visit towns like Yehliu, Juifen, Pingxi, and Taichung.  On other days, we again took a train and/or bus to visit Sun Moon Lake, the city of Hualien, and the town of Jiaoxi.  Oh, how I wish we had trains in the USA!  What a civilized way to travel!  Shoot, I just wish Atlanta had a highway system like that here, or a metro and bus system like that here. In Taipei, it is possible to get anywhere quickly, and you can shop along the way. Many metro stations are like small malls where you can pick up a new pair of shoes or buy dinner. With a combined bus, metro, and train system like the transit system here, we could leave Cody’s house in Marietta and have lunch with Mary and Greg in Watkinsville in just over an hour. We could bullet train from Atlanta to Little Rock in about 4 hours. I don’t understand why we in the USA cannot have these top-notch, modern ways to travel.

Our time at the resort town, Sun Moon Lake, was like a visit to Lake Tahoe. There are shops, waterside restaurants, beautiful scenery, and a biking trail around the lake, which particularly appealed to us. Light rain and detours that took us off the trail and onto the wet, winding road shortened our ride to only about halfway around the lake and back. Those sections on the wet and curvy road scared me silly! Still, we got in probably 10-15 miles. But it was great fun and best of all, we made it without incident. We also met some of the sweetest people ever at Sun Moon Lake. The hotel staff let us borrow nice bikes for free, and as we chatted with them on our return, they gave us chunks of fresh pineapple that had just been picked and cut.  In other hikes, like the waterfall hike at Yangmingshan, dear people gave us candies and home-crocheted things to hang on our backpacks.  That’s what the Taiwanese people do; though we do not share a language, they prove their welcome and friendship by gifting.

Speaking of language, surprisingly few people speak English here.  Stan and I usually try to learn a few courtesy phrases in the language of every country we visit.  It helps to pave the way to new friendships.  But here, it’s almost impossible.  Many Chinese words have multiple syllables, and the pronunciation of familiar letters is different. For example, the letter combination “qi” is pronounced “chee,” not “kee,” but more than that, intonation is a fundamental part of the language.  Even with effort, Stan and I do well to say hello (ni-hao) & thank you. (xiexie). Pronounced “knee-how & shay-shay”). Everyone knows “bye-bye,” though, and the locals love getting to say it.

Hualien is a fair-sized city on the other side of the mountains to the east, and what a different scene is presented there! In Taipei, the sky is often overcast, the weather is humid and warm,  and it is quite rainy this time of year; but in Hualien on the Pacific Ocean coast, the temp is hot and humid, and the sky is blue. Mountains rise up on the west side of the city, and the magnificent Pacific Ocean borders the east. Although the landscape is green and jungle-like, Hualien is in the longest drought in 70 years.  We were surprised to see that the Pacific Ocean here is blue like the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, aqua near the beach, and deep blue at sea.  In one long day with a guide/driver, we hiked to waterfalls in the Taroko National Park, then drove to the fantastic Taroko Gorge, one of only three river-formed deep gorges in the world. Like the swirled design of cream being poured into coffee, the walls of this gorge, carved in pure marble, are decorated in random but harmonious lines, layers, and colors.  

Later, we spent time at the soaring marble Gingshui Cliffs that seem to plunge seamlessly into the turquoise Pacific.   At another beach, we came just in time to see the awesome, intricate entries in the International Rock Balancing Competition at Qixingtan Beach.  Similar to sandcastle and sand art exhibitions and competitions, both amateurs and artists compete, display their skill and talent in creating objects and scenes made of carefully stacked and balanced rocks found on the pebbly beach.  The winner will be decided tomorrow.  

Enough about travels, how about a word about the food?  Taiwanese food is tasty and satisfying, and it is not nearly as spicy as the food we tried in neighboring Asian countries.  Almost everything here is served in a bowl; rarely on a plate, and Stan and I are getting pretty good at using chopsticks; after all, we’re getting lots of practice. The food is fresh, light on meat but heavy on vegetables and noodles or rice and rich broth.  We ran across some popular foods, however, that we did not love, such as pork blood cake, dried fish & dried seafood of every kind, chicken feet, and stinky tofu–they don’t even sound good, but we tried them.  The king of all awful foods is Stinky tofu. Tofu is fermented, sometimes for months, then deep-fried and served topped with radish and cabbage kimchi. I’ll just say this: it is some truly bad stuff, tolerable only to keep from starving!  Admittedly, it tastes better than it smells (which is horrific), but check, done!  We tried.  Stinky tofu is particularly popular in night markets; it is considered a cheap, tasty snack.    But then, these people also like to snack on crispy, dried sardines–shiny and cute, but I wouldn’t touch one, not for anything.  As often said about martinis and Scotch, it’s an acquired taste. 

In these few weeks, we learned more than I would have ever guessed about Taiwan’s complicated history, enjoyed its amazing public transportation system, saw as much of this island country as we could, visited far too many temples, and wandered through its noisy, crowded, neon-lighted night markets.  Of course, though, and as usual, one of the things we enjoyed most was the people we met. 

Our time here was so pleasant that we might consider living here except we’d never master the language . . . not even in the slightest. 

Next, Cebu City, Philippines