Taiwan (14/6-25/6 2010)

Having spent the last 12 days in Taiwan and enjoying myself tremendously over there, I've decided to create a travel blog to dedicate my gratitude to such a wonderful travel experience. And of course, for me to refresh my memories from time to come and at the same time, give you a better idea of what the country is like if you're interested to take some time off to visit it... though most of it can be sourced online, or through guide books, I will cover other areas that no other sources will ever shed light on... simply because they aren't too bothered by it or that they just don't care to inform. And since it's my blog, I'm going to be dead honest about everything, and will in no way hold back my thoughts, sentiments or language.

It was a free and easy tour, so much of the research had to be done before embarking on my trip there. It was a grad trip and I had one companion for the entire trip, that one companion who was probably the greatest factor in determining the "fun" factor of it all... who was none other than my beloved girlfriend. Before you get all goosebumpy on me, this is the first advice of travelling I have to give... the person whom you go abroad with will surely and most definitely contribute to how much you enjoyed the trip. So don't travel for the sake of travelling, get someone you know you'll be happy to spend your trip or holiday with.

Let's start with the boring part, but I wouldn't give credit to the country or myself if I had left them out. A couple of things I found through my research even before setting foot there. Taiwan is also known as Formosa, Beautiful Island, and I believe it is in no way an exaggeration. Coming from someone who has been living his entire life in Singapore, and had visited places like China, Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto), United Kingdom (Scotland, England), Malaysia, Thailand (Bangkok), Australia (Brisbane), Hong Kong, Spain (Barcelona), Ireland (Belfast) and France (Paris), it truly is indeed one of the more self-contained and beautiful places I've been.

Every country has it's own unique qualities about it. For taiwan, its a great place for snack foods and shopping, all at a reasonably cheaper price compared to Singapore, and its quite self-contained. It has pretty decent beaches, breathtaking natural landscapes such as gorges, vapor spitting mountains and even ground emitting flames, as well as the amicability of most of its locals. Taiwan is a fairly huge island, with Taipei, the largest city in Taiwan filling up the North, Kaohsiung, the 2nd largest city in the South, Tainan and Taichung towards the west, Taitung and Hualien towards the east, and Nantou filling up the center region. And because Taiwan's an island, wherever you travel you get to see mountains on one side and oceans on the other. Scenic views greet you whenever you travel along the borders of taiwan. Our trip was planned for a 3 days 2 nights stay in Kaohsiung, 3 days 2 nights stay in Hualien and a 6 days 5 nights stay in Taipei.

Accommodations were booked online before heading off to Taiwan; Happy Hotel in Kaohsiung, Formosa Backpacker's Hostel in Hualien and Ta Shun Hotel in Taipei. Accommodations were analysed through friend's recommendations, guide books, online forums such as trip advisors, and booked through either direct emailing, or through hostels.com. So was the high speed rail train ride from Taoyuan airport (Taiwan's international airport) to Kaohsiung and the normal railway trains running from Kaohsiung to Hualien. However, we didn't book a train from Hualien to Taipei because it was said in the guidebook which I bought, The Rough Guide to Taiwan, that the recommended Formosa backpacker's hostel would be able to arrange most of the stuff for us, such as the guided trip around Taroko Gorge, whale watching tours and we took a risk about the train ride as well.

The airline we took to Taiwan was Jetstar Airways, going at a rate of S$498 return air ticket to Taiwan. Total cost of the entire trip was about S$1.7k per pax (inclusive of the air ticket, transport, food, shopping, accomodation and insurance) and there wasn't much holding back on our parts. So with that budget, you'll be able to live comfortably and buy a good load of souvenirs and clock in about 10+ shopping items into your wishlist. Weather there was hot, as it was summer time and air pollution from the vehicles (and the smokers) was about 8/10 because the roads were all very narrow and most of the time, the pedestrian walkways were extremely close to the roads. Because most of the stalls were roadside stalls, similar to Singapore's Pasar Malam (night markets), there wasn't much relief from the sorching heat. The major shopping malls sold stuff at a higher price and the only reason why you'll even be visiting one will be because of the heat reliefs and the toilet reliefs.

I will save the specific details for later when I touch on the individual places we visited. Several useful sites that's necessary to help you get around:

1. Taiwan high speed rail: http://www.thsrc.com.tw/en/

2. Taiwan railway administration: http://www.railway.gov.tw/en/index/index.aspx

3. Hostels: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ ; http://www.hostels.com/

4. Maps: just google the respectively areas

It's advisable to book the train rides online, especially the high speed rail as it tends to be a little packed. It costs about $800-$1300+NT for a ride. If you want to take from Taoyuan Airport to Kaohsiung like we did, you'll have to select the "Taoyuan" to "Zuoying" stop. Zuoying is the nearest stop from Kaohsiung, which would take you about 15-30 mins to the main station.

For the taiwan railways, there are 3 different types of trains. The "best" train is the line called "Zhi Qiang" or T.C. Ltd Exp which was supposedly the fastest and most comfortable railway train. For example, from Taipei main station to Rueifang (the main train station you'll need to stop at to get to Jioufen and Shifen), Zhi Qiang train costs about $78NT, whilst the mid range being the C.K. Exp which cost $60NT and the lowest end costing $45NT. Just like for the rest of the blog, I will try my best to provide you with the names of the different transports, accommodations and names of places since most of them are in chinese and will probably be lost in translation. You can keep the train tickets as souvenirs as long as before you exit the station, you manually "chop" your tickets with the stamps provided near the exits and the attendants won't collect them.

Personally, I felt there wasn't too much of a difference between the 3 different types of trains. Because ultimately, whichever train came first or was available in the next time slot, we would be boarding it either way. They only differ by at max 15 mins to reach our destination and its not worth waiting an additional hour or 2 to save that infinitesimal amount of money. Frequency of the trains are decent and can be found either online, or at the train stations. Also, do not be alarmed when you find someone else sitting at your designated seats, it seemed to be quite a mediocre thing over there so just shoo them away and don't doubt yourself. Before taking any train, you can always confirm by asking an attendant who would definitely be around to help you out.

"Zhi Qiang" offers seating and will not allow anyone to stand on board the train, has a good amount of leg room and comfortable seats, almost similar to the standards of the high speed rail. Even has toilets at every carriage. As for C.K. Exp, its similar to "Zhi Qiang", just that it might not be that clean and the train timings isn't always too punctual. As for the lowest end train, it allows standing and you will not be able to get seats on the train. So if your train is about 2 hours long, you might jolly well be standing the entire trip, squeezed and sweating it out since the air-conditioning isn't good as well. No toilets on the train if I'm not wrong.

Pros and cons, because if you haven't booked your tickets to travel from one region of taiwan to another, you can be rather assured that you will still be able to get to your destination on the lowest end train. If you're booking beforehand through the website, try to get the best or mid range railway cos extra cost and comfort will definitely be well worth it. Also, when booking online, you can try calling the hotline, but they will online advise you to go through their website to make the bookings. There's an option to make your credit card payment and you would want to do that instead of simply making a booking because the booking would require you to be there half a day in advance to collect the tickets. After making payment via credit card, all you need to produce at the train station is your IC no. which you used for booking. eg. S823xxxxE. Remember the "S" though, there was this idiotic customer service attendant who insisted we didn't book the tickets just because I left out the "S".

You should also try to change all your cash before heading over there because though it might be scary and risky for you to carry around so much cash, there were almost zero money changers around. You can bring along your credit card but most payments are via cash since they are mostly roadside stalls. You can keep your important belongings at the front counter of the hotels you are staying at, but in the end we still carried our passports and cash around with us all the time. Just make sure you separate them out and keep them deep and out of reach of prying pickpockets. The safety there seemed ok since we were moving around alone through the dark streets most of the time since we were trying to find our way around, and though we felt a sense of uneasiness, we were not threatened in any way. The only shocks you'll get when moving around in remote and dark places is the sudden appearances of dogs. Still, better to be safe than sorry. Avoid dark places nonetheless unless really necessary to pass through them.

Last but not least, do not be turned off by the language barrier. One does not need to be fluent in Chinese to be able to get around as there are quite a handful of them who can speak English. And if your chinese standards are as horrible as mine, you'll still be able to communicate with the locals there. Speaking Fujian/Hokkien is a plus when navigating your way around old towns and conversing with the elders but that's really not that vital. The dialect they speak there is also different from the Hokkien we speak in Singapore. And with that, let's finally move on proper to my taiwan experiences!!