We had a good trip to Taiwan this December. No one fell sick, no one had tummy upsets, the kids were (mostly) well-behaved, we weren’t swindled, and our itinerary was good for the most part. Barring the rainy weather on Days 7 and 8, the congestion in several places – unavoidable since we were not really off-the well-trodden track this first family visit to Taiwan – and a nasty incident at baggage scanning at HK International Airport, this trip went as well as it could have.
If I had to single out the one most memorable experience I had in our Taiwan trip, it was going through an earthquake on Day 6 evening in Hualien! Maybe that’s morbid humor, and it was a small one even at just 4.9 on the Richter Scale. But it was strong enough for all of us to have felt it, for everything in the Hualien minsu we were staying in to shake, and for all our phone alarms to sound off at the same time with the urgent regional warnings. I had a friend who said she experienced the same in Jiufen some years back, but another – a Minton neighbor – say that he’s been to Taiwan 7-8 times now and has never experienced an earthquake. Our Taipei area driver, Checo, quipped that earthquakes are actually so common in Taiwan that the locals today have basically not let it bother them anymore. In fact, they treat the earthquakes that you can feel – what they place what they call 感觉地震 (for Matt, that’s literally earthquakes ‘地震’ that you can feel ‘感觉’) in two categories but with the same abandonment: the ones that you just shrug off and go on life as normal, and the kind that you can’t run away from so why even bother then anyway haha.
So, here are my post-trip reflections, again at Arm’s Length and trying to see the forest for the trees – so as to speak! This will be another long post, so it’s divided into two parts.
The Itinerary, Sights and Weather
12 days was the longest I could afford to get out of work this December month this year. The kids had so much fun on the island that on the day of departure, H mused that she would had been happy to stay in Taipei for another day or two (P agreed with his sister, but he does so for everything she says). And we visited parts of northern Taiwan only. I’ve read blogs of visitors who’ve covered the entire island in the same time, and wonder how they pulled that of! The amount of time we spent this trip felt about right, and didn’t feel too rushed.
The rainy weather on Days 8 and 9 aside, I don’t think there would had been significant changes to the itinerary, as all planned activities in these trips are compromises of sorts. Still, of improvements now that the trip is completed, I would have:
Extended our length of time spent in Xitou Nature Education Center, Mt Hehuan, Taroko National Forest
Dropped Shengxing Station, Sun Moon Lake, Qingshui Cliff, Yehliu Geo Park, Shifen Waterfall
This is on account that Xitou really does take at least 4 hrs (we spent just over 2 hrs), Mt. Hehuan on a sunny day is just stunning and needs also at least 4 hrs (we spent about 2.5 hrs including the ascent and descent), and there’s a lot more to see in Taroko National Forest that’s beyond the well-trodden parts – you’d need a full day (we spent just 4 hours). On the other hand, Shengxing Station, Sun Moon Lake, and Yehliu Geo Park were just too crowded for me; and Shifen Waterfall likewise with the added challenge of it not being particularly interesting to begin with, and there are nicer looking steep cliffs in Indonesia than Qingshui Cliff.
Though the itinerary we had was pretty standard – as in, unless you have specific requests the private drivers you engaged will bring you to the same places you would go to when with tour groups – the sights in Taiwan remain quite varied. I reckon this is on account that the island has a mountainous spine that runs the length of the island right down the center, and weather and climate will thus dramatically vary alongside large changes in elevation and geography. Over the course of just 12 days, we saw varied natural sights with relatively little driving in between them: different types of coastal areas (Gaomei Wetlands vs Qingshui Beach vs Yin Yang Sea vs Yeh Liu Geo Park), mountains (Mt. Hehuan vs Yangmingshan, the fog in the latter notwithstanding), a large lake (Sun Moon Lake), parks (the awesome Taroko Gorge vs Xitou Nature Education Center), and the water bodies that respond of volcanic activity (hot springs and Beitou Thermal Valley).
Climate-wise in mid-December, the weather in Taichung and Taipei cities themselves were roughly between daily lows of 16°C and highs of 23°C or so. Or in short, bearable and quite cool in fact. Days were usually clear though with overcast, and the sun only coming out of hiding only occasionally. The climate outside these cities tend to follow the general elevation of the area you’re in. So, areas like Dahu, Miaoli, Xitou, Sun Moon Lake, Taroko Gorge, and Tamsui were broadly in the same weather bracket as in the two big cities. Cingjing was about 2-3 and 5-6 degrees cooler in the day and night time respectively. As for Yangmingshan, despite the thermometer reading of 15°C the morning we ascended, felt like it was freezing because of the cold winds that accompanied the rain.
Speaking of the rainy weather in Winter. I actually drew up an alternative arrangements in case we had to switch to the wet-weather programme, but that was only for our free and easy days in Taipei. And as luck would have it, Days 10 and 11 when we explored the city on our own had relatively better weather.
The Taiwanese
Of the three predominantly Chinese-speaking countries I’ve been to, the one which I see myself returning to is Taiwan. No China and Hong Kong for me. And if it’s not apparent enough from my travelogue entries these several years by now, I dislike the mannerisms of mainland Chinese. On the other hand, the Taiwanese we met and conversed with, whether they were cabs we hailed on the street, our own drivers, MRT staff personnel, shopkeepers, restaurant owners, wait staff, were invariably all courteous. Peter was like the Singa the courtesy Lion with his ‘Hello!!’ and ‘See you later!!’ to everyone he met, and each time without fail the Taiwanese would return his enthusiastic hellos. They might not always had been warm, but at least there never gave me the cold hard and blank looks that I saw again most recently in Hong Kong whenever I tried to be polite.
The Wikitravel page for Taiwan notes that local drivers are reckless, but that wasn’t my observation from our limited stay in the country. Drivers normally kept within speed limits, within their own lanes, and only changed them after plenty of notice through signalling. I observed too that the Taiwanese vehicle drivers were as a rule polite. They readily give way to others, and I rarely heard the use of the horn, that is excepting the several times on the mountainous roads when vehicles will gently honk to express their appreciation when someone has given way to them. I asked Checo about the absence of honking, adding that Singaporeans are among some of the most impatient and haphazard drivers I’ve seen anywhere. He remarked that there was a time decades ago when Taiwanese drivers also used the horn quite liberally. But apparently, the government had enough of the incessant honking, and instituted some law that if you used hit the horn for more than a few seconds without good reason, you’d be fine NTD1,200. I thought he was kidding. But he wasn’t. I found a Taiwan web page that says this:
The motor and scooter-cyclists are a different matter though, and like what I saw in China, Hong Kong, Phuket and Bali, they don’t seem to care too much about pedestrians in uncontrolled junctions, happily weaving in and out of persons along roads. It can be quite intimidating, but thankfully there are often clearly marked out pedestrian walkways on the road.
Most Taiwanese and in particular the older folk do not understand English, though they occasionally pepper their conversations with the simplest English words, especially ‘OK’. Many of the younger Taiwanese though do know and can speak better English, and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to put it through some practice. Yongkangstreet comes to mind: we had brunch at the Together Cafe, and also spent quite a bit of time at the Soya handicraft shop – and the proprietors at both establishments could carry conversations in English as well as any Singaporean. For the most part, Singaporean Chinese don’t look very different from Taiwanese Chinese and might had been indistinguishable – that is until the Singaporean Chinese like us open our mouths and show how many of us today struggle with conversational Mandarin!
Lastly, I’d thought that the Taiwanese would had been more vocal about politics, their government, and their feelings about China. But for the most part, the drivers we had seemed to not want to talk about that sort of thing, though Checo quipped that the frequent brawling in Taiwan Parliament is like a TV drama serial for them to have fun watching over popcorn. Many did however share about the economic pressure tactics employed by China to influence governance of their country, with the favorite weapon of choice being the control of the number of mainland tourists who are permitted to visit Taiwan. My takeaway then? The Taiwanese don’t speak of China glowingly and possibly harbor some degree of resentment over their attempts at influencing their government. On the other hand, they realize that their livelihoods will be significantly affected by what China does to them.
Our Drivers
We had three day trip drivers – one – King Kong – for four days in Taichung, another – Tony – for one day in Hualien, and a third – Checo – for two days in Taipei. All three were very helpful, knowledgeable about the general area, and had exemplary driving skills. But by this point in my blog posts, it should be apparent to readers whom both Ling and me agreed our favorite driver was. It was Checo who took us to Yehliu/Shifen/Jiufen/Yangmingshan/Tamsui, even if he’s the best only marginally amidst the really competition he’s in! But Checo’s our favorite because he was full of anecdotal stories and we learned so much retrospection from this one opinionated Taiwanese man, and also – to use Ling’s words – because he mother-hen and made us feel pampered! He also, appropriately, demonstrated an unusual degree of forcefulness when we were trying to navigate the narrow one-way street traffic to get to our minsu in Hualien, by refusing to back down when told by the road boss that his cab could not come through the one-way street. Basically, the until that moment mild-mannered man thundered back at the road boss, who in turned backed down sheepishly. In fact, he even followed by that evening with a complaint to the town police chief about this particular road boss. /Salute!
King Kong, our Taichung driver and so-named I suspect because he’s a big sized individual. He also deserves a special mention. Kong was a quieter individual, but Peter loved him and like with Checo, insisted on holding his hand the minute we got out of the vehicle. He also took a lot of family pictures for us – as in two to three dozen each day – and would WhatsApp the entire stack back after dropping us of at our accommodation. And this fellow has got pretty good skills in framing picture compositions. I’m half-tempted to ask him to send me the original JPGs so that I can do further editing, but think that would be too much to ask! Tipping is generally not an expectation in Taiwan, but we gave both tips at the end of their service. Spoil market much? Haha.
We only engaged Tony, our Hualien driver, for just one day. But over the short period of engagement, he struck me as a fatherly figure though at times he seemed also a little uncertain how engaging he should be with us. But we had no issues with his service, and would also gladly recommend him to others.
In all, the taxi industry in Taiwan seems to be quite carefully regulated. All three of our drivers are actually also taxi drivers, so we rode around in their yellow cabs. Taxi driver licenses and permits are clearly displayed, and they wear name passes even. Unlike in Taipei, I didn’t see many drivers roaming about in Taichung or Hualien though, so if you need to get somewhere in a hurry, you might need to get some local numbers to call them in.
Continued in the next post!
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