Some Observations

Did we enjoy our time in Taiwan?

Yes. The people are friendly, the wilderness areas are beautiful, and the cities interesting.

Would we recommend it as a place to visit?

Definitely. It has something for everyone. Don’t come for a week, it just isn’t enough. You  need a bit of time to get used to the local culture. Landing in the very busy, noisy, hot, humid Taipei was a bit of a culture shock for us. Kiwi has been to other big cities in Asia, but that was a while ago. You need time to adjust. The contrasts to home can be extreme. We had almost 4 weeks and could have easily stayed longer.

Did we have enough time in Taiwan?

Kiwi Says: I reckon a more time would have been good. I think Kaohsiung has a bit more to see than we did, and Tainan might have been worth a visit. Maybe a visit to Sun Moon Lake would have been good too, mind you the weather wasn’t overly co-operative when we were in that area. There are other places we didn’t get to, but you can’t see and do everything.

Kraut Says: Six weeks would have been good. We could have seen a bit more, learned a bit more about the culture, and had more time to enjoy it instead of having to hurry a bit more than we would have liked.

Our favourite place?

Fenchihu. The people, the nature, the atmosphere. Not noisy, and not overrun by people. Just a lovely piece of Taiwan.

Taroko National Park was a close second

Favourite Accommodation

1st equal to the hostels at Fenchihu and Taroko and our AirBnB in Yuli.

Some of the more interesting things we noticed in Taiwan

• There are several shops which consist of nothing of those machines where you put in money and then manipulate a claw, trying to grab the toy of your choice.
• Our hotel in Kenting National Park had no floor 4, and in Chaiyi the hotel had no floor 14. But the building it was in had a 4th floor. I guess the hotel had a 14th floor, they just called it the 15th. This is due to the word for number four in Chinese sounding like the word for death. This makes as much sense as the buildings and streets in the West which have no 13. Apparently there are buildings in Asia with no floor whose number contains ‘4’. This includes floors 40 – 49.
• The food in Taiwan is often very sweet, and fatty. It took the Kraut a while to find coffee sachets that didn’t contain vast amounts of sugar. The roadside tea places put in so much sugar you can feel your teeth rotting as you drink it.
• Red stains on the road and footpath. This is from betel nut juice. Chewing betel nuts is very popular in Taiwan, but it causes oral cancers. It also has a psychoactive effect, which is exploited by taxi and truck drivers to help them work long hours. The government is trying to reduce its use. One way they are doing this is incentivising growers of betel nuts to grow other crops. It is illegal in New Zealand.
• The Free Lottery. The Taiwan government realised a lot of small businesses in Taiwan, and small businesses make up about 97% of businesses in Taiwan, were not declaring all their income. So they introduced a lottery to encourage people to shop at businesses which report sales tax by putting lottery numbers on each and every receipt. Every two months a draw is made and, if you are lucky, you can win NT$2,000,000 (about NZ$100,000) less 20% tax (boo!). The next draw is on May 25.
• The trains are good. A lot of them are getting old, but they are comfortable with lots of leg room and enough space in the overhead luggage rack for our backpacks.
• The pedestrian crossing signal at the traffic lights starts as a red man and then turns into a walking green man. But as the time left to cross decreases the green man speeds up until with only 9 seconds to go he is running (and flashing on and off). Funny. This is a not very good video of it taken with my smartphone:
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• Dad, Mum, and kid on a scooter. The kid is usually standing between the driver’s legs. Often there is another smaller child squeezed between Mum and Dad. But, they are all wearing helmets. We have also seen dogs (without helmet but sometimes in a fancy jumper) of all sizes sitting between the driver’s legs.
• The musical rubbish trucks. You would swear it was an ice-cream truck, but no. Here is another not very good video:
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• The amount of plastic; mandarins that were individually wrapped in cling wrap, boxes of crackers where the crackers are wrapped in pairs, shoes wrapped in plastic, everything comes in a plastic bag. It is a shame. There are recycling bins on the streets but it is better to reduce than recycle. There was also a lot of plastic waste floating around the coast, not all of that is from Taiwan but still… On the 25th of May there is a coordinated clean up going on around Taiwan. There is a lot of rubbish in some of the most beautiful places so hopefully that will make a difference.
• Hello Kitty is very popular in Taiwan

There is so much to see, smell, taste, hear, and explore. You should all come and have a look for yourselves.

Here is a slideshow of some photos from smartphone taken while wandering around. They aren’t great photos but you get that. Enjoy.

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If anyone has any questions about travelling in Taiwan, feel free to contact us at thekiwiandthekraut@gmail.com