Taiwan to Hong Kong

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I am writing this as we wait for our plane to board in Hong Kong airport, on our very last day of travelling. We are sad that it is nearly over, and cannot believe it has already been 6 months, but every day has been so different that it was always going to fly by.

We had a wonderful two weeks in Taiwan, where the people are friendly, the transport is easy and nearly everything is in English as well as Mandarin. We got to practise a bit more Mandarin, and feel like we've mastered please, thank you, hello and the numbers! Most people spoke some English though, and everyone was enormously helpful, even when we didn't need it - pointing out when our bus arrived, telling the driver where we were going, showing us which train to get, which was faster, etc. And that was just the odd local person we bumped into, not to mention the guesthouses we stayed at. Everywhere we stayed was thoughtfully decorated too - like being in a cottage on the fourth floor of an apartment block!

We started with a couple of days at Sun Moon Lake, where we hired bikes and cycled around the 33km perimeter - a hot and tiring day, but filled with temples, wildlife, and falling off my bike and getting a few bruises!! The first food we tried was delicious but also quite strange, including battered shrimps with canned pineapple, covered in sweet mayonnaise and hundreds & thousands! Colourful! There seemed to be a lot of Japanese and Chinese fusion, so we loved most of what we tried, and there was a good variety of restaurants everywhere too.

From Sun Moon Lake we went to Tainan, one of the oldest cities, which was a bit more developed than we imagined, and even the "old streets" were a bit heavy on traffic and buildings, but we ate some very traditional food at the street stalls (I can't even name most of it, but we both had oyster omelettes and managed not to get ill!), and got a feel for "real life" in the city too. There are a few temples and interesting old Dutch buildings from colonial times, so we had fun walking around. We also spent a day at the nearby hot springs, which turned out to be a cooler and rainy day (luckily) or we would have no doubt been too hot and spent the day in the plunge pool!

From Tainan, we travelled by train for 6 hours (our longest journey in a while) to Hualien. The town itself was full of little shops selling an assortment of vintage clothes, trinkets, accessories, and cakes - I liked it anyway! We visited the gorge, the main reason for our visit, made of marble and in beautiful colours. Unfortunately due to typhoons there had been recent landslides so a lot of it was closed, and the river was a bit grey rather than the turqoise we had seen on photos, but it was still a great day out.

We then travelled to Taipei for the last 4 days of our trip, and really liked the city, the atmosphere, the food and the people. We stayed very centrally, but the metro meant it was really easy to get around anyway. Saw lots of temples, parks, museums and did a lot of general city stuff - nothing compared to the scale of Hong Kong and its skyrise buildings and evening light show though!

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