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Published: March 9th 2011
We are currently in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and my word, what a place....But first the last few weeks of India which now seems like an age ago! Another overnight bus took us to Udaipur, the scene of the James Bond film Octopussy. We found maybe the cheapest room in the whole of India (192 rupees = 2.40pounds between us) and it even had a hot water shower! None of this filling up a bucket and tipping the cold water on your head malarky, this was a godsend! Sod looking around Udaipur, we spent about 3 hours each in the shower.
Anyway, the city was typically Indian. Dusty, crowded, polluted etc. It also had a load of American tourists which was somewhat strange after so long seeing no one. The actual Lake Palace was cool but we couldnt afford the 80 pounds a head lunch buffet so had to be content taking pictures from a mile away in the Grand Palace.
Next we decided to go to the Thar Desert and do some camel trekking, spending 3 nights camping in the desert in Bikaner. Unfortunately for about the 5th time in India we ate something dodgy and spent
3 days sitting on the toilet instead! One thing we did manage to do was visit the Rat Temple, where there's literally thousands of rats running around that are supposed to be the reincarnation of all the artists sons in the area. The rats were so tame - scurrying over your feet and taking food from your hand.
Because we were literally sick of India by now, we decided to fly back to Goa for the final 10 days to get over the latest illness. Goa was great as usual and excalty what we needed - Sarah even managed to get some shopping done!
Our journey to Taiwan took three days in the end and invloved an overnight bus to Mumbai, all day waiting at Mumbai airport for a delayed flight, arriving at Kolkata at 2am and then another flight to KL later that day followed by a lovely overnight wait in the airport for the early morning flight to Taiwan! Needless to say we finally arrived in Taipei strung out on coffee and not caring that we could only get dorm beds in our hostel.
After the best nights sleep we woke up to the realisation
that its mid-febuary in Taiwan and therefore cold and raining - when we decided to come to Taiwan we did so in July not really putting it together that it would be winter over here and a hell of a lot colder than India! We quickly dug out our only pair of trousers and jumper and went out to explore. Taipei is such a great city - it has everything one would want - lots of cheap shopping malls, a ton of museums (including even a museum on the history of drinking water) and if you go to the end of the line of the MRT then theres hiking trails into the mountains and hot springs to relax in, as well as the worlds second tallest building - the Taipei 101. We've spent the majority of our time in Taipei and think its the best city we've seen. There's a lot more Japanese influence than we imagined here and after a few beers one night decided to try some sushi - don't think the waitress appreciated our atempt at using chopsticks while under the influence or our terrible mis-pronouncations of the dishes!
We also managed to find a sports
bar showing the Carling Cup final (the less said about the actual game the better) which we thought would be empty except for a few ex-pats. We were wrong - it was packed out with the locals all wearing Arsenal shirts, screaming at the large screen - Paul managed to hi-five half the pub when Arsenal scored!
We did leave Taipei for a few days and travel down to a town called Hualien for the night before heading up to Taroko Gorge. The Gorge is a lovely place that reminded us of Tiger Leaping Gorge in China, and we can imagine that it would be amazing during the summer. We arrived early on Sarahs birthday and decided to go to the hot springs to celebrate. Unfortunately they have been shut since 2005 when a landslide killed a tourist but the locals told us that everybody still used them so off we went. We first hesitated when we arrived at a big sign saying "trespassers will be fined" and hid around the corner as we watched a cop on a motorbike fining three locals for using the springs. We deided to proceed thinking we could use the "we're foreign and
don't read English or Chinese" excuse that comes in handy a lot when we saw two old ladies coming up the pathway with a stepladder. After assuring them the policeman had gone and that they were safe, we headed down the pathway, a bit mystified by the stepladder. We soon discovered its use when we came upon a big metal gate blocking our way with a tiny crawl space above it. With no stepladder to aid us and realising the ignorant foreigner excuse wouldn't work past the gate we reluctantly turned back.
After a few days trekking in the rain and only eating pot noodles (the town we were staying in had no restaurant) we headed back to Taipei to really get under the skin of the city. We were luckily to get three days of sun in which we took a gondola ride up a mountain then trekked down, and really explored the place on foot. We were a bit sad to leave Taiwan so soon but also looking forward to the Philippines and the warm weather again.
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Anne
non-member comment
Taiwan
Hey Paul and Sarah. You're both so energetic - never imagined you Paul trekking up and down mountains!! Can't believe you like Taiwan, I went a few years ago for 3 days and hated it. The smell was awful. But the shopping at the night market was amazing and Snake Alley was an education. Nice to see you like bathing with everyone at the springs :-). Bet you'll be sorry to get back. Stunning photos!!