Taiwan Diaries

We landed at Taipei and reached our hotel late night. Didnt do much activity. We ordered a sim card which has free data for 7 days through viator and got it at the arrival terminal. We also visited one of the grocery stores in the airport and brought the easy card which could be used in metros, trains and buses inside the city. Both the sim card and easy pass costed around INR 3000

We started the day early by taking the train to Jiufen. One main attraction of Taipei is, its well connected by public transport by metro, train and bus. We took a train to Ruifang and then changed train to Jiufen. There are so many activities to do in Jiufen from visiting the old street where you can choose your own lantern and release it, visit the Niagara of Taiwan called the Shifen waterfall (we took a up and down cab to visit the falls since its little far from Jiufen), watch the old street vendors give way to train when it crosses and also eat some good food. Do try the dumplings, the noodle soup and the desserts ice cream roll and taro balls

We visited the hot springs in Beitou on day 3. This is easily accessible by the Metro's in Taipei. This is a natural hot spring recreation area in Taipei. This is a must visit if you are in Taipei, you can explore the hot springs formed by sulfur. They also have free spas where you can actually go and enjoy these hot springs (you would need to have the right swimwear, towel etc) Else you could just enjoy soaking your legs which we did and enjoyed. After this we went to explore the night street markets which Taipei is famous for. You get great food like dumplings, rice, taro balls etc. We even tried quail eggs :) This is also a great place for shopping. They had really nice suitcases and we ended up buying a small cute one (which i still carry for my business trips :) you can bargain a lot here and buy things. None of the vendors know English, just use your calculator in the phone to show how much you need and negotiate :)

Yangmingshan is a must visit if you are interested in geology. Its famous for its cherry blossom, fumarole, hot springs and hikes. You can plan your hike on which one you want to visit. We wanted to visit the cherry blossoms and fumarole, since we already saw hot springs at Beitou so we planned our hike in those routes. There are also mini buses which runs from one hike to another. We directly went to visit the fumarole and it was one out of the world experience to watch the steam coming out of earth's crust and also the noise along with it (it reminded me of the pressure cooker we use at home :)

After the hike, we came down from the hill to visit the cherry blossom and we also happened to see tulips (we planned our trip during spring starting so that we can actually enjoy the cherry blossom, I don't think you can see it after Arpil-May until Jan end or Feb).

We visited Yangmingham by Bus from Taipei Main station which will drop you at the national park. The easy card is accepted in the buses also. At evening, we went to visit the biggest underground shopping mall, which is also connected by all metro stations. If you start walking in the mall, you can actually walk beneath the metro stations. Here you will also find the famous Taiwan massage which is Knife Massage. Trust me it is worth trying a session with the Knife massage and it felt really good, although scary to look at!

We visited the Taipei Zoo as we wanted to see the Giant Panda. We were so excited to see the Panda for the first time. The Pandas were playful, eating bamboo and sleeping when we visited them. Apart from the Panda we also saw Penguins, Koalas, Red Pandas which is not native to India, so overall it was a good trip to the Zoo to see all the endangered species. It would definitely be a great place for kids to learn about all these various animals. The Maokong Gandola also operates from the zoo to the metro station. You can also reach the Maokong which is 200 meters above and take the Gandola to the Metro station, but we decided to take it from the zoo station to the Metro. It was a good ride down the hill and if you are experiencing Gandola for the first time you will definitely enjoy it (Gandola is similar to the cable car ride in Genting Highlands, Malaysia). We also visited some places inside the city like Taipei 101 (from outside though) and also the night markets again to enjoy the food

Back to Chennai

Last day we wrapped up our stay and headed back home to Chennai :)

Tips:

1. If you have valid visa from US, UK, Schengan and few other countries as I mentioned above, for Indian Passport Holders its entry free. All you have to do is fill their transit form and pass through immigration (We saved the visa fee in that since both Husband and I had other valid visas)

2. All tourist spots in Taipei are entry free like the hot springs, national parks, night markets etc. Even for the Zoo we paid very minimal fee of about Rs. 200

3. We ate a lot of street food for our meals except for 1 or 2 meal where we wanted to indulge in some gourmet restaurants. Street food in Taiwan is cheap but for vegetarians it would be little difficult. If you can manage with chicken and duck its a street food heaven.

4. We brought the easy pass for 5 days which we used in all public transport and can be topped up if needed. Google maps is more than sufficient to see the public transport routes.

5. We stayed in 2 different places, Husband got some Thomas Cook voucher from his office so we redeemed it for a 2 night stay in a small hotel for first 2 days. Next 3 days we stayed at Holiday Inn Express since I had some points to be redeemed there. With this we ended up not paying anything for our stay :)

6. There are other few places worth seeing like the scenic North coast, Taroko Gorge and the fast bullet train to the south Taiwan since we didn't have much time. If you are planning for a week long or more, then you could include these.