Taiwan - The Holiday, Part 1

Two weeks to visit daughter Emma, and to see a little of the island of Taiwan – a country that is amazingly beautiful and full of the loveliest people. Two weeks of delight and unexpected discoveries. Worth the travel.

A journey time of over 16 hours, a distance of 5990 miles

Emma lives in Zhongli, about an hour’s journey west and a bit south of the capital Taipei. It’s a bustling town, filled with cars, scooters, taxis, pedestrians. Pretty much everyone seems to ride a scooter. Crossing the roads as a pedestrian was challenging!

It rained alot! Actually, it rained on and off for the whole of the 2 weeks, but it was warm and dried quickly.

We pottered about during the days Emma had to work. We met for lunch – usually a dish of cold noodles with satay sauce, eaten in the park.

A long weekend took us to Kenting in the far south of the island, via the high speed train (highly recommended)

and then a hire car (also highly recommended – make sure you have an international driving licence). We had a hotel booked for the 4 of us – the very comfortable Smokey Joe’s.

We walked our little cotton socks off, but had surprises around every corner. We couldn’t have done nearly so much without Emma’s boyfriend’s help – he drove, he spoke Chinese and was happy to join us on our adventure.

Kenting is the main attraction for visitors to the south of Taiwan – a tourist area with hotels, shopping, beaches etc. We wandered through the night market and bought mojitos and a hat.

We drove to the furthest south we could, parked up and had some beautiful walks in the National Forest area – wet and windswept, but lots of fun. Cliffs, mountain goats, deserted beaches, coral ravines, caves, forest trees, happy Taiwanese visitors, watermelon.