A Simple Place (Taipei, Taiwan)

This new budget hotel is conveniently located and a fun place to stay. Rooms are large and spacious (although mine was upgraded), mine had a small comfy couch, large (comfy) bed, a flat screen tv and a small desk (with free water and snacks). Attached bathroom had a shower and a toilet, both rooms were very clean.

Every second floor has a shared fridge, with a free washer/dryer on the top floor. Tea making facilities and a (free) computer with internet are also available in the top floor. Free WiFi on each floor. Hotel has been decorated in a very fun way, and staff are very friendly and helpful. Location is very convenient (perhaps a 5 minute walk to the main Ximending area). Loved my stay here.

No breakfast included – but use this as an opportunity to explore the local eateries – fantastic Taiwanese omelette place around the corner.

SweetMe Hotspring Resort (Beitou, Taiwan)

I spent some time searching for somewhere to stay in Beitou, and although this place was a little higher than what I normally spend on accommodation, I went with it for two reasons: it was ready to book (I just booked through one of the booking engines, many other hotels in the area only had phone numbers, with no way to book online) and they boasted hot springs in their rooms.

This was the first non budget hotel I stayed at on this trip, and so the nice big, clean, pretty room was a shock to me (other reviews I read suggested they were a little run down, I certainly didn’t experience that). My room had a large very comfortable king bed (actually it was two singles pushed together) with a mini fridge, flat screen tv (with star movies etc) and plenty of space. The bathroom had a large mirror, a small (Japanese style) shower area and (the highlight off the room) a large stone bath, fed by spring waters.

Included with the room is entry to the hotels public (ie naked) hotsprings – I was too caught up in my personal one that I didn’t try them out I’m afraid – next time! Breakfast was also included, which was decent. Location is good, not far from the train station, and opposite the main park (ie near the hot spring museum etc).

White helmet tours

One of the main tourist destinations of Taiwan, I wasn’t sure what to expect of my tour – was it going to be in English? Chinese? A big or small group? After an unexpected but fun ‘yellow hat’ tour with my cousin of the Yellow Mountains in China years before, I was kinda hoping for colorful hats.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, today’s tour was instead all about the white helmets! The tour was a small minivan that picked me up from the hostel, and for $988 included a full day of seeing the sights of Tarako, lunch and a drop off at the train station at 4.30pm. The tour was in Chinese, but as the majority of the others on the ground were from Asian countries that speak both Chinese and English (eg Singapore and Malaysia), I was in good hands.

In our minivan we went around and saw many special spots, including the tunnel of nine turns, the eternal spring shrine and the Swallow Grotto trail. It was on the way to the Swallo Grotto trail that we passed a roadside stop proclaiming “free helmet hire” – our guide stopped and picked up a helmet for each of us, including a tiny one for the 3 year old French boy also on our tour. At the Swallow Grotto trail we put on our helmets to wander along the trail – an area well known for landslides and rockfalls, over the years many have been killed and helmets are now mandatory.

Lunch was a brilliant mix of local foods shared over the table with others from the group. I made friends with a few (very well spoken) young boys when I came across a stamping area (like Japan, many attractions in Taiwan have a rubber stamp that symbolizes it – kids collect the rubber stamps in books). I immediately ran up to start stamping my notebook, when one of the young boys offered me a special kids stamping book instead, so now I’m set!

I’m sitting on the train as we slowly roll into Taipei and back to the hustle and bustle of city life. The guy next to me is playing on his psp, the guys across the aisle has both his iPhone and MacBook air out and the woman in front is playing with an iPod. Sitting here typing on my iPad and uploading via Bluetooth on my iPhone, I can see I fit in with a technology aware country such as Taiwan!

Green Island

I had organised for a 2 day “package” of Green Island, which included the taxi and ferry rides, accommodation, scooter hire and a snorkeling trip. Jack picked me up from the ferry terminal and set off towards his hotel, giving me a quick tour on the way. Green Island only has one main road that circles the island, and takes about an hour and a half on a slow scooter ride. We passed the main attractions – the airport (they make a killing, as most people come by boat, and can’t stomach the thought of the return and buy last minute flights), the old prison (very interesting history), the new prison (it’s still a prison, so don’t go in and try to take photos) and “downtown” ( a strip of about 10 shops or so).

Jack set me up with a room (absolutely magnificent room with beautiful dark teak floors and furniture) and showed me my scooter. He was more than a little worried when he found out I had only ridden a few times, and made me practice a few times in front of him, but I must of passed for he let me take the scooter anyway.

Jack's Inn, the boutique hotel that I stayed at whilst on Green Island.

I ended up at the BBQ joint opposite the hotel for dinner. Furtively looking around, I copied everyone else as we chose our meats and veggies from the fridges and barbecued them ourselves. Just as I was finishing up, two girls from one of the other tables came over and asked me to join them. I joined their party and we had a great time eating, drinking, singing karaoke and playing UNO (which they were delighted to find out works the same in Australia, including Laura’s crazy rules!) The group turned out to be Taiwanese and Hong King students from Tainan – students of what I still have no idea!

Our group at the BBQ join

They invited me to head to the hot springs with them, so we jumped on our scooters (me still trying to get used to mine – this lot has been on scooters since they were tiny) and headed off. A couple of kilometers up the road, we stopped (in the middle of the road, on a dark and windy area) and one of the guys pulled a torch out of his pocket. Jumping off his scooter, he headed to the side of the road and started looking in the trees. Looking closer, I noticed this dude was much older than the rest of the group, who followed him over. Turns out we were on a nightime wildlife tour (I missed that somehow) and he was pointing out some crazy big insects. He continued with us for a while, pointing out deer and water buffaloed and whatnot before disappearing and us heading onto the hot springs.

Look, it's a deer

The hot springs were fun – one of only three in the world, they use salt water instead of spring water. Various temperatures, from almost freezing to about 42degrees. Unlike Japanese onsens, it is mixed bathing, and swimwear is worn. We had a great night, and my Taiwanese friends returned me to my hotel before continuing onto their dorm.

Chilling at the hot springs at midnight

The following day I was up early for my snorkeling tour. The weather had changed and was no longer still and sunny, it was now windy and rainy. Still, off to the snorkeling shop I went. My guide fitted me up with a wetsuit (I was the only one on this trip), wetsuit boots and a lifejacket. I’ve been snorkeling a fair few times before, but I’ve never worn a lifejacket and I’ve always used flippers. I attempted to say I didn’t need the lifejacket, but he wouldn’t have any of that. We jumped on our scooters and headed around the corner to the beach, where he handed me a rubber ring and a mask and snorkel?? After walking a few meters out, he instructed me to lie on the rubber ring – and out my face in the water. He then proceeded to put his flippers, and tow me around to see everything! I’ve since seen groups of 3,4 and even up to 8 people being towed around by a single guide – the lazy way to snorkel indeed! Certainly not what I’m used to, but a fun experience nonetheless. Bonus that the sites under the water were deceptively beautiful, huge coral reefs and a crazy neon colored fish, and I didn’t even remotely have a fear of being sunburnt.

Snorkelling group heading out

Getting their safety rings

Getting ready to "jump in"

And the leader leads the way!

The rest of my time on the island was spent riding the scooter around – once again I’ve fallen in love with scooters and am trying to figure out how practical they would be back home. This morning I spent an hour or so by the beach, patting a friendly lone golden retriever and contemplating the trip back.

Street lights coming on, first night on Green Island

Waiting for Jack to take me down to the ferry terminal, I met the two Europeans staying at the same hotel, who were due to head back on the boat with me. They didn’t have as good a trip as I on the way over, and begged me to share my stash of “miracle drugs”. A little apprehensive, one of them took a photo of the Chinese-only bottle, declaring that at least this way he had “something to show the emergency department”!

We had an uneventful return to the mainland, whether due to the drugs or a better crossing, I’m not sure. They did tell me a funny story about the island though – this morning they were riding their scooters around, when they came across a lone golden retriever in the middle of no-where (“I know that dog!”, I said). The first guy scootered around it, the second stopped just before it. The dog looked up and him, as if saying, ‘well, where have you been?!’ and proceeded to jump onto the scooter! Apparently the expression on Ari’s face was priceless – and he tried to shoo the dog off the scooter, to no avail. Appears the dog has been riding scooters for a lot longer than Ari, and managed to stay on as he took corners at crazy speeds to push him off. He eventually got off when he was ready to, where I must of met him only half an hour later!

I’m now in Hualien – I’ve booked my tour of Tarako Gorge for tomorrow morning and have got a load of washing on. Thankfully it’s a bit cooler here, as I’m wearing only my leggings and my thick jacket as everything else is in the washing machine – fingers crossed everything dries before I pack up tomorrow (but it can’t be as bad as Alex the Austrian, who is jumping on a 20 hour flight tomorrow morning with a backpack full of wet diving gear, ugh).

Ferry ride from hell

Lonely planet writes “Only twice in my extensive travels have I found myself, face pressed against a rolling floor, stinking of my own vomit, begging for the sweet release of death. The first time was on the boat to Green Island while researching the chapter you’re currently reading. The second was on the way back.” (Taiwan 2007). And so it was with a little trepidation that I headed for the ferry in Taitung. With my excellent miming skills, I managed to buy what I prayed were seasickness tablets at a small chemist in Khaosiung (there was no English on the bottle, so I was putting all my faith in the salesgirl!). I’m not prone to seasickness (hell, on one of the ferry trips between china and Japan I went through the tail end of a typhoon with no ill effects) but given the blurb in LP, I decided to skip my morning milk bubble tea.

I arrived at the train station and was whisked away by a taxi driver holding a sign with my name on it – the trip to the pier takes 25 mins, the ferry leaves in 30 mins and I still needed a ticket! Needless to say his driving was excellent but not exactly law-abiding. In slang Taiwanese he also managed to convey how beautiful Green Island is, and what a shame you had to get through hell to get there (referring to the ferry ride) :/

We made it in time and I jumped on the ferry and found a seat to leave my suitcase. Every single seat had a number of empty sick bags on it, with plenty more spares hanging from the railings. I raced upstairs to be out on the deck as we left land. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze and there were a couple of groups of 20 year old hanging around chatting and laughing. Within minutes the waves were reaching the deck and the sun was gone.

I ended up hanging around up out on the deck for the entire trip – I was already soaked, and everyone was having a ball (it was kinda like a wet roller coaster, with that real fear of death). Luckily I was surrounded by a group of well-built local guys, the few times I lost my footing and went sliding for the rails they would grab me and haul me back to where I belonged. I should point out here that although there was railing around the deck, there wasn’t a gate on the stairs down to the bottom level – I can’t imagine being thrown down them would be fun! One of my travel partners headed inside early on and returned wearing goggles – we all laughed, but in the end the laugh was on us!

The "ferry from hell" aka the trip over to Green Island. The sun is shining, everyone is happy, dry and smiling...

The wind has picked up, people are starting to get wet.

There is no hope, pop on your goggles, cling to the rail and hope for the best!

A combination of my strong stomach, the miracle drugs from the chemist and being outdoors meant I didn’t feel ill at all. Not so for pretty much the rest of the entire boat – most of the sick bags had been used and there was a putrid smell in the air when I returned to grab my suitcase.