I
had been planning to revisit Taiwan since my first visit in March 2007. As I
hadn’t any fixed destination for the Malaysia Day weekend, I started
researching and promptly decided, OK, I would do Taiwan again! I scoured the
flight fares and times and MAS’ schedule suited me better (it would actually
cost me slightly more to fly AirAsia – even if I wanted to and I didn’t – and
the schedules didn’t suit me at all) and because I procrastinated, the fares
had gone up by the time I decided to buy my ticket. I then explored flying into
Kaohsiung and out of Taipei (Cathay Pacific would be the best option; it
involved a stopover in Hong Kong for both legs though, meaning longer travel
time) but at the last minute, I decided to check PYO Travel website and guess
what, the MAS fares were lower there by RM208 and the seats for both legs were
pre-booked for me (5A for both legs!)! This was only the second time I used PYO
Travel: the first time was when I booked Hotel Royal in Macau after scouring
other sites:
Firefly
Holidays (w/o breakfast): RM986.40
Hotels.com
(w/out breakfast): RM962
Go
Holiday (w/o breakfast): RM905.36
Ratestogo.com
(rates change every day): RM816 then RM827
PYOtravel.com:
RM797
Anyway.
Back to the Taiwan trip. I bought my flight ticket on 21 July and set about planning my
route. It’d be a whirlwind packed trip and I was determined to cover as many
places as possible. I already have some brochures and guide books on Taiwan so
I referred to them and Wikitravel of course. Now, you may ask, ‘Why Taiwan?’
Well, why not? I know the country is a very safe country like Japan. My
Taiwanese friend told me that a girl can walk alone even at 11 pm and no one
would harm her. And I don’t need a visa to enter Taiwan unlike China and Korea.
I let slip my plan to SM on 4 August and she bought her tickets six days later.
Finally the day arrived and we were good to go.
Wednesday,
10 September 2014
Now,
our flight was at 01:25 on Thursday, 11 September, so we departed for the
airport this evening. Met up with SM after midnight at the boarding gate.
Thursday,
11 September 2014
We
boarded the flight at 1 am and I dozed off during take-off. I was about to fall
asleep again when I was woken up by a cabin crew who wanted to serve me my
meal. I was hoping the meal would be served closer to landing but no, it was
served sometime after 2 am. I was already up so I chose noodles with chicken.
Tried to fall back asleep but failed of course. I finally got up at 5 and went
to the bathroom to perform ablutions for my morning prayers.
We
landed at Taoyuan International Airport at 06:15 and I quickly disembarked. I
had told SM that we needed to hit the ground running literally as we were
travelling to Kaohsiung that afternoon and the train trip could take anywhere
between 4 hours and 25 minutes to 6 hours and 49 minutes (actually, there is
one service which takes 8 hours and 22 minutes and as it is the longest and
also the costliest, we didn’t consider this at all of course). I cleared
immigration within 15 minutes of landing and went to the washroom near the
conveyor belt to freshen up. SM emerged later as she sat further back in the
plane. We left after 10 minutes and took the airport bus to Taipei Main Station
(return ticket costs NTD230). The trip took us 50 minutes.
At
the Taipei Main Station, we searched for lockers to store our bags and then
bought the 3 pm train ticket to Kaohsiung and the 07:08 train ticket to Hualien
for the following Monday. I had already searched the train times and cost
online prior to the trip – the website is easy to navigate and really helped us
in planning our trips and budgeting. After buying the tickets and storing our
bags, we made our way to the MRT for the train to Shilin station. We bought an
EasyCard prior to entering the MRT – it works like the Octopus Card in Hong
Kong and Touch ‘n Go here –and users enjoy a 10% discount on fares. Deposit is
NTD100 and if you return your card, a NTD20 will be deducted.
At
Shilin, we got down and after buying some buns from a bakery near the station,
we walked to the nearby bus stop for the bus to National Palace Museum. This
museum is among the best in the world and as I didn’t manage to visit it on my
first trip, I really wanted to visit it this time. There are quite a few buses
going to the museum, you just need to check the destination of the various
buses.
We
reached the museum after 9 am and paid NTD250 for the admission. If you’re
carrying a backpack or bulky bag, you would need to leave it at the cloak room.
We split up and agreed to meet at the entrance at 12:30. There are three floors
and I covered all rooms although I must confess that I did breeze through some
displays. Photography is not allowed by the way. There were very long queues to
some of the more popular and rare displays like the ivory carvings and jadeite
cabbage.
I
finished just before 12 and was dithering if I had time to go to the other
building when SM came up and told me there were paintings and calligraphy in
the other building. I had seen some earlier so we agreed to leave. It was already
blazing hot by then and it was with some reluctance that we left the cool
sanctuary of the museum. We waited for the bus and then took the MRT to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.
The
memorial hall is flanked by the National Theatre and National Concert Hall. A park
surrounded the Memorial Hall Square. We spent some time here taking photos and helping
take photos of others. We left just after 1 pm, having agreed that we’d try to
change our train time to 2 pm instead.
Back
at the Taipei Main Station, we spotted a TRA ticket counter and went to ask if
we could change our tickets. Thankfully, we managed to communicate this and not
only got them changed at no charge but the lady managed to help us find seats
next to each other. We then went to search for our lockers (and my, were there
many lockers at the station, even at the MRT station! How convenient do the
Taiwanese make life easy for everyone!) and finally managed to locate our
lockers.
We
boarded the train and made ourselves comfortable for the journey. The bathroom
in the train was clean and guess what, there were even water dispensers in the
train! In fact, I noticed this at a lot of places – at the airport, the Visitor
Information Centre at Sun Moon Lake, in trains... like I said, they really make
life comfortable for everyone. I didn’t have to buy water at all in Taiwan! I
normally buy bottles of litres of mineral water when I travel.
We
reached Kaohsiung at 18:42 (it was already dark by then; sunset was at 18:07) and went to look for our lodging. It was actually
only four minutes away from the station (I had purposely searched for a
hotel/hostel near the station). By the way, if you take the High Speed Rail
train, the HSR station is different and you’ll need to take another train or
taxi to Kaohsiung Main Station.
After
checking in and freshening up, we walked to Liuhe Night Market. There was a lot
of seafood on sale (grilled squids, grilled baby crabs, seafood noodles), and
other stalls selling drinks, souvenir and clothes. Most of the stall keepers
there knew some English and some even warned us that they used beef oil or had
pork in their food. We had seafood noodle soup for dinner before returning to
the hostel.
To
be continued
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