As soon as we arrived in Taipei we were on the go non-stop. We had initially thought of spending a week here in order to go at a more leisurely pace, but the higher accommodation price convinced us to cram our Taipei plans into a shorter time period. 

On Friday we headed out to Yangmingshan National Park, a volcanic hiking area with multiple natural hot springs and steam vents. We had a quick hot spring soak to start the day, and then hiked up the tallest peak in Taipei in the most incredible humidity. The views were completely obscured by the fog by the time we reached the top, but the way up was pretty spectacular. There were some beautiful butterflies all the way along the trail, and at the very top they were joined by dragonflies, bees, beetles, and all manner of bugs in a bit of a swarm, so we continued back down the other side fairly swiftly! The trail down passed a number of geothermal vents, but by the time we got to the biggest and final one the mist was so thick we couldn’t see anything but white, despite only being about 5 meters away. Apparently it’s like that 200 days out of the year.​

Next we headed to Beitou, the most famous and popular hotspring town, for some more bathing (although we were still far too sweaty from the hike to be excited for hot water). We took a side trip to a hot spring that was supposed to have some of the nicest private baths in the area, but as we were walking into the bath house a snake came slithering out. The 3 staff members all freaked out, before the bravest of them went to fetch a snake grabber to remove it. I’m not sure if this was reassuring, because they knew how to deal with it, or very much not reassuring that this happens often enough for them to need a snake grabber. We decided not to stay here in case some other reptile decided to join us in the bath. The walk back into town took us past more geothermal landscapes, as well as a very pretty turquoise lake and hidden waterfall. After the main public hot springs denied Creed entry because his swimsuit wasn’t a speedo, we found ourselves at another private operation where we had an hour in a tub to ourselves followed by a 30 minute fish spa. After a very long day we met up with a local girl from one of my Facebook groups and wandered around one of the best night markets we’ve visited in the country. Creed had a spicy pork sandwich in fresh baked bread which turned out to be his favourite food of the whole trip, and we tried some other local favourites – spiced tofu and fried milk. 

On Saturday we got a late start thanks to being so tired from the day before, but still managed to have a very busy day. It turned out to be the best weather of the entire 3 weeks in Taiwan, so we rented some city bikes and cycled down the riverside park in the sun. We visited a large memorial and entirely by accident managed to arrive exactly in time to watch a changing of the guard. We visited the National Museum and the Natural History Museum before heading off to another memorial. This one we’d marked on the map incorrectly so it was a longer cycle than we’d thought, and took us close to Taipei 101, the tower which was the tallest in the world for 3 years before the Burj Al Arab in Dubai was completed in 2007. We never really feel the need to go to the top of tall buildings just so that we can say that we have, but we did go right up to the bottom of it to take in its full height. And then, since we were in the area, we decided to head up the hill to the city’s best viewpoint for sunset. This hike, like the one from the previous day, was just a lot of steps rather than a trail, and, combined with the biking and busy days our legs were definitely starting to burn. But no rest yet, we were again meeting an online connection in the evening. We ended up at the same night market for convenience, and then sat at the riverside and chatted until it got late.

On Sunday morning we visited the National Palace, which now houses an extensive museum with one of the largest collections of Chinese artifacts in the world. We managed to time our trip perfectly to be inside when it rained, and ended our visit with a wander through the gardens in the sunshine. It remained dry for the rest of the afternoon, which was perfect because it was time for the dragonboat races! This weekend was a festival celebrating a very weird story of a poet who was thrown into a river after he angered the king. The people, who loved the poet, threw rice dumplings into the river so that the fish would eat the dumplings and not bother the poet. We’re not sure (and neither were the locals we asked) how this led to dragonboating, but this weekend the whole country was celebrating the dragonboat festival, so we went down to the river to watch. We bought some local liquor and took bets on which lane would win, and had an enjoyable afternoon at the races. On the way home we found a park with a hedge maze which was short enough for Creed to look over the top of and cheat his way around, and a temple with some of the most impressive decoration we’ve seen. We managed to make it home at a reasonable time and relax for the rest of the evening for a change.

Our last full day in Taiwan was spent visiting some of the villages on the outskirts of Taipei. First we headed to Pingxi, where we did yet another hike involving many many steps, and this time some of them were so steep they were just ladders bolted onto the cliff face or connecting two giant boulders with nothing but air underneath. The scenery was incredible, and the hike was more thrilling than most, and definitely not for the faint of heart. We hopped on a scenic train through a gorge to our next stop of Shifen. The train timetable gave us exactly one hour to be back to hop back on, far too much time to explore the tiny town which was essentially just one main street with the train tracks running down the middle, but also not quite long enough to walk out to the famous Shifen Waterfall and back at a leisurely pace. So we walked out to the waterfall at a not so leisurely pace, and it was lovely but a little sweaty, and meant we needed to make a few minutes for icecream on the way back. We made it to the train in time, and headed on to our final stop of Jiufen. This town was a little bigger, with a winding alleyway of market stalls running up the hillside, and plenty of hidden corners to explore. We had some great views of the ocean, and lanterns lighting up as the sun went down. We decided against paying tourist prices at the food stalls here, and instead hit up our favourite street food market back in Taipei for our last meal.

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!

 Ros ♥

If you’re interested in how I got here, or where I went next, check out the rest of the story!