The first time I went to Taiwan was in 1997. I remember it well cause it coincided with Lady Diana's death. I remember watching television in my hotel room, while typhoon raging outside listening to the tragic story. It was my country independence day too - 31 August.
Now after close to 18 years later, I figured it is time to revisit the country. Furthermore my visit back in 1997 was only to Taipei. This time round I got to move around a bit :)
Our itinerary was:
28 April 2015 Kuala Lumpur - Taoyuan
29 April 2015 Taoyuan - Taichung - Nantou
30 April 2015 Nantou - Yilan
1 May 2015 Yilan - Yangmingshan - Taipei
2 May 2015 Taipei - Yehliu - Taipei
3 May 2015 Taoyuan - Kuala Lumpur
Surprisingly I found the present day Taiwan less vibrant than before. The roads were quite empty. When I went there in the 90s, there were so many youngsters on motorbikes. The locals call them them suicycles (suicide motorcycles) but now so few of them on the road.
Sadly except for Yehliu Geopark (highly recommended), I found Taiwan so boring. The buildings are dated and messy. So uninspiring. Even the iconic Taipei 101 lacks energy. But one thing good about Taiwan according to the local guide is its low crime rate. The city is very clean too :) The immigration officers are friendlier too compared to the 90s :P
The tour was organised by Poto Travels & Tours and the price per person was RM3759. It was a full board tour. Since we followed Muslim tours, can't really comment about their authentic local food. Their halal restaurants are quite limited. The food that were served to us was mostly palatable.
I just want to put on record that I was quite disappointed with Poto for this trip. Their itinerary stated that there is an opportunity to pluck fruits from the trees at the leisure farm. The reality was you can't even spy any fruits on the trees! How misleading!
Njoy!!
