This was a pretty hard itinerary to put together, and I’ve lost count of the major revisions we’ve had for it since June. Our broad workflow for writing out an initial plan wasn’t very different from the last semi-long vacation we took in Western Australia: we book the flight first, then based on the number of days we’ve got, break it down by region, then finally fill each individual day with an eye towards minimizing the amount of traveling (customized Google Maps is super useful in this regard). The differences though lied mostly in that Taiwan is a travel hotspot for a lot of people, and I was not going to be able to avoid places and days of the week where we would have to shove our way through crowds. Quite unlike our WA trip: until the last two days of our vacation there, the places we went to were largely crowd free.
Our two kids at the moment are also still going to be more interested in fauna and children-centered activities than sights and flora – which is why our next long vacation in June 2019 will likely be a trip to Sydney, or a shorter one to the Maldives. Thankfully, both Hannah and Peter are also well-behaved enough not to cross their parents and show impatience at the things the both of us prefer to see and do on vacations!
So, that said: here’s what it looks like. The Taichung half of the trip has been mostly firmed up but not the Taipei segment.
Our major decision points and commentary producing this itinerary:
We decided the distribution of 12 days would be across two cities: Taichung, and Taipei, both of which are on the northern half of the island. There’s plenty to see and do in Taipei – a very modern city itself, and not even counting that the city is a paradise for the gastronomical parts of ourselves. On the other hand, Taichung was going to always be more sight-seeing and also local produce and culture-centered. So, on this, we decided to split our stay roughly down the middle: so 5 days in Taichung, 6 days in Taipei. We’ll visit Taiwan again – the island is fairly accessible from Singapore – and will do the southern half then and cover the places from central that we’re skipping this trip.
Many visitors to Taiwan will remark about their night-markets, and while the markets in Taichung aren’t as numerous or dense as the ones in Taipei, there are still a few well-known ones in the city. So the Feng Jia night market – the city’s most popular and largest – has been dropped in. There are a few others, including the one in Yizhong that we’ll probably check out too – though of course also depending on how tired the kids are each day.
Cingjing was included right from the start, and should be one of the trip’s high-points for our kids. A showcase farm with sheep, goats, pigs and horses, against the backdrop of Mt. Hehuan; what’s not to like? We’ll put the kids to watch Babe before the trip so that they can get inspired even haha. Not all visitors do an overnight in Cingjing though. The relatively pricey stays aside, many will only spend a night if they are interested to go up Mt. Hehuan…
… which was another decision that we went back and forth on: and about the 3,416-metre-high Mt Hehuan. The morning sunrises at vantage points on this mountain are widely remarked as truly amazing, and there are early morning numerous bus tours from Cingjing that bring visitors from the town center up. I would have loved to do this one and have gladly wake up at 3AM to make the departing bus up the mountain, if nothing else that this will be a first for me: sunrise photography on a mountain haha. But the realities of such an early morning outing again stepped in: many reviews point to the very cold climate at the dates we’re visiting, that the kids might be really miserable and that it’ll then be a huge sacrifice on their part just to satisfy their daddy’s inner vanity in pursuit of his hobby, and that there’s no guarantee that there would be even be a clear sunrise to see in winter anyway. So, for this trip, we’ll still include Mt Hehuan, but likely head up as an afternoon than early morning visit.
Our early itinerary also included a day trip to the mountain township of Alishan and a ride on the old mountain railway. Our driver though strongly discouraged this, pointing out that in order to make an Alishan day long trip worthwhile, we should be heading out from the nearby city of Chiayi rather than Taichung, and even consider an overnight stay in Alishan itself. That would have meant several changes to our accommodation reservationsm and it’d also cut down the time we have in the Taichung general area itself. This was not an easy decision, and I’m not sure if the driver also had other concerns that he didn’t share with us. But from a distance consideration at least, the drive from Taichung to Alishan is indeed fairly long – a shade under 3 hrs, and there would also be the return trip to think about. So, Alishan got dropped for our follow-up trip to Taiwan.
Since Alishan was off the itinerary, our driver suggested we replace it with Miaoli county. Where’s that LOL. Yeah, not many people go there, which accounts for the relative dearth of information of the place. And the natural sights in Miaoli are not too different from Dahu, which we’d also be visiting. So, while we’ve included both places in our current plan, it’s still something we’ll continue to think about in the coming weeks.
Another standard itinerary item in a visit to Taiwan – not just Taichung – is Sun Moon Lake, the very picturesque lake set against mountainous backdrops. There are visitors who’ll spend two or more days in the area depending on the season, and if we were cycling enthusiasts, bike trails around the area. Sadly, we’re only going to spend half a day here – though there’s still a chance that we might increase our stay here depending on what we do with Miaoli and Dahu above.
Xitou was also an inclusion we bounced back and forth. For most visitors, the single significant point of interest is the Monster Village, a Japanese-styled village for those people who want to see Japan while in Taiwan (?!?!). Ironically, we’re visiting Xitou not for the Monster Village – it’s not on our itinerary even – but for its Nature Education Area. I’m especially interested to do one of the shorter trails in the park, and especially a visit to its Bamboo Forest.
I’ll do a continuing post once we’ve firmed up our itinerary intentions for Hualien and Taipei!
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