Another much talked-about ‘must do’ when in the city of Taipei is to take a ride on the Maokong Gondola to reach Maokong, a hilly area in the Wenshan district of Taipei that was once famous for its tea plantations. Unlike some of the other gondola or cable car systems we’ve been on, this one system isn’t just ferrying persons to a tourist area. It’s pretty much a working cable car system that’s an extension of the existing transportation network, and brings not just temporary visitors but locals to and fro as they get on with their daily business.
As we only had two free and easy days in Taipei, the first of which was in Day 10 and a Sunday, we were quite mindful of the risk of long queues to take the cars up from Taipei Zoo Station to the terminal station – Maokong itself. So, we arranged our day itinerary such that we’d do the gondola ride first thing in the morning.
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We reached the start point – Taipei Zoo Station – at about 9:05AM, and yep – we were among the first to go up as the system opens at 9AM. There were no queues to speak of at all.
The Gondola Taipei Zoo station is perhaps around 10 minutes walk along a fairly wide boulevard beside the main road from the MRT Taipei Zoo stop itself. Do budget the time for it if you’re a stickler for exact timing. There are ticket vending machines on the ground and also on the fourth floor. We paid NTD120/SGD5.34 each, with the usual concession apply if you’re using the card.
There are two separate queues; one for normal cabins that can sit up to 8, and another for the ‘Crystal Cabins’ with their 48mm thick see-through glass floors and that can sit up to 5. No guesses which will see the longer queue, but it seems that the system operator does try to adjust the number of red see-through cabins to match the demand (this is not scientific – just a suspicion based visual observation). But even then, no – I doubt you’d ever see a string of a dozen red cabins to cater for thrill seekers even at peak hour.
I was initially quite apprehensive about attempting the Crystal Cabins (i.e. terrible fear of heights, and comments from other visitors have said it’s quite scary), so insisted that we take the normal cabin on our way up. One of those occasions when the father of a family with two kids and a wife who all have zero fear of heights insists his way, and will not be moved haha. But along the ride up, Peter kept teasing me about waiting to hear ‘Daddy scream whenever the car was going down-slope over a pillar – that I plucked up enough courage to brave a return trip on the Crystal Cabin.
And guess what? It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought it would be. In fact, I didn’t even feel anxious in the slightest. This is in stark contrast to later in the night when we were up at the Taipei 101 Outdoor Observatory when there were moments when I felt a little nauseous haha. I reckon the Crystal Cabins are actually quite doable even for persons with acrophobia in large part because much of what you see below on the ride up or down is basically greenery – trees or grassland viewed from top-down – and you don’t really get a sense of height. in fact, from 10-20m above the ground, the the tree top below looks like normal grass at ground level. So, the brain has less reason to go in imagination overdrive. Long story short, and speaking as a person who has an extreme irrational fear of heights, it’s doable. And if you’re still seriously doubtful but want to give it a try nonetheless, take the Crystal Cabin on the return and not outbound trip. The return trip from Maokong station back down to Taipei Zoo station is a lot quicker – I reckon the trip took about half the time compared to the trip going up. So if what worked for me doesn’t work for you, at least it’s a much shorter ride that you’d need to bear with.
Both ways, you get 360 degree views of Taipei and the urban sprawl around. However, the windows aren’t particularly clean. Not grimy no, but I had to do some image post-processing in Lightroom to get the pictures to look a little more pristine. You’d be able to see Taipei 101 in the far distance too.
At the topmost station – Maokong – there’s the usual visitor information center and a Hi-Life Convenience Shop. There are also a several dozen teahouses and a temple or two spread around the hill-top. But as we arrived early in the morning, most of these eating places were not opened for business yet. The few teahouses that were just opened didn’t seem to offer the kind of breakfast or brunch that children like – i.e. food types that is stuffed with carbo. So, we turned back to get a bite at the convenience shop instead. Ling was still not interested in visiting temples of any kind, so we didn’t really have much to do at Maokong after that. Hence, we didn’t stay long and returned back to ground level for the next activity in our itinerary at Huashan 1914 Creative Park.
We returned back to the ground station at about 11:15AM, and boy, was it crowded already at just the late morning. Queues ran from the top floor to the ground floor. Scary. Glad we came early.
in summary, go for the ride: it’s worth it at the price of the admission ticket, and the ride – outbound at least – is long enough for you to take all the pictures you want, and just soak in the experience. Also, try to go during off-peak hours – obviously. Lastly, do read-up before hand too what you intend to do once at Maokong and determine how much time you finally want to stay uphill.
Next post: a visit to Huashan 1914 Creative Park!
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