sybarites

Our hostel in Los Angeles is not what we were looking for—big and lots of kids. It suited our purposes for one night. Our hostel in Taipei was just what we were looking for—small, clean, nice guests, and helpful owner. We’re not expecting anything fancy in our accommodation. However, we splurged one night in Kenting.

We left with every intention of camping with rented gear. Even after renting a scooter to get to the site, the cost would have been reasonable. Meg wanted to stay someplace where she could keep the dog with her, rather than outside, and I was worried about driving back to the camp site after drinking. So we ended up getting a hotel room, a hotel beautiful room.

I love high end hotels. It started when I first stayed at the Edmonton Centre Delta as a child. My family regularly had a room looking into the mall. I laid on the floor behind a mirrored window to watch the people at the food court.

Golden Ocean was about the same price as our hostel in LA. It was also the most beautiful room I’ve ever had. The soft white bed was on a raised section of the room that could be closed off with curtains. The shower was incredible. We stood on large black lava stones and beach rocks filled the rest of the floor. The sink was a solid marble bowl. The shower area was separated from the rest of the room by windows and lit columns. Shower gel and shampoo were provided in green porcelain decanters. We took three showers. Tea, coffee, porcelain tea cups, thermos and slippers were also provided. I’ll try to forget that experience before we get to our next hostel.

It is humbling that we know so little Mandarin (i.e. At best, two words, pronounced poorly) and so many people in Taiwan know how to speak so much English. It was a miracle that we made it to Meg and Kent’s apartment without too much incident, given the way that I butchered the pronunciation and couldn’t even write anything on paper to clarify the situation. Hopeless as we are with the language, our cab driver went to the trouble of calling someone on his cell phone who spoke English to try and get a more specific answer out of me as to where we wanted to go. Sadly, even this didn’t really help because all I had was the phonetic pronunciation of the address and couldn’t elaborate further. Regardless, he got us to within 3 blocks of where we were to be and told us the cost of the ride in English and thanked us as well.

Not only are we spoiled with respect to language and communication, I don’t know that I’ve been anywhere in my limited travels that so many people have offered unsolicited help. First, there was the woman in Taipei, who noticed us both gawking over a map on a corner of an intersection and came up to us to help us find our way though, ironically, this was one of the few moments that we weren’t actually lost. Then ,there was the man who noticed us queued behind him at the bus station ticket stand and, after having bought his ticket, stood nearby and offered his help in English, should we have had trouble signing our destination and buying tickets. For a fraction of a second, my suspicious side had to wonder at his motive for helping us but he was simply being kind. Most recently, and in addition to Meg & Kent who have touristing us around town and the countryside for the past several days, we met Zinky, the woman who runs the breakfast place down the street. She chatted us up and helped to get us on the right bus to Kenting by writing out a detailed note of instructions in Mandarin for us to give to our cab driver and then to the bus station ticket office. And, she makes a mean little puff-pastry-egg-sandwich thing for breakie.

The most challenging thing we’ve come across so far is driving. Another extremely nice friend of Meg & Kent’s offered to rent us a scooter for a couple of days but when I arrived to pick it up, he just lent it to us for free. Thus began the challenge of driving. First, there was the matter of once again becoming accustomed to driving a scooter. Then, I graduated to being able to try doubling Marc on the back. A few minutes later, I was thrust into the melee of Taiwanese traffic. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that a million people drive scooters and that the rules of the road are fairly loosely practiced. Kent gave me a quick run-down of what to look out for while negotiating the scooter through intersections and down long stretched of road (so, like, all the time): watch out for taxis because they’re crazy, blue service trucks because they cut off scooters, buses because they don’t stop for scooters, and other scooter drivers because they tend to weave in and out of traffic and might slide by too close. Oh yeah, and watch out for stray cats and dogs who may dart out onto the road at any moment. The pictures don’t really do the situation justice.

Despite all this, we set off in an envoy of two for a few local destinations of interest. Thankfully, it wasn’t rush hour and we didn’t have to navigate as Kent led the way. Just the same, we saw one three-car fender-bender in an intersection and, sadly, one scooter-meets-dog accident on the way to our first stop. But it got easier with more traffic and, by the end of the day, I was confident enough to weave – though not too aggressively – and managed to have a great time whipping through rush hour and then cruising around at night. Ultimately, I’m really happy that we braved the scooter because it meant we got to go for shaved ice: ice cream, fresh fruit and sugary syrup perched on top of crushed ice; I had never tasted dragon fruit before.

The heat and humidity continue to astonish me.

The temperature here is remarkable. When we left Canada, it was mild enough to be comfortable outside, though it snowed on our penultimate day in the country. When we arrived in LA, it was on the warm side but we still couldn’t abandon the long underwear. Finally, upon arrival in Taiwan, we experienced heat.

On our first day, it seemed so lovely to be so warm and let our skin absorb the moisture in the air. “Isn’t it so nice,” we said, “that we can walk around in the evening and not wear a jacket!” Then the rain started falling, and we thought “Oh my, a little sprinkle. We had better go back to the hostel.” And then we got trapped by the DOWNPOUR of rain, under an awning fifty feet from our door. (That was Lesson #45 of being in Asia- we continue a burn-rate of 20 Lessons/day.) The next day, we began our touristing with a walk to Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world. The building was great, the heat was astonishing.

After having bought about 10 bottles of water, I convinced Marc to try something new: sweetened rose water. It tastes great and, when the cold bottle is held to the forehead, it seems to create the illusion of being cool for a couple of seconds.

Now, we are at Meg and Kent’s apartment in Kaohsiung the heat is consuming. The good news is that our extremely generous hosts have a balcony with a fantastic view of the city and the mountains beyond, which is a perfect place for happy hour. Surely, we will become a little more acclimatized as our jet lag wears down and our beer consumption increases. It’s not for nothin’ that my favourite beer is sold cheap at every convenience store, which are conveniently located every two blocks.

• Number of Times That We Have Been Lost So Far: 6
• Number of Items That We Have Lost So Far: 4

P.S. I can hear the experienced travellers we know reading this and scoffing, “You think this is hot?! Wait until you reach Beijing/Dubai/India/Thailand.” Yes. We know.

We quickly learned how to get necessities in Taipei. Someone told us Taipei is a good city for us to transition to Asian travel. Most people speak at least a little English. Most signs are posted in English and most places have very good signs. The metro is very easy to use. They even provide a very good map of the city for free.

Food can be a little challenging. The key factor is selecting a food stand where we can communicate what we want. Some restaurants and stands have pictures, others have English menus. Some just have food on display at which to point. It’s also possible to point at meals that have been served to other people. Most food vendors seem used to selling food in this fashion.

On our first night we selected a small restaurant with pictures of noodle soup. We pointed at what we thought was chicken, but were served barbeque pork, which was better anyway. The pork and broth were very tasty. The soup also included baby bok choy, an egg and a slice of white something with a pink flower that had no flavour at first, then tasted like fish or fake crab. I suspect it was some sort of fish log. The smiling proprietor brought us some ice tea at no extra charge.

Dessert was a bit of surprise. I picked out something pink from a display case with the assumption it was soft, fluffy and creamy. I’m glad we didn’t wait until we got back to the hostel to eat it because it turned out to be frozen. The outside was covered in sticky gelatinous rice. The inside was like strawberry ice cream, but with a slightly waxy texture. We’re sure to have more pleasant surprises.

There are so many places to go in Taipei and so much food to try. We could spend a three weeks here instead of a few days.