A holiday in Taiwan may puzzle your friends. “Are you staying in a bunker?” asked one, as the Chinese Communist Party sabre-rattled across the strait. Even travellers who put Japan or China at the top of their wish lists rarely consider exploring an island enriched by the culture of both, but also its own quirky, efficient, absurdly friendly self.
Only 3,000 British tourists visit Taiwan each year, and in 12 days we saw few westerners. Why? First, I think, because of outdated perceptions: ‘Made in Taiwan’ no longer means cheap plastic tat but 92 per cent of the world’s most high-end microchips. Second, Chinese threats of forced “reunification” and the fighter jets it sent to buzz Taiwanese airspace after Nancy Pelosi’s visit last year do make it look a chancy holiday destination. But frankly that’s why you should go. To defend democracy and freedom by eating the world’s finest dumplings; to explore ancient Chinese culture somewhere that doesn’t imprison dissidents; to applaud the only Asian government to legalise same-sex marriage by luxuriating in hot springs. It’s because of its complex geopolitics that Taiwan, a seventh of the UK’s size with 24 million people, is so fascinating.
Besides — and I say this cautiously given Xi Jinping’s warmongering — Taiwan doesn’t feel dangerous. In Tainan city, fighter jets from the local base were on constant noisy manoeuvres overhead, but otherwise Taiwan seems safer than Britain: public space is orderly and spotless, pedestrians don’t jaywalk, drivers keep to speed limits, there’s virtually no crime or even litter. Indeed, it’s such a risk-averse society I began noting absurd warning signs: no flying kites, no umbrellas on bridges, no wearing Crocs on escalators or talking in lifts.
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But this is not some sterile, supersized Singapore. Straight off our 13-hour flight to Taipei we jumped on the Metro — charmed by how music heralds an arriving train and ticket barriers open with a piano chord — to visit Shilin Night Market. Here among food vendors and shops were carnival stalls where people were merrily throwing darts at balloons, trying to get hoops over bottles or fishing for shrimp in a tank, which are then barbecued as your prize. The Taiwanese are crazy about claw-grabber machines, feeding in NT$10 coins (about 30p) and hoping in vain that the little crane will deliver a cuddly toy, biscuits, an iPhone or even a bottle of fabric conditioner. No one wins, no one seems to care.
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Although neither beautiful nor ancient, Taipei has high “Asian tiger” energy. There are low-rise districts with noodle bars and foot massage joints, plus super-malls and a gay quarter where after cocktails we drunkenly dressed up in silly props in one of the many photobooth stores. We ascended Taipei 101, for five years the world’s tallest building, with ritzy stores in the basement and Din Tai Fung, a dim sum bar with a Michelin star, where waiters are assisted by robots.
This is the new world, where few buildings are more than a century old and which marks its birth with the arrival of Dutch traders 400 years ago (although indigenous people had been there for millennia). After the Dutch defeat in 1683 Taiwan was absorbed into Qing dynasty China, bringing waves of mainland migration. Then in 1895 the Japanese invaded, building infrastructure and laying out cities, only to be expelled after their defeat in the Second World War. In 1948, after he was pushed out by Mao Zedong, the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan. He took with him defeated soldiers, gold and a hoard of Chinese antiquities, some from Beijing’s Forbidden City, purportedly to save them from communist destruction.
The National Palace Museum on the outskirts of Taipei houses this vast treasure trove, which nourishes the view of some Taiwanese that they are the true Chinese who will one day reclaim the mainland. Wandering around this unmissable museum, I realised how little I knew about the grace and delicacy of Chinese art, and even that jade comes in many colours besides green. Indeed, the star exhibit, the Meat-Shaped Stone, is a Qing dynasty jade carving that uncannily resembles a delicious piece of crispy pork.
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After Taipei we headed south to Yilan province, famous for its hot springs. We stayed in the Hotel Royal, a Japanese-style building with elaborate outdoor baths, but in the nearby town Jiaoxi is a more democratic arrangement: a public hot spring park where shoppers soak their feet free of charge, or for NT$50 (about £1.50) dangle them in tanks of carp who nibble off your excess skin. (A whole shoal mobbed my husband’s toes.)
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Like many places with hot springs, Taiwan is prone to earthquakes, although most are minor and it takes its building regulations seriously — including a 728-tonne pendulum that counterbalances Taipei 101 from tremors, and evacuation slides in primary schools. “Mainly we just find earthquakes boring,” one man told us.
In Yilan City itself, I highly recommend taking a market tour with Fang Tzu Wei, 40, who styles himself Young Grandpa (morningmarketyilan.com). Fang, a rice farmer, represents a generation of Taiwanese raised amid rapid economic progress who worry that traditional ways are being lost. He took us to meet street traders who make bitter melon juice, rice pancakes, farming tools and cakes offered in temples to ancestors. We also met butchers who set duck and pig blood into moulds like tofu, and a lovely Chinese medicine lady who gave uncannily accurate health diagnoses by reading our palms. It was a delightful morning.
We drove into the mountains that run like a spine down the island to the quieter, more remote east coast. Taiwan is an island forged by big infrastructure projects: Chiang Kai-shek had his demobbed troops dig epic tunnels to connect the regions. We paused at a vantage point where vertiginous cliffs plunge straight into the sea. This fortress coastline, combined with treacherous currents, means there are only 14 likely enemy landing sites.
The Taroko National Park is set in a colossal marble gorge where we hiked along the river — signs warned about killer bees — and across the 152m-high Buluowan suspension bridge. Indigenous people still live here: most are Christians, their ancestors converted by missionaries, and many were beheaded by the Japanese. A small museum at the Taroko Village Hotel details these tribes and serves an indigenous lunch of wild boar.
We headed back to Taipei, where we took the bullet train to Taichung. The Taiwanese are so proud of this network that each station has a store selling cute train merchandise. For the strike-weary Brit it is quite a culture shock to watch the paddy fields whizz by at 186 mph.
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From here we headed to Sun Moon Lake, the Taiwan’s favourite honeymoon spot. This is no natural feature, but rather another infrastructure triumph created by the Japanese as a reservoir and hydroelectric dam. The lakeside is built up in places with monolithic hotels and, although the water is clean, the risk-averse Taiwanese forbid swimming except once in September, when about 25,000 people participate in a mass open-water 3km race.
On the site of the Lalu hotel was Chiang Kai-shek’s favourite residence, where he entertained visiting heads of state. Here, Madame Chiang — who, as our guide put it, “did not become an angel until she was 106” — loved to paint. We rented bikes to join many local tourists circuiting the lake. The Taiwanese have become keen cyclists, with public hire schemes in large cities and many bespoke lanes. (You can even transport bikes on bullet trains.)
Next stop was the port of Kaohsiung, where the weather, chilly in Taipei, turned to southern warmth. Taiwan’s second city has reinvented itself as a cultural capital, transforming its abandoned shipping warehouses and disused railway lines into Pier 2, a new waterfront quarter full of public art, hipster shops, music venues and artists’ studios, all linked by a gleaming light railway. For contrast we popped into the old Neiwei flea market where, among piles of junk, we found antique tea paraphernalia and Chinese kitsch.
In the evening we took a short ferry ride over to Cijin Island, with its street of fish restaurants, the raw wares displayed in tanks out front, and fast, simple dishes served within for about £10 a head. Then we bought a street market treat of ice cream with shavings of peanut brittle wrapped in a rice pancake. This is not a boozy culture. Many restaurants look surprised if you want more than tea. Although, judging from a few bars we visited, when people do drink they apply themselves to getting hammered with total commitment.
From Kaohsiung we took a 30-minute trip out to the Fo Guang Buddha Museum and monastery. Forget the ancient stupas of Myanmar, Thailand or Sri Lanka, this is a gleaming mall-like complex devoted to Buddhist history and teachings with high-tech displays, its own Beautiful Life TV station, drone-operating nuns filming outdoor ceremonies and a Starbucks.
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But most Taiwanese are Taoist, and at the oldest temple, the beautiful 18th-century Longshan in Taipei, we discovered worship is a practical business. You bring offerings for the deity who helps with your particular need, such as health or finances. Worshippers pull a random stick with a number on it from a box then find in a corresponding drawer a piece of paper giving advice. Or they take red wooden crescents from a bowl and ask a question while casting them on the ground, the answer depending on how the crescents land. Young people are drawn to Yue Lao, a bearded old man deity in charge of love and matchmaking. Women stand before him clutching their crescents, praying to meet someone, and at the Wen Wu temple on Sun Moon Lake lonely hearts can even post Polaroid pictures of themselves on a noticeboard along with a phone number and the instruction: “Call me!”
Our last stop was Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan, where the Dutch first landed. You can visit remains of the fort and other mercantile buildings at Anping, but the real pleasure is in exploring the streets around the Confucian temple. You can visit a lovely shaded park, shops selling crafts including handmade incense and embroidery, and the art deco Japanese department store Hayashi, where we bought the national favourite of pineapple cake in beautiful boxes. (Taiwan, like Japan, has wonderful packaging.) Here too is the new Art Museum, housed in two stunning contemporary galleries: Taiwan’s new infrastructure priority is culture.
Tainan has some of the best food in Taiwan. Our favourite meal of the whole trip was at the Du Hsiao Yueh, a noodle bar founded in 1895 by a fisherman who needed to make a living during rough seas. His descendants, who run it today, claim the secret is a pot stirred by the chef — who sits front and centre — that is never washed. The last vessel, displayed on the wall, was retired when it developed a hole after 100 years.
At weekends people gather near the Confucian temple to eat steamed buns at the famous Klin store (klintainan.com/eng), ice shaved over bowls of fruit, or coffee from the Narrow Door Cafe, where, as the name suggests, you must squeeze in. Tainan is unmissable: I could have spent another week people-watching as the fighter jets roar overhead.
Why holiday in Taiwan? Because in this most future-focused destination you see owners of high-tech electronic shops burn temple money for good luck outside their stores. Because the Taiwanese are famous across Asia for their friendliness, but also combine the formal politeness of their old Japanese rulers with a love of laughter and jokes. Because people happily launch into conversation with foreigners or try to help if they see you flummoxed. A woman customer in a suitcase shop fired up Google translate on her phone to say: “Ask for lower price.” As we took final photos in Tainan, a young Instagrammer insisted on organising us into more “fun” shots. Because war here is unthinkable, and one island having a tricky time with its neighbours should support another. But mainly because right now there is no more fascinating place to be.
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Janice Turner was a guest of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau (eng.taiwan.net.tw). Bamboo Travel has 12 nights’ B&B from £3,950pp, with flights, transfers and a tour including Taipei, Tainan and Sun Moon Lake (bambootravel.co.uk)
Where to stay in Taiwan
1. The Regent, Taipei
A smart, sharp-edged city tower loved for its central location, the Regent is five minutes’ walk to well-connected Zhongshan station. Rooms are classic business hotel fare — lacquered black furniture, beige upholstery and curtains, ice-white bedding — but you’ll want a cool, calm base when you return from thrumming food markets and galleries. (Zhongshan was recently named the city’s coolest neighbourhood by Time Out.) The Regent’s serene rooftop pool and spa will unkink any long-haul knots. Details Room-only doubles from £191 (ihg.com)
2. Hotel Royal, Jiaoxi
Japanese-style tatami rooms are just one of the curiosities at this mellow spa resort, less than an hour’s drive from Taipei. A traditional onsen bathhouse, karaoke room and sushi bar make it a one-stop-shop for Japanophiles, in a hot-spring town that’s better value than many of its rivals. Taiwan’s Wufengqi Scenic Area is on your doorstep, complete with forested slopes and elegant waterfalls. Families boomerang back for Hotel Royal’s kid-friendly outdoor activities, while freebies such as complimentary tea in the lobby set a generous tone. Details Half-board doubles from £331 (hotelroyal.com.tw)
3. Silks Place, Taroko
Taroko’s focal point is an 11-mile gorge with an electric-blue river running through it, and Silks Place is the only five-star hotel within its boundaries. This means early-morning hiking tours into its rugged landscape, well before the tour buses arrive. Back at base, you can soothe tired toes in a truly spectacular rooftop pool. Look down to see two rivers converge — the views from most rooms are just as ravishing. An indoor pool and sauna are on hand for wetter or chillier days.
Details Room-only doubles from £267 (taroko.silksplace.com)
4. The Lalu, Sun Moon Lake
Sun Moon Lake has inspired paintings and poetry in Taiwanese history, and when you get there you’ll see why. Trimmed by those unmistakable mossy humps of east Asian landscape, the lake’s shimmering surface awaits for romantic boat trips and hikes around its shores. With a mirror-like infinity pool blending into its waters, the Lalu is equally soothing with its elongated design, water features, flaming torches by night and an indoor-outdoor hot spring pool. Details B&B doubles from £405 (thelalu.com.tw)
5. Hotel Dua, Kaohsiung
To get off the tourist trail, make for the boxy boutique Hotel Dua in the rising-star southern city of Kaohsiung. Hotel Dua delivers generously sized, cloudlike beds, a rooftop bar and three top-quality restaurants for less than £100 a night. It’s well connected for jaunts out to this city’s winged pagodas, galleries and Liuhe night market. Details Room-only doubles from £91 (hoteldua.com)
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