Hi Steve and Everyone, Just thought I’d send in a few musings on Josie’s and my recent trip to see Taiwan and visit our elder daughter Serena, who spent one and a half years teaching English to Taiwanese kids, aged 21/2 to 12 –they start early there! Having not been OS for 11 years I had half forgotten how good we had it in Oz, and it’s always good to put that into perspective again.
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It was also our first trip with Josie in a wheelchair (she has had Multiple Sclerosis for over 30 years), which was a challenge in itself, and required weeks of planning from both ends. Both Qantas and China airlines were extremely helpful. It is certainly worth a few phone calls a couple of weeks before the flight(s) to organise airline help to get from the airport door to the plane and vice versa at the other end. Carrying 2 large and 2 small bags and a bed rail whilst pushing someone in a wheelchair at the same time can be quite a physical challenge! You get to board the plane first, but at the other end; you are the last to get off. Seats booked next to the disabled toilet (which seems to be standard on the longer flights these days) make life a lot easier. Most airlines seem to have a policy of allowing 2 mobility aids free of charge, so try not to be too deterred if you need to travel with a disabled passenger, they really do go out of their way to help you.
I imagine Singapore and Hong Kong are similar these days, but was surprised to see how organised Taiwan is compared to here. At all main traffic lights there is a little box beside the light which counts down the seconds until the light changes to green, so that no one feels encouraged to jump a red light. There is even one for pedestrians too on major intersections.
The Taipei subway system was excellent- it took us all over the city, usually to within 1/2 km of our destination, in a reasonable time( much faster than the average Action bus, and much more frequently too, although to be fair inner Taipei has a population of about 4 million compared to Canberra’s 340,000.) Trains run every few minutes, and are announced in Mandarin, Taiwanese and English. The platforms are all marked with lines for queuing exactly where each door will open, as well as allowing room for disembarking passengers. The platform and train align exactly in height with only a small gap in between, making it quite easy to pull the wheelchair backwards into the carriage. There are special spaces for wheelchair passengers at the front and rear of the train, as well as specially colour –coded seats for the elderly, disabled, etc. Signs in the 3 languages ask people to cede seating to these groups. Generally the Taiwanese don’t seem to rush or push for a seat, seeming content to hang on to one of the straps in the isle ceiling. The trains are always pretty full, except in the middle of the day. Every station has ramps, lifts between different floors and disabled toilets. However , once in the street, the pavements ( apart from the government planned city centre) are on a dozen different levels, as apparently each shop or dwelling is responsible for creating and maintaining their own little section of footpath!
We found the Taiwanese to be extremely friendly, welcoming, helpful and polite. They would often go out of their way to help by finding someone who spoke English, taking us a short distance to our destination, etc. Most of Taipei lives in small apartments, and many eat out, as restaurants/ eating houses are everywhere, and very cheap. People can be seen eating at all hours from dawn till late at night. Politically, most want to maintain the status quo, not unite with China, nor become a fully independent country. Meanwhile, although there are now some direct flights to the mainland, these are very expensive and require a visa, which can’t be issued in Taiwan. Most people opt to go via Honkers, where you can also pick up your visa.. There are many Taiwanese factories in China.
Taiwan gets its share of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, which we avoided. However, because we opted to go in the Taiwanese winter( easier for Jo to handle than the heat and humidity the rest of the year, and not as cold as Canberra’s winter), we copped lots of drizzle and cloudy days- Taipei is surrounded by mountains which catch the rain very effectively! However, we were able to see many of the sights- Taipei 101( world’s second tallest building with 101 stories, would you believe.(508metres). Inside is with a giant wind dampener to maintain stability in the event of an earthquake or typhoon. We also visited Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall with its exhibition of that dictator’s memorabilia plus one of beautiful Chinese paintings, a huge Flora Expo, several famous Buddhist/ Taoist temples, the zoo with its Giant Pandas and Taiwanese Brown Bears, took a gondola ride to some tea fields and tea houses, went to some of the many open markets, visit a hot-springs village and national parks. Undoubtedly the highlight though was our trip with Serena and her fiancé Paul to the Taroko gorge about 6 hours south east of Taipei. This was formed over thousands of years as the Liwu river and its tributaries cut through the rock for a distance of over 30 km, forming amazing colours and shapes. If I can work out the technology, I’ll post some pictures later.
So, despite both getting sick for some of the time, which prevented us from visiting more of the villages and towns close to Taipei, it was still a trip I would thoroughly recommend, and relatively inexpensive if booked via the net, partly because of the much lower cost of living there, and partly of course because of the high Aussie dollar at present.
Regards to all, Peter Cornhill
Peter Cornhill writes,
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