Walking tours in Tainan

There’s nothing like being shown around by someone who both speaks your language well, and knows the area like the back of his or her hand. But even in Taiwan, where locals often go out of their way to greet and help visitors from afar, you’re unlikely to meet such a person by chance. Fortunately for tourists, walking tours are catching on. One organization which has taken it upon itself to organize regular pedestrian excursions is My Tainan Tour, backed by Tainan City Government. 

For more than two centuries until the 1880s, Tainan served as Taiwan’s administrative capital. It retains a stupendous density of historical and cultural attractions: When Tainan natives say, ‘there's a major temple every five steps, a minor shrine every three,’ they’re hardly exaggerating. 

My Tainan Tour currently offers two walks. The ‘Classic Tour’ takes explorers to the city’s sublime Confucius Temple, what’s now the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, and then the Altar of Heaven (aka Tiantan), a lively place of worship. The fourth and final stops represent, respectively, the Qing era and the Japanese period. The former is the early 19th-century Wu Garden. The latter is Hayashi Department Store. An always-bustling emporium which exudes traditional Japanese refinement, it has three features probably no other department store in the world can boast - an elevator with a mosaic floor, a restored rooftop Shinto shrine [shown above] and scars from World War II air raids.

The 'Local Life Tour' is less concerned with relics and more with how Tainan folk go about their lives. It's a stroll through a cluster of narrow thoroughfares around 700m northwest of Hayashi Department Store. The most famous of these is Shennong Street, much-loved and -photographed on account of its antique appearance. Largely intact traditional two-story houses with tiled roofs and wooden upper floors line both sides of the street.

Both tours last around two hours, depending on how fast you walk, how many questions you ask, and how many detours you make. 

Free half-day tours for transit passengers at Taoyuan Airport

Like several other airports around the world (Singapore being perhaps the best-known example), Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport now offers transit and transfer passengers with at least seven hours before their next flight the chance to see a little bit of northern Taiwan for free.

Each tour last around five hours. The morning tour, which sets out at 8:00, heads inland to Sanxia in New Taipei City for a look at Zushi Temple before proceeding to nearby Yingge, a town best known for its ceramics industry and museum. The afternoon tour kicks off at 13.30 and goes to the heart of the capital, stopping at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Taipei 101. 

Not everyone can join these tours. Britons, Americans, Japanese, Singaporeans and others whose passports qualify them for visa-free entry are in the clear. Some other nationalities - among them Indians, Thais and Indonesians - can join the tours if they hold a valid visa for or permanent residency rights in the United States, Canada, Japan, the UK, any Schengen nation, Australia or New Zealand.

Each tour is limited to 18 people. It's not possible to sign up in advance, so it's best to get to the waiting point ahead of time. For more details, go here.

New Taiwan travel website

Life of Taiwan, a travel website I wrote text for, was launched earlier this month and today was the subject of a full-page feature article in Taipei Times, Taiwan's main English-language newspaper. The website, which is designed to meet the information needs of those who've never visited Taiwan, has more than 150 pages of information about the country's history, culture, religions, cuisines and tourist destinations.

Twelve months, 388 bird species

Birding and ecotourism guide Richard Foster has wrapped up his Taiwan 'Big Year', having got 388 species. For a full report including hits, misses and 'what ifs', go here.

Richard Foster's 'Big Year'

Over the past few years, Richard Foster of Barking Deer Adventures has led quite a number of visiting twitchers to birdwatching hot-spots around Taiwan, including Tataka and Daxueshan (sometimes spelled Dasyueshan).

Since January 1, he's embarked on a 'Big Year' exercise, compiling a list of the avian species he sees on a dedicated blog. By early February, he'd seen close to 200 different birds.

Birding in my backyard

Tainan has world-class winter birdwatching at Sicao (四草), now part of Taijiang National Park. It being the height of summer, it makes sense to look inland, so recently I spent two mornings birding in the foothills just east of my home in Xinhua (新化區), accompanied by a man who knows much more about avians than I do - Richard Foster of Barking Deer Adventures.

According to Richard, we spotted at least 18 species, including: White-rumped Munia; Black-naped Monarch; Black Drongo; Chinese Bulbul; Taiwan Barbet; Eastern Cattle Egret; Black-crowned Night Heron; Little and Intermediate egrets; Kingfisher; Taiwan Bamboo Partridge; Common Moorhen; and Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Also seen was a Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker or something very similar, and various swifts and swallows.

Maolin

My recent trip to Maolin featured more than enough rain, mist and mud for my liking. However, I was still very impressed by how much there's to be seen there, even though damage done by Typhoon Morakot remains visible. Because of the weather I didn't take many photos. I saw aone monkey, a great many birds, but not many butterflies, even though wintertime is when vast numbers of purple and blue crow butterflies descend on Maolin. The valley and nearby areas amount to a butterfly migration point of international significance.

The butterflies shown here were in the enclosures at Maolin Ecological Park, which is right beside the main village. Most of the people in Maolin are Rukai aborigines.

There are no public buses to Maolin, so you'll need your own vehicle. A motorcycle is preferable to a car. Alternatively, get a local tour operator to organise everything; this article profiles one who takes people to see the butterflies.

Birdwatching on the Blue-Gate Trail

This trail ('Gate 1') is located off Highway 14A, very close to the 16km marker (not 15km as is reported elsewhere). The actual gate or gateposts are not visible from the main road, but the entrance can be identified by a sign for 'Rueiyan River Major Wildlife Habitat' and a number of water pipes that run along it.

There's parking on the right a short distance up the main road. The trail has recently been cleared making it much more accessible. After about 5km the trail crosses a small road (about half a kilometre down from from the police station where's there some excellent mothing) and then continues – passing an actual blue gate, 'Gate 2' – for a further 12km where it ends at the head of a valley. Thus visitors can walk for up to 17km if they've the energy, though sometimes the road is damaged by typhoons.

This is the area referred to as the continuation trail. Pheasants can be seen here, as well as other high-altitude endemics such as the Taiwan Hill Partridge. This trail can be very wet due to leaking pipes, so it's best to wear rubber boots or carry spare footwear. During the dry season you'll do OK gingerly edging along the less-wet parts.

The Taiwan Forestry Bureau has published a good leaflet about the area. It is, alas, very difficult to obtain. Guided tours of this trail can be organised by Taiwan Eco-Tours.

Visiting Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot

Here's the complete text of an article I wrote last week for Taiwan Today, a central government website, about the impact of Typhoon Morakot on tourism.

"Within hours of the Jinshuai Hotel toppling into the raging waters of the Zhiben River in southeast Taiwan Aug. 9, footage of the six-story building’s spectacular demise had been seen by millions of people in Asia, North America and Europe.

The clip is unlikely to bring tourists flocking to Taiwan, and in the wake of Typhoon Morakot—the calamity that led to more than 200 confirmed deaths as well as the hotel’s collapse—the island's travel industry faces serious problems.

Reuters reported Aug. 14 that the tourism sector would see total losses of NT$4.5 billion because several of Taiwan’s finest tourism assets have been put out of action or rendered inaccessible.

The historic narrow-gauge railroad that links the lowland city of Chiayi with the mountain resort of Alishan will not be fully operational for two years, Taiwan's Chinese-language media has reported. However, the main road to the resort should reopen by Sept. 20.

According to officials in Yushan National Park’s Conservation Department, all of the roads approaching Jade Mountain—Northeast Asia’s highest peak and a finalist in the competition to select the world's new seven natural wonders—are closed due to typhoon damage, and repair schedules have yet to be confirmed. “It might take a while,” they warned.

Rangers have yet to assess the state of the park’s many hiking trails and refuges, the officials said.

The Southern Cross-Island Highway, which runs through the southern part of the national park, has suffered massive damage. It’s one of Taiwan’s most scenic mountain roads and a favorite with independent travelers who rent cars or motorcycles, but park officials said “it may take months [to complete] reconstruction.”

Fortunately a great deal remains intact. The northern half of Taiwan—including the capital, Taipei, and its world-class National Palace Museum—was unscathed. Sun Moon Lake, Taroko National Park and the historic town of Lugang are all open for business as usual.

ROC Tourism Bureau Director-General Lai Seh-jen announced Aug. 17 that, in a bid to limit cancellations, the bureau is circulating a list of unaffected tourist attractions to overseas travel agents.

Tour operators stress that even in southern Taiwan, damage to road and rail networks should not cause too much inconvenience.

"Green Island is in pristine condition because the muddy downflow of rivers doesn’t get there and the island itself has no rivers,” said Eddie Viljoen, director of sales for Green Island Adventures, a Taichung-based company that provides travel packages to several destinations around the ROC, including Green Island, 33 kilometers east of Taitung.

"Water visibility is still at least 25 meters for scuba diving and snorkeling. And there’s an added advantage right now—there are fewer people around than is usual in the summer peak season,” said Viljoen, acknowledging the typhoon’s impact on visitor numbers.

Within days of the typhoon cutting the Kaohsiung-Taitung rail link, daily domestic flights between the two cities—suspended since 2001—were resumed. From Taitung it is a 12-minute flight to Green Island.

Viljoen is not the only person seeing a post-typhoon dip in business.

"The only guest we had between Aug. 7 [the day before the typhoon arrived] and Aug. 18 was a reporter,” said Lai Chi-ming, the co-owner of Haugau Homestay near Meinong, a town 40 kilometers northeast of downtown Kaohsiung that suffered no significant damage.

"For summertime that’s unbelievable,” remarked Lai, who said that 95 percent of his guests are Taiwanese.

"We were fully booked for the weekend of Aug. 15-16, but everyone canceled. Most said it was because of road conditions, although there are no problems between here and the freeway. A few people saw TV reports about Kaohsiung’s water-supply problems and were worried they wouldn’t be able to take a bath,” he explained.

Despite extensive coverage of the disaster in the international media, inbound tourism appears to be holding up better than the domestic market.

"Nobody has canceled from any of our tours to Taiwan because of the typhoon,” said Phil Colley, founder of The Oriental Caravan, a U.K. company that specializes in tours of East Asia. "None of our clients have expressed concerns about the safety of traveling in Taiwan. We’ve had a couple of inquiries about how the damage caused by the typhoon might affect our route and the itinerary.”

"From initial reports it seems most of the areas and facilities covered by our tour have not been seriously affected by the typhoon and so we have not as yet had to change the itinerary,” he said. “Taiwan is pretty new to our portfolio. We led our first tour in March of this year and have one full and one almost-full group for October and November respectively.”

The ROC is not the only country to have seen its tourist trade affected by extreme weather.

"A number of countries around the world face the prospect of being affected by natural phenomena–hurricanes in the Caribbean and southern U.S. states, for instance, or typhoons in Asia. This is an unfortunate fact of life, of which most intelligent travelers will be aware,” said Geoff Saltmarsh, managing director of the Saltmarsh Partnership Ltd., a public relations firm contracted to represent the ROC Tourism Bureau in the United Kingdom.

"Responsible tourism authorities acknowledge the fact within their tourism information to allow potential visitors to make their own decisions. For example, the Taiwan website refers to the possibility of typhoons in the June to August period and advises visitors to monitor weather reports,” he said.

Saying he does not expect any negative long-term impact on Taiwan’s tourism industry as a result of Typhoon Morakot, Saltmarsh added: “A number of U.K. tour operators have told us that their forward bookings for Taiwan are showing an increase from last year.”

The article was originally published here.

Blue Skies Adventures

Mark Roche, one of the founders of Blue Skies Adventures, has set up a website for his Kaohsiung-based outfit. Among other things they organise hikes to the top of Yushan (Taiwan's tallest mountain) for English speakers, and swims across Sun Moon Lake.

Green Island

...and then we took a ferry to Green Island. On the voyage over (well, hardly a voyage - it only takes 40 minutes) we saw flying fish skimming the waves. On the way back I spotted a dolphin.

The photo on the left shows the few from the Across Mountain Old Path, a 1.8km-long track that goes through part of the interior. I've never seen so many lizards in one place as I did tramping up the stone steps. Green Island perhaps doesn't have as many butterflies per square kilometre as other parts of Taiwan, but it does have some species you don't often see on the 'mainland'.

Our trip was arranged by Green Island Adventures, probably the best-known and longest-running of Taiwan's foreign-run local tour operators. I interviewed the founder for this article.

Fog Plateau

Just back from the Pingtung County township of Wutai (the name means something like 'fog plateau'), the first time I've been there for at least 12 years. It's a gorgeous aboriginal district; in the mist and drizzle it reminded me of Darjeeling, India. We stayed less than 24 hours but that was enough to see the main village, Ali (the settlement at the end of the road), and a good slice of the northern part of the township.

Few villages in Taiwan are as attractive as Wutai, and I mean the buildings themselves, not just the superb backdrop. Almost every house is slate-walled or slate-covered, and motifs of the Rukai tribe - snakes being the most common one - appear everywhere.

To see Wutai you'll need your own vehicle, or someone to show you around.