Nick Webster enjoys the wonderful diversity of Taiwan’s sights and food.. just don’t ask what’s in the snacks sold in snake alley
20 Jul 2012 07:16
ByNick Webster
Size really does matter in Taiwan, from the utterly immense (if not the biggest in the world any more) to the painstakingly intricate.
Any trip to the island once known as Formosa, just 99 miles off the south-east coast of China, should begin at the nation’s largest landmark.
When it was built in 2004, Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building at 1,671ft. It retained the lofty title until 2010 when it was topped by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – the monolith Tom Cruise scaled in Mission Impossible 4.
However, staring out from 101 storeys up at the capital Taipei below, it feels anything but second rate.
The other end of the size scale is on display just half an hour away at the National Palace Museum, a treasure trove of Chinese culture dating back 8,000 years.
Here you will find everything from ancient calligraphy, which looks more like works of art than forms of writing, to lacquerware. Among the most famous of the almost 700,000 artefacts is a carved Jadeite Chinese cabbage, complete with grasshopper.
But it was the sculpted ivory, in a section catchily named “Uncanny Ingenuity and Celestial Feats”, which was the most mind-blowing, particularly a carved ivory ball etched with dragons and clouds.
Hewn from a single piece of ivory, its maker had somehow – and obviously without modern technology – trimmed away so that 21 lacework balls nestle inside one another. How it was done, and how many years it took, is anyone’s guess.
The name of the genius whose life’s work we were admiring has been lost in the mists of time.
Over the years there’s one phrase associated with this destination – Made in Taiwan. But very few of the museum’s treasures were made here. They originated in Beijing’s Forbidden City and were shipped out in 1948 during a civil war which to this day has international repercussions, especially relating to the incredibly complex relationship between China and Taiwan.
While it wouldn’t be too unkind to call the museum building drab, the nearby Five Dime Restaurant, both inside and out, looks like it dropped in from another planet.
Designed by an artist, driftwood and clay is used to create two giant otherworldly female figures whose swirly skirts cover the building.
And the food isn’t bad either.
Starting with peanut-coated sticky rice, we were offered sweet herbal and wheat tea, before wonderful minced chilli pork and a succession of different dishes.
Taiwan is noted for its great food, particularly seafood, but the locals obviously have a sweet tooth as they also love fruit-flavoured shaved ice and “bubble tea” complete with small tapioca balls. And they eat food we usually only see during an I’m A Celebrity bushtucker trial.
Not far from the beautiful and busy Longshan temple – or should that be temples, as it houses both Buddhist and Taoist places of worship – lies Snake Alley.
Formally called Huaxi Street Night Market, it’s in Wanhua, one of Taipei’s oldest districts and spotty teenagers are still brought along for a plate of snake soup, supposedly a treatment for acne.
I resisted the shots of snake blood and snake meat snacks and I’ll let you decide what the huge jars of whisked up turtle eggs and snake testicles are supposedto cure.
After checking out of my hotel, the chic little boutique Hotel Quote – with the most hi-tech toilet I’ve ever encountered – I caught a train south down the Pacific coast and then a tour bus towards the stunning Taroko Gorge.
Sheer marble cliffs rear up hundreds of yards above a raging river – there’d been a lot of rain – and frothy white ribbon waterfalls festoon the mountains.
The gorge is named after the Truku people, one of the 12 officially recognised native tribes in Taiwan. They were my hosts at the Leader Village hotel – wooden cabins surrounded by towering green peaks.
Dinner was a mosaic of small dishes that began with millet wine, drunk through the nose of a porcelain mountain pig, followed by boar skin salad, wild vegetables with garlic, baked sweet potato, skinned green pepper with soy sauce, baked mushrooms, a bamboo tube full of sticky rice and a delicious not-so-local salt-baked peppered New York strip steak (from Australia!).
On my way by bus further south, I stopped at Ruisui, where the Hoya Spa Hotel has its own hot springs, which can be found throughout the island.
Soon I was officially in the tropics, after crossing the Tropic of Cancer, and stopped at the small town of Guanshan. Here a 7.5-mile cycle path, Taiwan’s first, encircles the town, passing betel nut palms, paddy fields, grazing water buffalo and a stall selling delicious custard apples, so named because, yes, they taste like custard.
It’s an easy and fun ride, particularly the sweeping slope back down from the higher part of the trail.
My southernmost stop was Taitung, home to a great night market and the 36 Uncut Jade Heart Garden homestay. Among the local delicacies such as braised duck head and oyster omelette, watch out for the chocolate-covered strawberries. My last “strawberry” was a tomato.
Flying back to Taipei, I just had time to spend an evening at the famous Shilin Night Market, where everything from food to footwear is for sale.
Resisting the great smells (the food not footwear) I was heading for a restaurant I’d heard only good things about.
There are branches of the Din-Tai Fung chain all over the city, in fact all over the world. And they all make amazing, reasonably priced little dumplings.
I started with pork and moved on to the more exotic loofah (before they’re dried and used in the bathroom) and prawn, and spicy sesame noodles. It all tasted fantas tic.
Did I say all over the world? Sadly not in Britain… yet.
Get there
EVA Air flies daily from Heathrow to Taipei, from £643pp inc taxes.
Hotel Quote in Taipei from £189pn based on two sharing.
Leader Village Taroko from £66pn based on two sharing.
Hoya SPA Hotel, Ruisui, from £47pn based on two sharing inc entry to hot springs. 36 Uncut Jade Heart Garden homestay in Taitung from £38pn based on two sharing 00 886 8932 6536.
Source and copied from: http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/tawian-fabulous-food-and-amazing-scenery-1151970
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I’m so glad seeing such article from a British news website introducing my beautiful country, Taiwan.
If you haven’t visited my country, you definitely have to come!!! And If you have been to my country, you definitely have to come again!!! 😀
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