So this was our first experience of using a tour group to try travel like a local in Taiwan. First a disclaimer. We do not speak enough Chinese to travel in a Taiwanese tour group on our own.
Now that we have a feel for what the experience is like, maybe after another few years of study we’d try on our own. But we were incredibly thankful that we had good expat friends who could help us navigate the trip. And we had a wonderful time. Certainly, there are really good reasons to join tour groups here. On a earlier post Taiwan tours, I wrote about how this was really outside of our normal MO. Here are our after-the-fact impressions.
Taiwan Tour Groups: worth it
So far everyone Taiwanese has been tickled to find foreigners who are A, genuinely interested in the country, and B, willing to try to speak Chinese. All of this to say that everyone on our group was really happy to have us there. They also did a great job of sometimes asking questions, and sometimes leaving us alone to enjoy the trip. But it was touching how often they would google things on their phones to help give context to what we were seeing. For example, that one of the restaurants was serving a local specialty: steamed amaranth greens.
The tour guide was also extremely gracious with our “special needs” beyond being a group of 4 foreigners. We also happened to be 2 vegans, a vegetarian, and myself. (I didn’t have the heart to tell them I am actually on a low-histamine diet.) For our tour, the breakfast was the typical offering included with hotel stays in Taiwan. It’s a continental style thing with Asian flare.
Lunches and dinners were at local restaurants that offered typical group meals. That is, a large round table that seats about 10, with a big lazy susan setup in the center. Everyone gets a cup of rice and a plate, and all sorts of foods placed in the center for people to share. Each restaurant had a veggie friendly table set. I, as the only meat friendly one, joined the Taiwanese for some excellent local fare.
Taking it all in, on a timetable.
The reason we got into this particular adventure is that we found ourselves a few weeks out from what was essentially a 5 day national holiday. A great way to take some time and enjoy Taiwan, said us and everyone else in the country. Actually, a lot of people probably also went to Okinawa. Flights with a low cost carrier to Naha from Taipei can go as low as $130 US round trip. By the time we were looking at tickets they were twice that, and going up by the day. Tour providers are good at booking blocks of rooms and tickets in advance. Getting accommodation and train tickets was as easy as going to the tour office and handing over a credit card.
The obvious trade-off is that the tour provider then sets the entire itinerary. Obviously any tour provider that wants to stay in business has to set up a great trip. Something that allows flexibility, but not so much that it’s hard to get people back on the bus. I really felt like our tour did a good job at stopping for enough time for people to enjoy the surroundings. Locals in Taiwan love to eat long meals and talk with each other, so the amount of time set aside for lunch and dinner might seem a bit excessive. I, however, was continuously entertained by the experience, so not a problem.
Enjoying Green Island like a local in Taiwan
Green Island was amazing. Definitely worth the trip, and even though we were only there for a night and a day, we would go back in an instant. Scooter rentals were included in the package, which was a must. Green island is big enough to spend a good hour or so driving around it. And, there are lots of places to stop along the way and see. Taking a tour with roughly 40 other people on scooters was somewhat of a …. challenge, sometimes. But the ease of getting the rental done and the initial tour around the island was worth it. On any other week it would also have been easy, but we were glad that it was all set ahead of time.
Sharing some of the sights with Taiwanese did lead to some sweet moments when people went out of their way to try to explain the history of what we were seeing. Green Island is a former prison island. What we didn’t know is that it was also used for political prisoners. It was touching that some of the other people on the tour used google translate to try and help us understand the story behind the places.
And having a guide that knew where to stop the scooters for some of the best views was really helpful.
Now, they only real critique we had for this particular trip was that there was a scooter night ride, for our group, … and every other group on the island. Imagine trying to stay together with 20 other scooters at night, with little street lighting, and various gaggles of scooters whizzing by.
I could go on and on about what a snafu that was. Instead, how about a picture of unicorn fish we took from a glass bottom boat tour?
Unicorn fish
So… that’s famous for locals in Taiwan?
Now, we had a lot of room in our expectations on our trip. It was a big holiday week. We were headed by train and bus to a ferry to spend a day on Green Island, which is a fairly popular local destination. Plus, we were taking 3 days and two nights to get there. Not a lot of time for the trip, but plenty of time for the journey. Along the way, we passed by some local notable spaces, like the rice fields and tree where an ad for EVA air was shot, or a road with a particularly pleasant tree canopy. Each time was a good chance to stop and see some sights, and take some pictures!
We definitely hit some spots that we never would have occurred to us in normal travel mode. Like the rice mill co-operative. But the rice ice cream was amazing! Or, the landing field for hot air balloons and paragliding. Interesting to see, a very nice coffee, and a really fun sled ride down a grassy slope! Since we really didn’t have any expectations of what to do along the way, we were really more than happy to take it all in. In hindsight, everything really added to the experience of enjoying travel like a local in Taiwan. Seeing a part of the island through the perspective of what locals would find interesting about their own country was an amazing opportunity.