Last year in May, I made a visit to Taiwan with my girl friend. We wanted to explore out of the city area so we started off with Kenting to Kaohsiung, Yilan and lastly Taipei. It was hard researching for the trip because there’s very limited or outdated information especially on accommodations in Kenting and Yilan. We tried to take as many pictures as possible during our trip so we can share our recommendations some day. Rest assured that the pictures I’m gonna share are definitely true to reality and you can take my words for it.
Let’s start off with Kenting! We spent 3 days 2 nights at Holin Sweet Home in Hengchun. It’s a 名宿 hosted by a lovely couple, 雄哥 and his wife with their daughter. During our stay there, they took great care of us and made us feel like we are at home. 雄哥 will help us arrange all our transportation and logistics while his wife will prepare breakfast for us.
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Kenting is well known for its endless beaches and seas. As public transport is not easily accessible there, 雄哥 had very kindly drove us to Kenting Beach. We did not pre-book any water activities and simply picked whatever they had to offer. We tried snorkeling, banana boat and some other float thingy. And we also got a free jet ski ride on our way back from the snorkeling area to land 😁
We paid around SGD $50 each for three activities. In my personal opinion, I feel that the floats are more fun than snorkeling as the water are rather murky. So, you may want to consider giving snorkeling a miss.
On our second day, we rented a 胖胖车 for 8 hours. We booked this driver via 雄哥 who also helped us to negotiate the price. The market rate is around NT3000-3500 and it's based on per car. So, if you have more people then the cost will be lower per pax. Since there's only two of us, 雄哥 helped us got it at only NT2600 (~ SGD $117)! We thought that it's just gonna be a normal car but it turned out to be a cute Winnie the Pooh mini van!
We told the driver the places that we would like to visit but some are too out of the way. In the end, he helped us plan the itinerary and also dining options (have to pay for entrance fees and meals of course). We also had a mini KTV session (blue tooth speaker mic provided by him) in the van and a photo shoot session.
Tip: If your driver ever suggest going on a ride in the underwater submarine, please reject. It's a complete waste of money because the water is murky with dull coral reefs and fishes.
佳乐水
Longpan Park
Our last activity at Kenting was ATV! There are two types of ATV, one is at the desert and the other is through the woods. Initially we wanted to book the desert one because of the view but it's too far away. Out of convenience, 雄哥 arranged to drive us to the woods one which is like less than 10 minutes away. It's quite exciting to drive through the muddy paths but you really need to have a lot of strength to control the brakes. Training sessions are provided and the trainer will not let you ride it if he feels that you are unable to control the vehicle. There will be a guide to follow you throughout the journey to ensure your safety as well.
Moving on to Kaohsiung, I highly recommend this hipster hotel - PAPO'A which I happened to chance upon online. We even went to search all the Instagram posts just to get a 'real' look of the rooms. The hotel takes on an industrial design and it's located right beside Kaohsiung Railway Station. Plus, the prices were unbelievably low at around SGD $82 only per night. The only downside is that it's a little small and doesn't have much space for luggage. But given the price and location, I would think it's still a gem.
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The reason why we traveled to Kaohsiung was because we wanted to visit Cijin Island. It's a small island and you will need to take a 5-minute ferry ride from Gushan Ferry Terminal near Sizihwan Station. We rented a 2-seater powered battery bicycle and spent about half a day there.
Cihou Fort
Next up is Yilan. Another hotel that I would highly recommend is No.9 Hotel. Unlike PAPO'A, this hotel is incredibly huge. It's about SGD $120 per night and comes with free breakfast.
If you think that Kenting's public transport is inconvenient, Yilan is even worst. The trains have a fixed timing and it's hard to adjust the schedule according to it. We ended up taking a cab most of the time and it's very costly usually around SGD $20-$40. The attractions that we wanted to visit are not exactly close by and requires minimum 20 minutes traveling time by car. We also ended up taking a cab to Taipei which cost us about SGD $60-70.
Lanyang Museum
National Center for Traditional Arts
And finally, our last stop Taipei. It was our second visit and to be honest, if you skip all the touristy attractions, there's practically nothing much to do except eating and visiting all the night markets. Refer to below images for the must eats!
Tip: You have to eat 阿宗麵線 and 豪大大鸡排! Not sure why I didn't take any pictures of these but they can easily be found in Ximending.
We also met up with two other friends and together, we rented a car for 8 hours to Jiu Fen and all the other attractions nearby. The cost for the car rental is around NT3500 (~ SGD $158). The driver is super friendly and entertaining. Getting a driver is great if you have at least a minimum of 4 pax because it really helps to save a lot of time and you can also get to visit more attractions. It was raining heavily when we were there but we still managed to cover quite a few places. If you are interested, you can drop me an email to get the contact details.
九份
平溪
黃金瀑布
靜安吊橋
P/S: You can also check out my IG Highlights for my travel stories.
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