ms_go

I'm late to joining in - but it has been helpful to read through this now that we are actually (but still slowly) back into planning and ready to take notes. It's also been nice to see your photos again!

yestravel

Welcome to this small group of followers. The websites you sent me got me off to a good start for my planning. Hope this helps you.

ms_go

Yes, I'm sure it will. One thing you mentioned that we are now considering is staying within Taroko NP.

yestravel

With the road closures going on definitely stay within the park to have more flexibility. Although maybe they will be repaired by the time you go. Hard to judge. Things were fine up to 1 month before we left.

progol

Loving the photos! There is so much color everywhere! And great art and architecture! You really are giving us a wonderful tour of the country - fabulous report!

glover

Just wonderful!

yestravel

Thanks, progol and glover -- Indeed it was a very colorful country. I hope this TR is a window into a little of Taiwan -- it's a pretty cool country. So different from other Asian countries I've been too.

yestravel

Oct 28 - What a wondrous day Saturday turned out to be…it was the perfect complement to our last week in the cities. But I want to add that without the internet we might still be wandering the mountain roads in the dark, sleeping in the car.

The night before we carefully mapped out a scenic route that would take at least 4-5 hours to get us to Peach Villa, our home for the night. Of course we kept changing the planned route as we drove. We started making our way through the vast suburbs of Tainan and after about an hour we finally reached the open road. We took a series of increasingly smaller, windy roads way up into the mountains. It was stunning...temple after temple, scenic views, small villages and just a fun lovely ride. I love road trips.

We ended up going to a Hot springs town but before we arrived we came across coffee country where we stopped for a coffee and “honey muffin” which was a waffle. A delightful, cheerful senior citizen who spoke a touch of English welcomed us to his cafe. Had we known what was to come we should have ordered a chicken dish that seemed popular. We continued on our way through coffee country into orange country and back into coffee country. Along the way we came across a coffee fair seemingly geared for children which I thought a touch odd given kids dont drink coffee. But it was a fun stop to make. Finally we arrived at Guanziling Hot Springs. It looked like a nice spot to have spent the day. But we pressed on, as time was getting away from us and we wanted to arrive at our destination before dark.

It was at this point I went to pull up the email with the directions to Peach Villa, and oops! I didn’t have access to it. Oddly Peach Villa didn't show up when we tried to put it in google or Apple Maps. A bit of panic set in. As I had no clue how to find our night's stay, gulp! But let it never be said that us world travelers lack ingenuity. I went to various booking sites and finally located Peach Villa on one of the booking sites. Fortunately that site had a map with directions..whew. Of course I hold my breath until I get there. You never know when the directions are accurate. The drive, while interesting, was a bit stressful at this point as it was well after 4 and we only had an hour before darkness took over to find Peach Villa . We were directed off of a two lane road onto a narrow one lane road. My heart skipped a beat, could this be right? Voilá or whatever the Chinese equivalent is, there in the mist sat our stay for the night, Peach Villa. Thank goodness!
Our adventure did not end here. We had some fruit at 7 am & nothing except for the honey muffin all day, so we were very hungry. Our proprietor of Peach Villa spoke no English. We communicated through the trusty google translator. He searched for a nearby open restaurant. Finally he called his brother on the phone for help. He was a chatty fellow who spoke some English and eventually said, " Put my brother back on." A location was put on google maps and we thought we were set. HA! Once we recharged our devices and went out, everything was dark, one place after another, no lights anywhere for open places. The town was closed up for the night. So dinner was courtesy of 7/11, not so bad a place in Taiwan to find decent foods, except the shelves at this one were depleted. Oh well! We had a 7/11 leftovers dinner.

What a day! But we were happy that night in the cozy Peach Villa and will have breakfast at 8 on Sunday.


Big suburbs to Tainan

Love hitting the open road

Enjoying our coffee break in coffee country

This was our shared morning break or lunch

This is what we SHOULD have ordered.

Lots of outdoor cafes along the coffee route

Friendly proprietor

Coffee Country -- one cafe after another

Never figured out what this was

Coffee country

Coffee festival

Coffee festival

Along the drive

Spa Town

Along the drive

Temple

Temple

The ubiquitous 7/11, unfortunately with depleted shelves

7/11 meal

Peach Villa -- hooray!

[size=13px]Shortly[/size] after we arrive it was night time at Peach Villa

MarnieWDC

Yestravel, thank you a thousand times for this incredible TR. It is, without a doubt, one of the very best I have every read on any country. And you deserve a PhD for the photos Such gorgeous views and fascinating shots of the living community and art and, and......Again, Yestravel & Gottravel....THANK YOU both.

yestravel

Thanks!! Glad you are enjoying this TR.

yestravel

October 29 On the road again on a lovely Sunday morning. Our next stop is Sun Moon Lake which is under 2 hours away. This meant we had plenty of time to explore. Because we needed an immediate adrenaline rush we went further up the narrow road from Peach Villa. Several brown signs that indicate sites, water falls, camping, trails etc were up that way. The drive began innocently until we took a turn up a very narrow road. We seem to have a penchant for these types of roads and have gotten stuck in some pretty tight situations, but we don’t seem to learn from our past. We had some gorgeous early morning scenery, and at one point considered turning around, but no, we went on and yep, got stuck. First the wheels started spinning and not gripping the steep road as we tried to turn around in a fairly wide spot. After several attempts to gain traction with the car lurching, we thought, bad idea. The poor driver will have to back down the narrow winding road about 100 yards. The mountain drop off was on one side and a deep ditch on the other side. I kept saying we’re going to die, he agreed but said, “Not today as we had pre paid our lodging.” Finally we reached a spot about the width of the car that he thought he could manage to turn around. Without plunging over the side. OMG, I got out of the car and directed and he somehow made the turn by edging slowly back and forth multiple times.. It was a slow, incremental process. At this point I thought HE’s going to die. After he heroically saved us and the car rental, we decided to stick to the more traveled roads which were still narrow.
We were on our way to a look out point. I have no idea what was going on but suddenly cars started coming toward us and it was very difficult to pass by on the narrow road. Once again we thought, should we continue? and we continued Then out of nowhere 16 numbered minvans, some with flashing lights started to pass by us. It was the type of situation where you pulled your mirrors in and sat while a car passed by. The drivers in the minivan had conversations with some of the drivers ahead of us and motioned to us to turn around. Of course we ignored their advice and followed several other cars continuing up the mountain. As the road was getting narrower and cars continued to come down the mountain toward us, we finally bailed, not wanting another impossibly tight turn around. It was an early Sunday morning & it was puzzling what was going on. So this was our first hour out! We wisely decided that given the misadventures already , to take it easy and just head directly to SML.
The remainder of the drive was calm and scenic mixed with going through various towns, through tea plantations, rice paddies and dragon fruit gardens, As we approached SML one lane of traffic was blocked. We soon saw why, a marathon was taking place blocking off our route to our lodging. It took about half an hour to go around the very attractive, green colored lake. Only one road goes around the lake and it was jammed in parts. Slow going, but I enjoyed the scenery.

We walked around the little town we are staying in which was pretty crowded on a beautiful Sunday. There are 2 main villages on SML. We are staying in Ita Thao, an aboriginal and tourist village.Found our way out of the crowds to a nice hotel and sat with a view for lunch. I ordered a quiche with ham and cheese. Eventually they brought me 2 small croissants each with a slice of American cheese and a processed ham and a cucumber. I thought for sure they brought me the wrong dish, but nope that was their version of quiche. Guess they’ve never been to France.

Our room has a fantastic view with 2 sides of windows. I feel like we will be sleeping in the lake, as a matter of fact google maps shows us in the lake. That evening we walked up to their version of a Night market -- it was on a wide road and places to sit. It closed early but suited our purposes.


First camp site we see not far from Peach Villa

Tea fields

Tea county


Along the way to SML

Along the way to SML

Manhole Sun Moon Lake

Along the way to SML

Along the way to SML - dragon fruit

Love these mechanical people for road work

Boats ply the lake

Walking in town



Sun Moon Lake

Night market meal

Room with a view

Fog comes in that evening

KarenWoo

Yestravel, I love your description of the drive up the narrow mountain road and attempting to turn around. Sounds harrowing indeed! And the description of your quiche is hilarious!

What are those things at the night market? Some kind of poultry?

yestravel

[QUOTE=KarenWoo;17517831]Yestravel, I love your description of the drive up the narrow mountain road and attempting to turn around. Sounds harrowing indeed! And the description of your quiche is hilarious!

What are those things at the night market? Some kind of poultry?[/QUOTE]
Karen - Both of us can't remember exactly what it was -- definitely chicken, so good on you for recognizing it, and stuffed with something. It was good, but memory fails as to with what.
On the drive, we had done the same thing with getting stuck in Greece last spring. You'd think we'd learn our lesson!

KarenWoo

Karen - Both of us can't remember exactly what it was -- definitely chicken, so good on you for recognizing it, and stuffed with something. It was good, but memory fails as to with what.
On the drive, we had done the same thing with getting stuck in Greece last spring. You'd think we'd learn our lesson![/QUOTE]

Didn't you also have a harrowing drive in Croatia or Slovenia in pouring rain? And I think you left your hotel/B&B early because the driving and rain was so bad.

yestravel

Didn't you also have a harrowing drive in Croatia or Slovenia in pouring rain? And I think you left your hotel/B&B early because the driving and rain was so bad.[/QUOTE]
hmmm…we did have horribly rainy trip in Croatia and Slovenia, so there were many rain filled adventures, good and bad. We almost got stuck in mud in the mountains of Slovenia. It was so muddy we took off for drier land.
Where are you all off to next?

glover

Again I marvel at what intrepid drivers you two are! What I want to know is where is the picture of the car/road/and fearless driver?

yestravel

This is where there was enough room to finally turn around. There is about 4ft of shoulder which was plenty before the edge of the mountain. Up the [size=13px]road[/size] the white line on the road had less than a foot before the mountain fall off. Behind the car was a small shoulder but not much of one and muddy. We kept getting stuck in mud and the tires would spin. Having a big a$$ car didn't help further up the road in the tight spot. I didnt take a photo during the tense attempts earlier to turn around or backing up -- too stressed [size=13px]to[/size] do that!
We do tend to take risks sometimes. We have been fortunate that not one has done us in so far. Funny enough I did take a photo of the car showing how much space there was or wasn't as the case was. I tried to find it when I posted this leg of the trip, but the whole photograph thing with these TRs is not so easy to do and I have no clue where it is. So I never posted it. But here it is...not sure this captures it well though as this is where we could finally turn around.

KarenWoo

hmmm…we did have horribly rainy trip in Croatia and Slovenia, so there were many rain filled adventures, good and bad. We almost got stuck in mud in the mountains of Slovenia. It was so muddy we took off for drier land.
Where are you all off to next?[/QUOTE]
I am currently planning our 6-week trip to Australia and NZ for October/November 2024. I hope to start making reservations after the holidays. That will be our big trip for 2024. In March we are going to TX to visit our daughter and her family who moved there from France in June. It will be our grandchildren's school vacation so we plan on traveling somewhere as a family; thinking of Santa Fe or Big Bend NP. And then we will most likely do some last-minute short trips between April and September. We are hoping for SE Asia sometime in 2025 and perhaps Argentina and Chile. Hope we stay in shape long enough to do what we want to do!

KarenWoo

Love the car photo!!!

YankyGal

I’m finally here! I bookmarked your report back when you posted the link on FB. Finally getting some “me” time this weekend and this is such an enjoyable read with morning coffee. I remember some of the pictures from FB, but they were only a fraction of these (so colorful and fascinating) and it’s so nice to have the stories to go along with them.

I found myself lingering on the “walking in town” picture. Bringing your knife and bowl to the market is brilliant! (And I always found the Quaker Oats man creepy.)

I know how much work goes into these reports so thanks for taking the time!