Taipei/Taiwan holiday rather than Thailand?

[uptheaddicks]

SWMBO and me usually go to Thailand in late Nov/early December for a week or three.
Whilst looking at flights, it occurred to me than the EVA flights go on to Taipei .
Does anyone here know Taiwan?
Is it any good for a holiday-anything to see or do here?
What are prices like , is it safe etc
Your advice is appreciated!

[ryanb741]

I like it. Mix of cityscape as well as mountainous jungle type terrain. Good food, cheap, good deals on watches too. Completely different kind of holiday to Thailand though

[TikTokTrev]

I'm also a regular on that EVA flight as far as Bangkok...the one thing that has always stopped me carrying on to Taipei is the weather never looks very inviting.
Is there a good time of year to combine Thailand and Taiwan weatherwise I wonder?

[stooo]

Taiwan is supposed to have awesome street cuisine.

[kk]

Taiwan is supposed to have awesome street cuisine.

Another vote for Taiwan - beats Thailand any day - as a white guy in Thailand every other person is trying to rip you off, Taiwan is the polar opposite of this, friendly, welcoming, lots of fun, and quite possibly the safest place in Asia.

I've been a number of times, the last time I hired a car and headed off down the little known east coast from Taipei right down to the southern tip at Kenting. The high speed rail means you can be in Tainan (the old capital in the south and the real cultural hub) in a couple of hours. Taipei is great with a super metro but for me Tainan is the real Taiwan.

Language is an issue as while some English is spoken the standard often isn't high such as you'd get in Singapore or HK so there can be some non-comprehension moments.

Any language hassles are worth it for the food though, as a melting pot of people from all over China in 1945, it has not just some really nice Taiwanese cuisine (based on Fujian food but with aboriginal influences and also lots of sugar to reflect its history as a sugar producer) but food from all corners - Shanghai xiao long bao are my favouirte (pork dumplings with soup inside and sometimes crab eggs), Sichian, Hunan and Cantonese as well as Beijing food. Also the Japanese restaurants are fantastic .... Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to the end of the War and to me Taipei feels in many ways as if it has more in common with Tokyo than any city in mainland China.

The fact the mass vandalism of the Cultural Revolution didn't happen in Taiwan means there's lots of pretty old temples and even buildings from Dutch and Portuguese era (17th century) as well as post-Opium War British colonial buildings (if the lighthouses look familiar they are - built by Brits in the 19th century). I also drove across the central mountain range which are the highest peaks east of the Himalayas (actually not all that many Taiwanese have been there). There's an interesting stream of aboriginal culture as well which fascintated me as I lived in new zealand for several years - reminded me a lot of Maori culture though there is a difference in that the Aboriginies in taiwan go back 5000 years, the Maori only a few hundred before the arrival of Europeans.

Totally recommend it - go before it gets 'discovered'.

[uptheaddicks]

Many thanks for the advice-I do intend to research this further and we are very tempted to give it a go.