Taiwan is a place I never thought about visiting simply because I knew nothing about the country. However we found some cheap flights to Taipei and after reading a few glowing blog posts we booked flights to check it out.
I am so glad we did because we loved our 2 week trip to Taiwan. It is a safe country with diverse and delicious food, friendly people, spectacular scenery, captivating history, temples and spirituality.
Taiwan should be on everyone’s bucket list. Here are a few highlights from our trip to convince you.
About Taiwan
Taiwan, officially called the Republic of China, is an island in East Asia. It is quite small and in our 2 week trip to Taiwan we completed a lap of the country. Taipei is the capital city and is situated in the north-west of the island.
A series of mountain ranges run from the northern tip to the southern tip of the country. The mountains run quite close to the sea on the eastern side. As a result, this part of the country is more rugged, spectacular and less populated.
The vast majority of the 23 million Taiwanese live on the flat Chianan Plains between the sea and the western edge of the mountains.
Taiwan has links to China dating back thousands of years. In the 1600s the Dutch established a stronghold and trading post at Anping. They were expelled after 40 years and not long after the Chinese annexed Taiwan. Japan colonised and ruled Taiwan from the late 1800s until the end of WWII when the country was formed with its own government.
The country has since gone through rapid industrialisation and economic development. It has evolved to a democratic government with a highly skilled and educated workforce. Compared to much of Asia, it is clean with good infrastructure.
Taiwan is a Foodie’s Heaven
Taiwanese food is strongly influenced by Chinese and Japanese cuisine. As an island, seafood is common everywhere.
Street food, or xiaochi, is what Taiwan is famous for and these small inexpensive snacks are served up from the thousands of small streetside stalls found throughout every town and city.
We found ourselves snacking all day as we couldn’t resist trying all the great food!
Eating at the Night Markets
The other place to get these snacks are the night markets. Most nights in most cities, food vendors set up their stalls from 5 or 6 pm until late and serve up dishes of delicious food. Sausages, fermented (stinky) tofu, fried chicken, little sticks of all manner of seafood, meats and vegetables.
There was so much to choose from. The main clientele of the night markets are locals. It is common in Taiwan to regularly eat out. The vendors are also more than welcoming to tourists looking for a tasty and inexpensive meal.
We visited night markets in just about every city and town we stayed and loved the experience of finding and tasting new foods.
There is a seemingly endless array of things on offer. We had a list of things to try based on suggestions from friends, blogs and our Lonely Planet guide.
While there are common foods across many night markets, each one has its own specialties so it pays to do a little research before you go.
Even so, it was not always easy to find things because the shop signs and menu boards were often written only in Chinese. We had to guess a few times but never had anything we didn’t like.
The best tip we can offer is to look for the stalls with a queue, join it and order what everyone else is getting.