6th April 1984: To Taiwan

Friday 6^th April 1984

  Wett for breakfast at Crossroads again. Eggs and sausages, croissant and toast and orange juice. $11.55 again. Went back t’hotel and finished a letter to Pughs [parents] and one to Terese and Co. [former workplace] Also sent some junk mail to the Grants [schoolfriend]– postcard with a picture of a junk on it. Haha.

  Having had everything packed it was just a matter of waiting in the hotel lobby for the time to go – 11.30. Joyously, Chris had a quick replacement passport and Japanese visa and the Russian visa will probably be reiterated quite quickly in Japan; so he and Linda should be able to make it after all. But they miss Taipei.

 At the airport I changed $HK140.70 (which included $AU20) into new Taiwan Dollars $670 and $AU42 into ¥7560. That is Japanese money.

Checked in, customs, no hassle and waited in the lounge with some of the others. Boarded the plane, with a window seat above the wing.

The plane trip was uneventful except that the aircraft took off, flew for about 1½ hours and landed at Chiang Kai Shek Airport [now known as Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport since 2006], while, during that time, we had lunch and filled in customs declaration/immigration forms. CKS Airport is 40km from the city and is surrounded by rice paddies, houses and rain. According to the map, the airport is quite close to the sea (didn’t see it, but); therefore it is on a coastal plain and therefore the surrounding country is very flat and quite excellent if you’re into rice paddies and water.

Taiwan. Hualien at 24°N.

 About halfway to the city, the freeway – being divided all the way as freeways should – is especially divided by a whole lot of pretty purple flowers. It is also there that it passed through a range of which the slopes are quite steep and covered by trees (some of which may be chestnuts). It is very green and reminds one of Wales – one being Kathryn Newnes, who’s English anyway. Then we came onto another flat plain where the city lies and also tells the truth. It is quite big and a lot of the buildings have mysterious yellow spherical objects atop them. They are probably for drinking water, most likely.

There’s an impalpable difference between Taipei and Bangkok, but I don’t know what it is. The signs are in Chinese (very few in English), the streets bear two-way traffic left-hand drive and are cleaner and don’t smell as bad. The vehicles aren’t kept as clean – especially the motorcycles, which are filthy. There aren’t any really tall buildings, except for maybe a few of the larger and newer hotels.

 To get to the hotel we had to cross the river which is not as wide as the Chao Phraya and is much shallower – because, 1), the buildings aren’t right on the banks; and b), it has mud flats. Over the bridge, past the Post Office and into a traffic snarl. It’s amazing how long it takes to go round a couple of blocks in a city sometimes. Some of the hairdressers have red, , white and blue turning poles that have different coloured neon lights behind them (mostly green).

 We checked into the China  Hotel, and though the brochure says the rooms have wall to wall carpet, we have wall to wall parquet. The room smells of fifth floor tobacco a bit, and faces onto an enclosed courtyard with a pond at the bottom. Room 506.

I read some of the pamphlets I had picked up at the airport and decided to book to go on a trip to Taroko Gorge tomorrow for TD$2700 (about $AU70). Then I went to dinner with Arthur and the Milehams. There was a wedding reception in the restaurant – the bride looked gorgeous in pink. A plumpish Chinese woman was giving out sweets and cigarettes.

 I went back to the room, got ready for early start in the morning and did some washing.