29th - 31st December

On the 29th we headed to the countryside again - this time to Jiaosi in Ilan county - apparently a great hot spring and waterfall area. We’d read about a hotel near the waterfall with a reasonable price in the lonely planet, but once we got there it turned out that it had been refurbished and turned into a 5 star place which was over a hundred quid a night!! So we gave it a miss! We were a little more lucky in the town though, we found a hotel with one of the best rooms we’ve had so far. Complete with TV and Jacuzzi bath for fifteen quid a night!! The added bonus of a huge hot spring filled spa bath outside, which we soon took advantage of!! Finding something to eat was not so easy though, we trawled the whole town without finding any veggie food, until we stumbled upon a little Pakistani restaurant which served a great little veggie feast. Lovely it was too -

although we never expected Taiwan to be the place where we tried Pakistani food for the first time!! Back to the hotel for a night of films and red wine, and the day was over!!

The next day we had a good walk around the waterfalls, which were once again very scenic, even in the rather damp and humid weather!! The pot noodles we’d packed spared us another fruitless search for food, and the next day we found ourselves heading back to Taipei in time for the New Years celebrations!!

Taipei
31st December - 2nd January

The Taiwanese seemed to take New Year pretty seriously, quite surprising for a nation who’s real New Year