To complete this TR :-
Firstly my wife wanted to mention these 'automatic flag waving robots'. We saw quite a few of them around Taiwan and they do seem to work. After watching last nights Tour de France stage where they kept running into road furniture she thinks they should be used there.
Road safety dummies are a distinctive feature of the streets of Taiwan. In Chinese they are generally known as engineering dummies 工程用假人 (pinyin: gongchengyong jiaren), warning dummies 警示假人 (jingshi…
spectralcodex.com
- Departing Taiwan on a ticket to Singapore we had to show an onward ticket - Scoot in our case - at check-in. As was normal no-one in Perth showed any interest in such a thing when we checked-in. This has always been the case for our money saving 'self connecting' flights to another airline via Singapore.
- China Airlines were very good. Their own lounge in Taipei was ok and the Marhaba one in Singapore poor. But the cabin layout, inflight food and service were all well up to scratch. They were also the cheapest 'full service' airline between Singapore and Taiwan by a reasonable margin. The only note of caution is to be aware that one of their two daily flights on that route is flown by a narrow body instead of the A350 we flew.
- Scoot was --- Scoot. It did the job and we were not squashed in our seats. As usual on-time performance is very much not guaranteed.
- Village Hotel Katong was again very nice with friendly staff and large rooms. Now that the MRT is open only a 100 metres or so away it is an even more convenient choice.
- With regards to the Sultan Hotel we both liked it especially for its room size, location and reasonable price if booked direct. Unfortunately our stay was ruined by the bug we both had. But we would be happy to stay there again and check it out properly. The MRT is not far away but there are also very convenient buses close by.
- We both enjoyed Taiwan. The majority of people were friendly and while there was a language problem at some places it was not hard to work around it. Especially with a translation app on your phone.
The food was pretty good but I think I have been spoiled by experiencing so much 'Chinese' food in Malaysia and Singapore. The assimilation of Malay, Thai & Indian influences seemed to have made that style of cuisine preferable to me. It is also the style of food we get in most of our local restaurants. My wife probably enjoyed it a bit more than me but she did complain about a lack of stir fried options at many places.
Everything 'works' in Taiwan. The roads while some may be twisty and slow were all in good condition and well marked. The MRT in Taipei was easy to use and at least as good as the Singapore MRT. Toilets are clean and modern. The public infrastructure seems well cared for. Based on our groups experience the hospital system seems to be pretty good as well. In Taipei there is very heavy traffic at times and journeys could be slow.
Prices of food and drink seemed to be mainly dearer than Malaysia but not as expensive as Singapore. Because we paid a 'package' price we are not sure of the exact price of most of the hotels we stayed in but it seems that they are priced similarly to Malaysian ones - or perhaps even a little cheaper. They were all very clean and mostly offered a 'free' breakfast. The beds were normally on the 'hard' side of the ledger. Adjusting the A/C could also be a bit of an adventure. Most of them had individual room systems with non-intuitive controls.
The west coast was by far the more densely populated side of the island and there seemed to be a bit of smog around. I don't know whether it is local or has come from the mainland. The majority of the faster roads are on the west coast with lots of motorways. On the west the roads are much slower as they have to pass through mountains. There is a lot of roadbuilding going on. The roads up to the national parks in the mountains are very windy and narrow and travel is pretty slow.
Our driver/guide was very useful outside of Taipei. As I have said previously we have never done this sort of trip before and I was a bit sceptical. But his local knowledge and driving on difficult roads were very useful. His language skills were very useful as well. Again, as the price we paid was in one package I am not sure what his services actually cost but it seemed to be a pretty fair and reasonable amount. The larger cities are pretty easy to get to via high speed rail but transport off the beaten track is a lot less reliable.
In short we would be happy to go back again but at a much less frenetic rate and with multiple nights spent in some places. I would especially like to spend longer in the mountains and on the east coast.
I've only been to Taiwan once, for 4 days but you have given me plenty more to think about 
