I finished my Taiwan trip on Sunday, this was the last week there. Four nights in Eastern Taiwan, Taitung and Hualien, two nights in Taipei.

Taitung

Taitung was the first one of the smaller cities that I visited in Taiwan. With only a population of 100.000, it's much smaller than the million-people cities on the west coast. Nonetheless, there were plenty of restaurants and shops around and the accomodation was super close to the seaside, you could even see the sea from the bedroom window.

I rented a fast e-bike (they go up 40km/h) and are much closer to scooters than I would have expected. I drove around the city which was a fun experience. Initially, I planned to cycle up the coast a bit from Taitung but this wasn't possible at all. Google Maps and Apple Maps both calculated bicycle routes that were not rideable because of road closures.

All in all, it was a kind of uneventful two nights with relaxing on the top floor of the accomodation during the evening and staring at the sea.

One thing that stuck out to me: There were quite a few fighter jets flying over Taitung and other military planes, too. On the west coast, I never saw those.

Hualien

I wanted to go to Hualien to go to Taroko National Park, because it looked beautiful in pictures and videos. But as it turned out, I didn't really do my research right. Most of the hiking routes in the national park were destroyed during an earthquake in 2024 and are being reconstructed since then. Access to the routes is then very tedious and not really practical. Instead, I decided to go whale watching, which I didn't even know was a thing in Taiwan before arriving in Hualien.

A whale watcher on the outlook for sea life.I didn't see any whales, but dolphins nevertheless!

Apart from that, Hualien city is a very lively city. Even though it's smaller than Taitung by population, it had way more restaurants and shops. I didn't see as many internaional tourists as I saw in Hualien anywhere else on my trip in Taiwan.

Nice café vibes in Hualien.To explore Hualien a bit more efficiently, I rented a bike, this time without electric assist. Again, the route I wanted to ride that was calculated by Google Maps and Apple Maps was not rideable on a bicycle, because the roads were closed. That's why I had to improvise and ended up at the same port where the boat for the whale watching departed from earlier. The bike path was very smooth, the sights were not as pretty as I would have hoped, see picture above.

Taipei

Taipei felt way more hectic and chaotic than the first time around at the beginning of the trip.The first time, I was in Taipei, I didn't ride a bicycle there. I since had discovered the great YouBike bike rental system which is available in almost all Taiwanese cities. I wanted to give cycling in Taipei a go but this was not a good decision. There were a few close encounters were I either I crashed into fast-moving scooters or they alsmot crashed into me. Wouldn't recommend this to the faint of heart. In all other cities I cycled in, it was much more peaceful to ride.I also had breakfast at the famous Fu Hang Soy Milk. I had to wait for 30 minutes in line but it was worth it. Everything was super fresh, easily the best breakfast I ever had in Taiwan. Watch the video linked above to find out more about this place.

On a related note, I also tried stinky tofu in Taipei, which is famous in Taiwan. The smell of that food in its unprepared form is repulsive to me but the taste of the stinky tofu I tried was quite alright. There was a slight hint of "stink" when eating it but nothing too bad. All in all it tasted just like tofu with a slight aftertaste.This picture taken in an upscale shopping area of Taipei sums up my feelings towards Taiwan.It was still very hot in Taipei, every day, the temperature hovered around 30ºC. As I later found out, Taiwan only has one month, where the average mean daily maximum temperatures dip below 20ºC: January.I chuckled when I recently opened the Taiwanese weather app I downloaded for my trip and it greeted me with this message. With that, the Taiwan trip is over.

Would I go back to Taiwan? Happily! Next time, I would go for a longer cycle trip. Either the "huan-dao" which goes around the whole country, or a smaller subsection of that route.