Tour Of TaiwanSouth To Kaohsiung

With a choice of two freeways, driving straight from Chiayi to Kaohsiung should never take more than an hour. Unless you are stupid enough to hit Tainan at five o'clock. The best thing about having Tainan and Kaohsiung so close together is that it is easy for everyone to go from one to the other. The worst thing about having Tainan and Kaohsiung so close together is that everyone goes from one to the other. Usually right after work. We always planned on leaving Tainan long before rush hour, but we still had a few things to see.

The westernmost point in the country is in Tainan, but it is different from the other points. The north, south and east lighthouses are proper white brick and mortar cylinders on rocky capes. Guosheng Lighthouse is just a steel tower near the beach with a big light on top. Instead of a cape, the western tip is a large sand dune. That might be why they built a steel tower rather than a brick house. The beach is pretty big, but like most beaches in Taiwan, it was deserted and did not look like the kind of place anyone ever visits. Even with a sand dune, which is rare in Taiwan, there were no people around. I don't think the government has figured out a way to make it a travel destination. It was pretty disappointing, but at least I can say I have been as far north, south, east and west as you can go on the island. For whatever that's worth.

For obvious reasons, Tainan is not famous for its lighthouse. Instead, people go for the temples. If you live in Taiwan, you are bound to see a temple or two. Some are enormous. Some are tiny. Some are old. Some are slightly less old. My apartment is about a kilometer from the second largest Buddhist temple in the city and five kilometers from the largest Confucius temple in the country. There are over a thousand temples in Kaohsiung, but pound for pound, Tainan is the temple capital of Taiwan, with everything from Buddhist to Taoist to Confucian. Tainan claims to be the oldest city in the country, and unlike larger cities like Taipei and Taichung, they did not tear down most of their temples as they expanded over the centuries. That might be one reason it is the smallest 直轄市.

As the oldest city in the country, there are a few museums. Easily the most surprising is the Chimei Museum, named after a plastic manufacturing company. Built in a European neoclassical style, it looks nothing like any museum in Taiwan. Rather than a museum of art or museum of natural history or museum of antiquities, it is dedicated to 13th to 20th century paintings, prehistoric to modern weapons, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, and European musical instruments. It is best known for having an El Greco and the largest collection of violins in the world. The main entrance has a life-size replica of Versailles' Le Bassin d'Apollon.

The fountain is your first clue that everything about this museum is an imitation of a different place. Since it is nowhere near Europe, and more humid than anywhere in Europe could get, all the artifice only serves as a reminder that this museum is pretending to be something it is not. There is no rule that says all Chinese museums have to look like they were built in the 8th century. The Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum in Chiayi looks like it was built in 2015, but it is most definitely a Chinese art museum. Who would go to the Louvre if it tried to be Indian? It is unapologetically French, as it should be.

Outside of temples and museums, Tainan is interesting ecologically. Not only is there a sand dune, but northwest of downtown is all wetlands and mangrove forests. Much of it is a national park right next to the city. Technically, we went into the park when we went to the lighthouse, but we did not spend much time exploring the wetlands. Tainan turned out to be another place where we could have easily spent a few days, but we had to get home eventually.

I knew that Tainan was the most popular city for expats before I moved to Taiwan, but I never understood why. Several cities have more jobs and better public transportation, but Tainan seems to appreciate its long history and has a wide variety of things to do in a more compact space than the larger municipalities. Taipei has an extensive metro network, but in Kaohsiung or Taichung, you are much better off with a car or scooter. Tainan has more of what you want in a big city, with a small town feel. It is yet another place I have to put on my list of places I need to get back to when I have more time.

With the short drive from Tainan to Kaohsiung, we had circumnavigated Taiwan, counterclockwise. We drove through every county on the mainland. We spent the night on the west coast, up north, east coast, and about as far south as you can get. We drove up mountains, past volcanoes, over rivers, through forests, across plains, and up to beaches. Our streets were national highways that span almost the entire length of the country to tiny village roads, and everything in between. We stopped for gas in large cities, small townships, and at least one gas station on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We drove 2,164 kilometers, which is five times the length of the country, if it were possible to drive in a straight line from one end to the other. We ate 15 meals and more snacks than either of us care to admit. We stopped at 7-Eleven and/or FamilyMart at least a dozen times, and noticed that while 7-Eleven easily dominates the west coast, there seem to be more FamilyMarts on the east coast, especially in Yilan.

Taiwan is a relatively small island. We went to every corner and deep into the middle. But we still barely scratched the surface.