Taiwan High Speed Rail

Of necessity, the Taiwan HSR stations are outside the main cities of Taiwan because of the cost of land within the city. Taipei is an exception; the lines and station are underground and the terminal is next to the Taiwan Rail Authority one.

I wanted to try the HSR at least once. Kaohsiung and Tainan stations were inconvenient to get to. At Taichung it was a 10 minute transfer on a local train to the HSR station. The fare was reasonable, 740NTD (~$30) and the journey to Taipei took 45 minutes.

It was comfortable and the ride was smooth as the landscape rushed past.

Land use in Taiwan varied by latitude. Down south there were haphazard plots and aquafarming pools with motor driven paddles churning the water to oxygenate it for the fish. As I moved north, the farms got more organised and neater. A lot of Taiwan is rural; while you might think of it as an industrial country, many people live in humble dwellings that have seen better days. There were many dilapidated housing projects visible.

Taiwan is also conservative socially, with a strong emphasis on Confucian values such as family, hierarchy, learning, and hard work.

In the cities you will see a lot of young women dressed in short skirts or pants, but that's simply because the hot to mild, and humid weather makes anything longer uncomfortable except during the cool winter.

The train entered a tunnel which ran for a long distance before reaching Taipei Station. I had just under an hour to change trains to a fast, but conventional, train to Hualien. I found a lunch of rice and one dish in a small restaurant in an underground shopping mall that was obviously geared towards the office worker crowd.

Again, it took a long time before the Hualien train emerged from the underground to the light of the early afternoon.