Taiwan Holidays

If one journey could be said to sum up the contradictions and joys of travel in Taiwan, it’s the twenty-minute cable car ride from the capital, Taipei, into the surrounding hills. As the skyline of the pulsating modern city gives way to the tops of fir trees, a tranquil world of temples, ornamental gardens and tea houses takes over. Seated on a stone-lined terrace, you can gaze through gaps in the swirling mist at the distant metropolis over a bowl of sweet plums and a cup of the finest Chinese tea poured from terracotta pots with bamboo handles.

Contrary to the country’s hi-tech image, traditional Oriental pleasures provide the defining moments of trips to this distinctive island, located off the coast of southeast China... Watching shaven-headed monks lighting incense in ancient Shinto shrines, admiring the afterglow reflected on the glassy waters of Sun Moon Lake, tracing the arc of an eagle’s flight high above the marble crags of the Taroko Gorge, or sampling pungent “thousand-day eggs” beneath the two-thousand-year-old cypresses of Yushan mountain.