Gondola to Maokong

Today we took the train to Taipei zoo station. No, we didn’t go to the zoo – it was the starting point for the Taipei’s new gondola (cable car). There was a very long queue of people waiting outside in the sun. We joined it and waited for more than an hour outside wishing we hadn’t bothered. It was unbearably hot. We were the only people in the queue not accompanied by children. We were starving by the time we actually got inside the terminal building, but at least we were now cool. I left David in the queue and went to buy some water and buns. I only wanted 4 buns, but you could only buy them in boxes of 16 so we shared them with the family behind us.

The gondola was worth the wait as it turned out. It was a 30 minute ride with stops at South Zoo and a temple famous for being ruled by an unmarried god who likes to break couples up. We gave that a miss and went right to the end of the line: Maokong.

Maokong is a tea growing area, but most people visiting by gondola don’t leave the restaurant area near the gondola station. After a quick lunch of noodle soup and a piece of green Swiss roll, we walked on looking over tea plantations and views of the city below. We visited a temple, and then stopped for tea at a café called “Cat’s got nothing to do”. I had a black tea with milk which was ready made up in the pot and David had his first espresso in 5 months. I awarded my tea an 8 out of 10 and the coffee was a 9. We are both pretty critical, so these are very good scores.










The gondola station was full and noisy which annoyed me after the serenity of the tea plantation areas. People were starting to get on my nerves. It bugged me that people came all the way up and didn’t take the chance to see some of the lovely, peaceful countryside.

We ended up sharing a gondola car with the same family we had shared our buns with earlier. We chatted to them all the way back. The 2 little girls wanted to practice their English, but got as far as “My name’s Emily and I’m 9” and “My name’s Fiona and I’m 7” and then got too shy to try anything else. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask them so chatted to their parents. I am going to have to work on my repertoire of “things to talk to children about” as I am often in this situation when I travel and I want to make more of an effort. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

At the end of the ride, we said goodbye and headed back to the MRT station with the aim of staying out of the heat for the rest of the day.