Train back to Taipei

At Chiayi station, they changed the tickets for us (somehow they understood what we wanted) and we were now booked on the 1.13pm back to Taipei. We called the Wonstar hotel and booked a room. They didn’t have any regular rooms so we booked an executive room. The Wonstar doesn’t look like the kind of place that caters for executives, but there you go. More white bread egg-mayo sandwiches for the train plus some sushi rolls with god know what inside – it looked like crab, cheese and fried onion. We weren’t exactly eating well on this trip. The tea made up for it though, I bought a giant one to drink while we waited for our train. I remembered how to say “no sugar” in Chinese, but couldn’t remember how to say “no milk”. I did remember the Chinese symbol for it though, so I drew it on some paper and then put a line though it dramatically. The vendor understood and I came away with what I wanted.

Next to us on the train were two old people who made themselves right at home: shoes off and their belongings and lunch spread all around them. They were eating a bag of lychees and made sucking, snorting and spitting noises all the way to Taipei. This put me off (my already horrible) lunch. David went to the loo and walked in on an old lady who hadn’t bothered to lock the door. She was squatting above a western-style toilet. David was quite shaken by the experience.

As soon as we got going on the train, the weather improved. We couldn’t help but wonder whether it had also improved in the mountains…. Never mind, lots to do in Taipei.