Taiwan travel is one of the most memorable travels I had because that travel enabled me to experience many first times. In my previous article An Expectant Mother's Travel Experience in Taiwan: Travel Blog No.2 , I shared to you our itinerary and a pregnant women must haves. In this article, I will share to you some of our memorable experiences, observations, and thrifty travel hacks when travelling in group.
MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES
Getting Lost. The usual thing that people might experience when traveling to a new place is getting lost. We had experience getting lost, the first time was when we are looking for our accommodation, we look on the map but we cannot easily locate it. We keep on walking around the area, it took us almost 30 minutes walking around. We tried to ask people but most of them would not talk to us, they will just say "No English". The language barrier is really present. The other time was, when we separated from our friends and we go to Taipei, we did not easily locate the place of our meet-up for my cousin. Good thing, I was able to ask an officer, and he talked to me in English and give me the direction.
Experience Taiwan cousine. We tried some Taiwan cousine in local restaurants around the vicinity and the conference organizer's treat allows us to taste some of the Taiwan food. Some we like the taste, but some, we just tasted and get a small piece. I am also careful of eating since I am pregnant, having stomachache should not be experienced. These were the foods that we were able to taste, they all look good, we don't know all of their names though.
Many first times. That travel was my first international travel, my first train ride, and first time to ride 3 different airlines. First time to eat Taiwan foods, first time to use cards(EasyCard) in riding a bus, train and buying some goods.
Some Observations
In most of the places in Taiwan that we visited, they put high value on discipline in terms of riding to trains and buses. You can only ride a bus through designated bus stops and you will really need to walk in going there. When riding trains, you cannot see people eating or drinking and hear them making noise.
In Taiwan, Jollibee products are not allowed. Once you arrived to the airport, they will scan your baggage if you have Jollibee products and if found, you will be fined. I don't know exactly the reason for this, but that's one fact that we can share. Only McDo is available in Taiwan and they are not serving rice, only burgers.
Most of the restaurants in Taiwan will not offer plain rice except you will tell them. Almost all of them are offering rice that is fried or with spices.
Thrifty Travel Hacks
Getting an Airbnb accommodation. Since we were in a group, we look for an Airbnb accommodation that can accommodate our number. We found an accommodation that could host up to 8 persons with two rooms already. We also considered the access to bus stops, market, fast foods for us to just walk around if we need something to buy.
Cook your own food if possible. The accommodation that we chose allows us to cook early in the morning and in the evening using some of their utensils. We went to the nearby market and buy rice, egg and some other ingredients for our recipe. My husband cooks for our food, it allows us also to have our own flavor in cooking, because of course, the taste of foods there are quite different than ours. We also buy some biscuits and drinks from 7Eleven and some of our meals as well. There are also nearby bakeries for bread.
Sharing of Tourist sim cards. I and my husband only bought one tourist sim card that we can share the data through hotspot. It enabled us to connect to our loved ones as well from the Philippines. We also did not enable our roaming numbers because it will cost a lot, we just use social media for communication.
Booking through Travel Apps. There are travel apps that enables booking of plane tickets and train tickets for a cheaper price. For an instance, I use Trip.com travel app for booking the plane tickets, it will offer some routes but you should be careful in choosing because I really made a mistake on this. The reason for dawn trip from Taipei to Manila was that I was not mindful of the time of the trip I have booked, I just looked that it was the cheapest offer that time, so I immediately booked it only to find out that the Taipei to Manila is 1:55 A.M and the next flight - Manila to Davao is 7:45 PM. See the waiting time?
When I look on the rebooking policies, it does not have rebooking. I planned to get another ticket for Taipei to Manila but it was so costly. So I just hoped that we can avail a chance passenger for Manila to Davao so that we could be in Davao earlier but approaching the airline personnel on the actual date, chance passenger is not allowed because our ticket is on promo. So what happened was we checked-in in GoHotels in Manila and rest instead, and wait for late afternoon flight.
Going to tourist spots that are free. We usually look for tourist spots that we can just go without entrance fees and take some pictures. We also walk around the vicinity to find interesting places and fast foods.
Use EasyCards or other cards a country can offer. In Taiwan, they have EasyCards that you can use go to 7Eleven or other outlets for realoading. Then you can buy some goods from fastfoods using the card. The EasyCard is also used in riding public transport like trains, taxi, bus. Through it, we availed FREE bus rides from our accommodation to the conference venue because it is within the minimum no. of kilometers.
CONCLUSION
Traveling to other places would allow you to observe and experience different cultures, different practices, new kinds of foods. Since you are the tourist, you are to adjust with the environment and be careful in your activities. Being thrifty in traveling is good but it should not compromise comfort, health and safety so always be wise on spending and booking.
So that's all for now. Thanks for reading this article I hope that you get some travel ideas from here.
Lead Image: Image by Timo Volz from Pixabay
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Bkit kaya bawal si jolibee dun noh? Weird nmn... Anyway, the perks of traveling outside the Philippines is always a new yet awesome experience. Thanks sa travel tips mo dito!