Time Travel Through Taiwan

Experiences can rarely get more immersive than the one to be had at Dihua Street in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Said to be the oldest street here, Dihua Street is located in the Dadaocheng neighbourhood, by the Tamsui River on Taipei City’s west side. Dadaocheng, in turn, is  amongst the oldest neighbourhoods in Taiwan, and was founded in imperial times and around which modern Taipei was built.

With its narrow streets, lined by low-rise buildings, covered with hundreds of lanterns, we found ourselves immersed in Taiwanese culture and traditions the moment we set foot on this street. It almost seemed as if we had landed a few decades back in time, visiting Taiwan through a time machine or watching a movie set back in decades, with its dominating sepia tones displaying the old-world charms.

But what I could not take my eyes off were the traditional Chinese lanterns. Though I had seen similar lanterns on my numerous visits to Chinatown in Kolkata, my hometown, and in San Francisco, seeing them here in Taiwan lent them another level of authenticity and beauty, as they truly belonged here.

We were on a familiarisation trip to Taiwan at the invitation of Taiwan Tourism Administration and had begun our exploration from Dadaocheng area. As our visit coincided with the famed Taiwan Lantern Festival, the entire capital was decorated with colourful lanterns hanging all over us.

The magic lanterns

Shoppers thronging at a local market (Photo: India Outbound)

The effect of these beautiful lanterns was even more captivating in places like Dihua Street and Dadaocheng, as its narrow streets, lined by two or three-storeyed buildings made the lanterns appear even bigger, hanging like hundreds of colourful stars that had suddenly descended upon us.

Watching the lanterns was just the beginning of our exposure to the Taiwanese culture and traditions as we headed into a shop, which was rather aptly named Salon 1920s, where visitors can imbibe a Taiwanese look, replete with a traditional Taiwanese dress and even the hairstyle, make-up and accessories.

Once we all had donned the traditional look, wearing a Cheongsam Taiwanese attire, we stepped out of the shop-cum-studio and walked around on Dihua Street, armed with a colourful umbrella, just as any traditional Taiwanese woman would have done.

The street is lively and thronging with tourists and locals, attracted by its vibrant vibes, its modern cafés and traditional tea houses. There are numerous shops selling traditional Taiwanese goods, from garments to gadgets and from foods to souvenirs. There are also several small temples, where the devotees, mainly locals, stop by to offer prayers, lighting up incandescence sticks.

Walking around the area, exploring the numerous shops and their wondrous collections, we didn’t feel the passage of time and we realised that it was dusk only when the lanterns above our heads lit up, filling the skies with their soft light, emitted by colourful electric lamps.

Though we had been roaming around the same streets for a few hours, they seemed to have an entirely different aura at dusk, with the lanterns casting a soft illumination all around.

Soon, it was time to head to our hotel and we checked into the Hamp Court Palace, located in central Taipei. The hotel, too, had been decorated with lanterns and festoons, displaying the same festive spirit that had followed us all day long.

The moment we set foot in our room that we realised how apt the name of the hotel was, for, the rooms were spacious enough to please even the most demanding members of the royalty!

Yehliu Geopark: Nature’s timeless wonder

Our time travel in Taiwan continued the next day as well when we headed to yet another exploration that took us into the past of Taiwan, only this time, instead of going decades back in time, we actually went thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years back as we were enroute to explore geological formations at Yehliu Geopark, about 40 km from Taipei, situated on the north-eastern coast of Taiwan.

The geopark is a key attraction in the country as thousands of tourists visit attracted by the honeycomb and mushroom rocks (Photo: India Outbound)

The geopark is a key attraction in the country as thousands of tourists make their way here, attracted by the unique landscape of honeycomb and mushroom rocks, each with its own distinct shape, thanks to centuries of erosion by sea. The geopark sits on a 1,700-m long cape, or a finger of land extending into the sea. It has been formed by the Datun Mountain reaching into the sea. From a bird’s eye view, Yehliu looks like a giant turtle and hence it is also called the ‘Yehliu Turtle’, as our guide Francis told us.

There are numerous formations at the geopark which have become so well-known that they have even been given names such as the Dragon’s Head and the Queen’s Head, which is reckoned to be amongst the ‘10 most incredible geological formations in the world’, as a board near the rock proudly announced. Indeed, at first glance, it does look like a queen’s taut head, complete with a crown, a forehead, a nose, a clear jawline and the neck.

At one place in the park is a statue honouring a brave Taiwanese, Lin Tien-chen, who was killed in March 1964 when trying to save a student who was visiting Yehliu and was swept into the sea. Despite Tien-chen’s efforts, both the persons died in the accident. But Tien-chen’s memories continue to live on thanks to the statue which almost every visitor to the geopark also comes to see.

After a morning-long exploration of the geopark, we moved not only physically but also in time as we came back to the present and headed to the next stop on our visit, the Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf that is located at the right bank of the mouth of Tamsui River. The Fisherman’s Wharf is particularly well-known for its sunset. Unlike other traditional docks, which are fixed, the dock here is a floating one, which rises and falls with the tides and can accommodate 150 fishing boats simultaneously, making for a spectacular view.

But the landmark here is a 165 metre-long cable-stayed bridge, called the Lovers’ Bridge, that resembles an open sail and connects the boardwalk with the fish market. In the evenings, the bridge is illuminated, adding to its beauty, making it one of the must-visit night scenes here.

Cherry blossoms at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a key attraction in Taipei (Photo: India Outbound)

Day three of our visit again featured a visit back in the history of Taiwan as we were headed to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a key site erected in the memory of Chiang Kai-shek, the founding President of Taiwan and most important person in the history of Taiwan.

The memorial contains many elements evocative of Chinese palatial design, including an elaborate 89-step central marble stairway in a style previously reserved for imperial use only.

The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, that comprises the 76-metre high main building, encompasses a 25-hectare commemorative plaza situated within the administration region of Taipei City. The buildings and spaces around it are popular tourist and leisure destinations as well.

The memorial hall is white with a blue roof, representing the dominant colours of the national flag; while the emblem of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) adorns the vaulted ceiling. A bronze statue of Chiang looks west symbolically to the Presidential Office Building and mainland China.

In the gardens around the memorial is a Chinese-style garden spread where Japanese cherry trees have specially been planted and which in full bloom are loaded with flowers. The flowering had begun during our visit, lending a pink sheen to the cherry trees that stood out in the gardens around the memorial.

During our visit, we were fortunate enough to capture one of the highlights of the memorial, the Change of Guards ceremony where an elaborate ceremony is conducted when the military guards protecting the memorial end their shifts.

Taipei 101 – Top of the world

In a manner of speaking, our next stop for the day also involved time travel but towards the future as we made our way to Taipei 101, a 101-storeyed tower, that is 508 m tall and was the world’s tallest building when it opened in 2004. It remained the highest building in the world until Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai in 2010.

We boarded a superfast elevator that took us to the observation deck located on the 89th floor at a height of 381 m in barely 36 seconds. From the observation deck, we could see not only all of Taipei city, a rather compact city that houses over 3 million inhabitants, but much further into the horizon, right up to the point where hills meet with the sea.

After getting our fill of the views from the observation deck, we took the elevator back to the ground level, where we sat down for a local Taiwanese meal at a restaurant in the same building.

Taiwan Lantern Festival: Lighting a million lamps

The same evening featured one of the highlights of our visit, the inauguration of the Taiwan Lantern Festival, one of the biggest cultural celebrations in the country, if not the most important.

The designs of the lanterns mainly represented snake, since 2025 is the Year of Snake (Photo: India Outbound)

While we had been spotting lanterns all over Taipei and its surrounding areas, the effect at the main festival site was quite another thing. Gigantinc figurines, shining brightly with their embedded lights, were displayed all over the festival ground. Even a continuous rain that evening had failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the participants and organisers.

A number of tableaux, specially created for the festival, were sprinkled throughout the extensive ground where the inauguration of the festival was to take place. The tableaux displayed fairies and flowers along with castles and numerous other elements from fables and traditions.

A large number of ‘trees of light’ had also been set up, with their metallic branches sporting brightly-coloured lanterns. In some areas, it seemed that the stars had descended upon the earth as the ground was lit up by brightly-shining LED bulbs that were laid down on the ground, surrounded by artificial roses on long, metallic stems. The attractions were so creative and imaginative that not just us, but even hundreds of others present on the occasion, did not mind the rain drops pattering all around us, as if heavens, too, had wanted to join in the festival.

The festival opened with traditional dances and amazing creativity was on display all around with various designs, specially created for the Lantern Festival. The designs mainly represented snake, since 2025 is the Year of Snake.

The inauguration featured a vivid display of lasers and figures of snake with the traditional belief that the snake would bring good fortune to all.

Francis told us that the theme of the Lantern Festival 2025 is “Lucky Snake Comes”, symbolising that the new year will be filled with hope, joy and prosperity. He added that the body of snake embodies wisdom and vitality, and shuttles between cities, bringing infinite vitality. It is also believed that the snake will bring blessings and hopes to the city and that everyone will step into a prosperous new year in 2025.

The tales of our travel through time in Taiwan are far too numerous to be all enumerated here. So, in the next issue, we shall continue the discovery of this fantasy land that switches between the past, the present and the future with unparalleled ease.