Sunny South
When it comes to tourism in Taiwan, ninety-nine percent of foreign holidaymakers start from Taipei. One reason is that the larger airport is near the capital, Taipei City; the other is that the Greater Taipei area truly has a lot more to offer, such as seaside attractions, mountain villages, hot springs, museums, etc.
Kaohsiung, however, is another big city providing visitors with more opportunities to bask in the sun. The Tropic of Cancer goes through the central part of the island of Taiwan, dividing the climates into subtropical in the north and tropical in the south.
The north of the country is especially infamous for the wet and sometimes windy weather during winter months. If you have ever visited the popular Jiufen old mining town or the Shifen Waterfall scenic spot, you’ll certainly know what I mean. The north of the island is easily influenced by winter monsoons from the colder north of the planet. The south, however, enjoys more sunshine in a year thanks to its proximity to the equator. Traveling in Taiwan without going to the south will give you the impression that the island country of Formosa is just another British Isles in winter.
5-Day Best of Taiwan Tour Package – Kaohsiung
This time, the award-winning round-the-island tour product 5-Day Best of Taiwan: Sun Moon Lake, Taroko Gorge, Kaohsiung, Taitung will bring you to the south of the country. Taiwanese travel agent Edison Travel Service offers only this product for tourists to quickly have a loop of the island without sacrificing their fine tastes for accommodation. The four nights hotels are carefully selected from popular 4- to 5-star hotels in the country, and the second night will bring you to an elegant skyscraper in the third biggest city of Taiwan in terms of population.
Customarily and economically speaking, most Taiwanese nationals will still probably refer to Kaohsiung as the second biggest city in Taiwan because the busiest seaport is right to the west of downtown Kaohsiung – or to be more precise, part of the downtown area! In this tour, the second night is the only night the tour members can enjoy the restless night of a big metropolitan area. For those who don’t normally revel in cities, staying in a hotel room can simply give you a vista overlooking the beautifully-lit cityscape.
The Second Night: Grand Hi-Lai Hotel
The fourth tallest skyscraper in Kaohsiung, the Grand Hi-Lai Hotel is 186 meters tall and near the harbor of Kaohsiung. The upper half of the building is the hotel itself and the lower half is one of the earliest and biggest department stores in the city – Hanshin Department Store.
The hotel has at least 13 restaurants to choose from and the department store has even more attractive and various choices for you to indulge yourself in the culinary delights, especially the newly-renovated food court on B3.
After dinner, you can browse through a wide range of fashionable brands from B2 to the 8th Floor, which will make you hungry again. Back at the hotel, you can either chill out at the alfresco swimming pool on the 11th Floor or have a cup of something at the atmospheric PAVO Lounge Bistro. The hotel is well-equipped with a plethora of nightly entertainment even if you don’t want to leave the building.
Fo Guang Shan Monastery
Before we get to the hotel on the second day of this packaged tour, the group will first spend the afternoon visiting one of the most splendid Buddhist attractions in southern Taiwan – Fo Guang Shan (or F.G.S.), which literally means “Buddha light mountain”.
Established in 1967 and spreading on a land of more than 100 hectares, the vast Buddhist Disneyland has a lot to offer. Compare to the other Buddhist scenic spots, the F.G.S. perhaps doesn’t have the most flamboyant architecture, but the friendly ambiance will push you further into the theme compound to find out more religious treasures in this Buddha land.
With more than 200 overseas temples and branches worldwide, the Monastery is where everything starts. So, you can still see the majestic Main Shrine and the tallest standing Buddha statue on the top of a hill, facing the grandeur Central Mountains of the island. Emphasizing “Humanistic Buddhism”, the F.G.S. has a monastic order of over 1,000 monks and nuns, and its founder and spiritual leader Venerable Master Hsing Yun just passed away at the age of 97 in early February of 2023.
Liouhe Tourist Night Market
Right before checking in at the Grand Hi-Lai Hotel, the group will visit Liouhe(or Liuhe, Liuho, etc) Tourist Night Market first as soon as they arrive in central Kaohsiung. This night market is the traditional “street type” night market, which means during the day it’s for traffic, and during the night for vendors and pedestrians.
Voted as one of the most popular night markets in Taiwan, it may not seem as crowded as before due to COVID, but we can, however, still find some representative and decades-old food stalls along the street, such as the Jheng(or Zheng) Old Brand papaya milk, which is, in fact, a type of smoothie of papaya flavor. This drink is probably on top of the must-try list.
Besides, you’ll certainly find some authentic night market foods, such as parson’s noses, peddler’s noodles, swamp eel noodles, and mackerel thickened soup, just to name a few. Don’t forget to leave some space in your stomach for the fantastic food court of the department store below the hotel tonight.
Kenting National Park
The southernmost tip of the island houses the first national park in the country. With half of the area land and the other half azure ocean, Kenting National Park was established in 1982 and is noted for pristine sand beaches and thriving coral reefs, let alone the sunny coast.
The name of the tour product doesn’t bear any words like Kenting, but if you visit Kaohsiung, the paradise of the land’s end won’t let you down and it’s roughly two hours away from Kaohsiung City. That is to say, the visit to Kenting National Park is always categorized in the Greater Kaohsiung area though it’s actually located in Pingtung County, the sunny state of Taiwan.
The third day of the 5-day tour will take you to beautiful attractions like Cat Rock, Sail Rock, Eluanbi Lighthouse, Longpan Park, etc. In just about half-day, you’ll see Taiwan Strait, Bashi Channel, and the Pacific Ocean. I couldn’t think of any place like this national park where you can see three seas in one day. The fringing coral reefs and peculiar rock formations will sum up the third day, plus a bit of the history of the mid-19th century when the clashes happened between western sailors and local indigenous people.
Visitor Information
Opening hours
The Fo Guang Shan always embraces visitors from all over the world and never shuts its door to tourists even during the night. Their international department has monks and nuns who can escort the group around the Buddhist complex in many different languages. Some tour guides prefer to show the group around on their own due to the management of time.
The Liouhe Night Market starts at 5:00 PM every day and normally ends around midnight.
As for Kenting, the Cat Rock opens at 8 AM to 5:30 PM in summer and 8 AM to 5 PM in winter; the Eluanbi Lighthouse 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM in summer and 7 AM to 5:30 PM in winter.
Admission
The visit to Fo Guang Shan in Kaohsiung is free. Instead of charging admission, they prefer to opt for “donation”, which is not compulsory, of course.
Among the attractions I mentioned in the Kenting National Park section, only the Eluanbi Lighthouse charges admission, which is NT$60 for an adult. All the admission, however, in the tour is included in this tour. The guides will pay for you!
How to get there?
I was talking about the packaged tour, so the tour bus and guide will take you to the above attractions without hassle.
Useful Tips While Visiting
Too hot in summer?
Generally speaking, the south of Taiwan has no winter. Visiting Fo Guang Shan can be uncomfortably hot sometimes in summer. We can, however, find proper shade during the walk or even air-conditioned halls. It shouldn’t be a problem to take a decent “air-conditioning break” during the visit from time to time unless your guide is a monk or nun. They’ll probably say that religious practice is part of the experience!
The F.G.S. is an excellent example of religious tourism in Taiwan, and you’ll find all kinds of necessary facilities in their temples. As for Kenting National Park, the only air-conditioned place you can find in summer is the very tour bus.
Feeling hungry?
The lunch break of the second-day tour will be at a decent freeway service area where we can find lots of interesting foods. When the situation allows, the group might go directly to the Buddha Museum for vegetarian delights. After COVID, some places of interest change their opening hours. Better to check before you visit. As for the lunch break of the third day in Kenting, the Kenting Village will certainly be the only place you can find something to rev up your health and wellness.
Extra information
The second night of this tour is the only night that the group stays in a big city. When you see the “night” market in the itinerary, you might be wondering why tour guides take groups there right after 5 PM when it’s probably still a bit “bright” in summer. This night we can get lots of fun things to do, and we don’t just want to waste too much time in the night market here. So, finish it as early as possible!
