Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Taiwan Trip Day 5 - Wulai - How to go to Wulai?

Our next destination is Wulai. Wulai (烏來) is a small town in Taipei County, Taiwan, famous for its hot springs and aboriginal culture. The name of the town derives from the Atayal phrase kirofu ulai meaning "hot and poisonous. You can read more from wikipedia.

On arrival at Xindian MRT Station, we headed to the correct exit to proceed to our next destination, Wulai. From this exit, to take public transport to Wulai, we can turn right to take either the public bus or taxi and if we wanted to visit Bitan, a small town we turn left from this exit. I decided to visit Wulai first so I turn left from the MRT exit. Will talked about Bitan in later post.

It might be scary if you dont understand mandarin when you looked at the bus stop, they are mostly in mandarin. But it is easy cause only one bus go to Wulai and it is bus no. 849. The bus stop is just next to the MRT station, you dont have to cross any roads. Beside the bus stop is a taxi stand and rows of cab drivers will try to get people to take their cabs.

Dont take the cabs immediately, wait for the cab driver to approach you cause the official rate for the cabs is NT600 for a cab, the cab driver will then lower their prices cause everyone prefer to take the public bus which is about NT40. The cab drivers will try to get a group of four at NT100 each. So it will costs a group of four NT400 instead of NT600 for the whole cab a discount of NT200.

For comfortable ride, better to take the cab cause the bus stop was crowded with people and when the bus comes we might not get seats on the bus, the journey from the bus stop to Wulai is about 40 mins and the road can be winding. If you are younger then should be no problem but hubby and me decided to share a cab with another couple and we paid NT100 each only for a comfortable ride.

Sit on the ride side of the cab or bus for a nice window view of the scenery.

According to wikipedia, "the easiest and fastest way to get to Wulai is simply to take a taxi from Taipei. It only takes 30 minutes from Taipei station and is cheap, don't waste your time taking the bus. If you have 2-4 people it is cheaper than taking the bus. You can negotiate with the taxi drivers". I cant vouch for this cause I came down from Shilin MRT Station but if you want to take a cab in Taipei, best have someone who can speak mandarin with you cause most of the cab drivers dont speak English or have someone write down the mandarin name for Wulai and the cab fare you intended to pay.



Board indicating the cab fare to places of interest.

The cab will stop near the Wulai Bus Terminal and will pick up passengers at this stop too. From here, we made our way to Wulai Little Town about 10 mins walk from this bus stop.


View of the mountains from the bus stop.


Video of scenery of Wulai behind the bus terminal at Wulai.

PLEASE ASK PERMISSION BEFORE YOU RE POST MY PHOTOS ON TO YOUR BLOG. THERE ARE SOME BLOGGERS WHO DID NOT ASK MY PERMISSION AND REPOST MY PHOTOS WITHOUT THE COURTESY OF LINKING BACK TO MY BLOG. THIS IS LIKE STEALING. PEOPLE, I HAVE SPEND MUCH TIME TAKING PHOTOS AND DOING HOMEWORK ON MY TRAVELLING INFORMATION AND KINDLY SHARE THESE INFORMATION TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN THEM. IF NECESSARY I WILL POST SCREEN SHOT OF YOUR BLOG TO SHOW YOUR BAD MANNERS OF STEALING MY PHOTOS. THE MOST DISGUSTING THING THEY DID WAS TO SCREEN SHOT MY PHOTO AND CORP OFF MY BLOG TITLE AND REPOST IN THEIR BLOGS AS THEIR OWN.

1 comment:

escape said...

i like the mountains. so if there's somethng about taiwan that i wanted to see it would be this side and the chinese culture.