I drove in Taiwan for the first time last weekend. It was an experience I’d been purposefully avoiding, but alas, I finally folded. I’m going to Kenting this weekend and I have to rent a car and drive there after I fly to Kaohsiung. It’s a kind of managed chaos that makes the worst drivers in Europe look civilized. I understand Asian drivers get worse than the Taiwanese.
There are no relaxing drives in Taiwan. Traffic moves fluidly – there are lanes but they mean nothing, and scooters fill every available gap. You don’t signal to change lanes or anything. The only lane marking that means anything is the one that differentiates oncoming traffic and that only means anything if there is any. If the front of your car is ahead of the car next to you, you have the right of way. There’s a car blocking a lane? Just swerve around it. Taxi drivers are too busy looking on the sidewalk for fares to pay attention to the road, and busses don’t feel the need to stop for anything.
The sidewalk is for bicycles and the occasional scooter when the street is one-way in the wrong direction for them. Intersections have scooter boxes up front which institutionalize the “fill in the gaps” practice. I’m glad I didn’t buy one or I’d be dead already.
Point is, I drove to Costco and got chips and salsa, a big-ass Igloo 5-day cooler and more instant oatmeal and paper towels then I will ever use. Other than that, someone turned the heat on May 1st. It went from pleasant spring weather to 97 degrees overnight. I just remember that the wind was hot and it felt good to get out of the breeze. But they tell me it’ll start raining soon. I can’t wait. I though February was the rainy month.
