Kenting (Taiwan)

This is the travel diary of my last trip To Kenting National Park, (墾丁 Kěndīng) in the South of Taiwan. I spent 3 days there with ChiLing. We tried to take note of the expenses we had, but didn't do it all the time, so I might be missing some prices. For 3 days (2 nights), we spent about 10,000 TWD each, including transportation from and back to Taipei city.

All the picture were taken with our phones, so the quality is not that great. Beside, I am a poor photograph ; fortunately CL is better, and she let me use a few of her own pictures.

day 1 (Wed)

Trip from Taipei, Check in at the minsu, Baishawan beach, Thai restaurant, Chuanfanshui beach

We left Taipei the morning by taking the high speed train from Taipei Main Station (臺北車站 TáiběiChēzhàn) to Kaohsiung (高雄 Gāoxióng), from there we planned to take the bus to Kenting, but a taxi driver offered us a cheaper price by sharing the trip with tree other people. On the way we stopped to buy some local dessert (綠豆蒜 lǜdòusuàn). The weather report announced rain for the following days, but as often in Taiwan, the report turned out wrong and we enjoyed a nice weather all the time.

The driver directly dropped us at a scooter rental place, where we picked a 125cc scooter for the 3 days. With it it takes less than 30 minutes to go to any place in Kenting, so I strongly recommend it.

We tried to check in at a minsu (some kind of hotel) called Minimi, located on the main street of Kenting, near the night market. The minsu was full for this night, but they gave us the key for an other "Minimi" minsu located on the south side Kenting. The next day we had to move back to "Minimi 1" since "Minimi 2" was then full.

We also got the map of the area, and the minsu owner helped us to register for the next day water sport activities. She also gave us tickets for breakfast.

Since at the time we were still expecting a bad weather for the following days, we directly drove to Baishawan (白沙灣 Báishāwān), the most famous beach in Kenting, and we bought some food from the local shop to eat on the beach. I took some shrimps with fried rice (good) and CL got flying fish eggs (飛魚卵沙拉 fēiyúluǎnshālā) (not so good).

After the beach we drove back to Kenting main street and had dinner in one of the few Thai food restaurants there. The evening we went for a walk around Chuanfanshi beach (船帆石 chuánfānshí)

day 2 (Thu)

Southern point, Eluanpi park, Shark Bites Toast, South Bay beach, Jet ski and snorkeling, cocktails in Xiaowan beach

We got our breakfast directly at the minsu, then took our scooter to visit the southern point of Taiwan (臺灣最南點 Táiwānzuìnándiǎn). There is a little walk through a small forest, and then we reached the point, where people were taking pictures, and so did we.

Near the southern point, there is the Eluanpi park, with it's famous lighthouse. The park features some interesting rock formations, including the kissing rock.

Back to the main street, we had western style food at the Shark Bites Toast restaurant, then went to an other beach - I think it was the South Bay (南灣 Nánwān). We had registered for some water activities. The way it works is that we could pick three different activities from a list. We chose Jet Ski, Snorkeling, and some kind of stuff were we stay on a inflated boat pulled by a jet ski. It was a bit disappointing: for the snorkeling, we had to hold on the boat and were just dragged around, with no way to swim. For the jet sky, we couldn't actually drive it as I was expecting, but we had to stay on the back of the driver. Turned out the funniest thing we did there was playing in the waves with a swim ring the people of the water activity let us used after we came back to the beach.

It was already getting late, so we drove back to our minsu to take a shower and then went to the night market to get some street food.

We finished the evening by getting some Cocktails from the night market and drinking them on the closest beach (I think it was Xiaowan (小灣 Xiǎowān). We went back to the minsu early because the next day we had to wake up to go scuba diving.

day 3 (Fri)

Scuba Diving, sea food restaurant, snorkeling, trip back to Taipei

We woke up around 8. The nice thing is that since we had very few luggages, we could just pack it all in the scooter and check out from the minsu, so we wouldn't have to come back later the evening.

At 8:30 we drove to the breakfast restaurant where we could use the tickets we got from the minsu.

One of our friend had gave us the contact of a scuba diving instructor in Kenting, we had booked with him already. The diving place, that was located near the fishing port. It was both our first time to try diving, so we couldn't actually swim freely, but nevertheless we had fun. I think I didn't perform the equalizing maneuver correctly though, because my ears did hurt for the rest of the day.

After diving, our instructor took us to the local sea food restaurant. I usually don't like sea food that much, but here the product were perfectly fresh and so I could enjoy it.

We spent the rest of the afternoon snorkeling around the nuclear power plant cooling water evacuation. Even though there are not that many fish there, the corals are beautiful, and it was nice to finally be able to swim freely in the water after the assisted diving.

It was almost time to get back to Taipei. We had a last drink in a coffee shop near Nanwan beach. The taxi driver was waiting for us, and so we drove back to Kaohsiung, and then bought the High Speed Train tickets to Taipei. I was expecting to get some food in the train, but since it was already late they only had some bread. I think CL was a bit disappointed that we didn't take time to buy some food at the station.

Expenses

We tried to spend as little as possible, CL also kept note of how much we spent, but I still miss many small things we bought, like water and sun lotion, so the total of the list might be less than what we actually spent.

All the prices are for two persons

Day 1	High speed train to GaoXiong	3,000 TWD
	Taxi to Kending	800 TWD
	Scooter for 3 days	1,200 TWD
	MinShu 2 nights	2,300 TWD
	Food on the beach	250 TWD
	Umbrella on the beach	300 TWD
	Thai restaurant	880 TWD
	Total day 1	8,730 TWD
Day 2	Eluanpi entrance	80 TWD
	Shark Bites Taost Restaurant	600 TWD
	Jet Ski, Snorkeling	1,100 TWD
	Night market food	300 TWD
	Basket ball	50 TWD
	Cocktails	300 TWD
	Total day 2	2,430 TWD
Day 3	Diving	5,000 TWD
	Sea food restaurant	700 TWD
	Buoy for snorkeling	100 TWD
	Tea	250 TWD
	Taxi Back to Kaohsiung	700 TWD
	High speed train back to Taipei	3,300 TWD
	Total day 3	10,050 TWD

So the total cost was about 10,500 TWD per person.