Today is the eve of the Lunar New Year, a day when everything shuts down for four days of big family meals and crisp bills in red envelopes. In Taipei even the 24-hour Eslite bookstore on Tunhua South Road will expel its regular flock of lonely-hearted magazine browsers for as long as 17 hours, and even the dance club TU will give the band the night off, though the bar will still be open.
The weather will be cold and damp. The New Year will get off with a bang tomorrow with a forecast that calls for a low in Taipei of 7?C and cloudy skies from Tamsui to Kenting. And to remind us that life is better somewhere else, many of us will get emails from friends like this:
"Hello my dear friends and family. It's been a long time since I've written most of you because I spent the last six months in the jungles of Costa Rica ... at a nature resort called Samasati, which is located on top of a tropical rainforest mountain, facing the Carribean ? Tomorrow, I'm moving to Guatemala."
So in the few consecutive days of universal holiday known to the Taiwanese public, people scamper.
Zsolt Horvath, sales manager at the Taipei travel agency Interlink Travel, says that the Lunar New Year is Taiwan's busiest time of the year for vacation travel because "it's the only time you have a long national holiday of four days, so everybody wants to get out."
He estimates that during the travel season airfares go up about 20 percent and that prices for group tours are hiked a hefty 40 percent. Not that anyone's dissuaded. Not even the Bali bombings have scared away travelers.
"Bali's impossible," he said. "Nobody seems worried about there being any danger. Everything's full."
The toughest ticket to get is Hawaii.
"To be sure to get a reservation during the Lunar New Year, I normally recommend booking in September. But even then I had one case where I couldn't get a seat," said Horvath.
Chen Ya-ming (陳雅明) of Taipei's TC Travel said that beachy tropics are not the only options. Most Taiwanese travel in group tours, and this year tours to China and Japan are extremely popular.
"China has only come on in the last two or three years," she said. "Now there are lots of tours. Lots. North China, south China, Kunming. Everywhere."
Yacoob Mah (馬雲昌), proprietor of Taipei's Kunming restaurant, will travel, though he won't do any sightseeing. A devout Muslim, he's closing his restaurant for a full month and taking his family on a haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca every Muslim who's able makes once in his life.
"It's going to cost a bundle, but it's important," said Mah.
Got the travel bug yet? For those not astute enough to have made travel plans five months ago, Horvath said, "if all you want to do is leave, there's still hope. I've even been getting calls today [Jan. 28th]."
Then: "Hold on a minute, let me check the computer ? Here, I have a few seats for Bangkok either the 31st, 1st or 2nd. Take your pick."
Earlier this week I received an email from a friend:
"I'm in Bangkok right now, [such and such] is arriving at 2am on Thursday night [last night], and then off to the Golden Triangle -- which I've heard is more of a car swap meet than anything else. And then, Laos?
I thought about dropping the interview and snapping up a reservation.
About two to three weeks before the Lunar New Year, seats often open up as airlines clean out unused reservations -- usually from people who double book, said Horvath.
He also said that Thailand has not been as popular as in years past, and this was confirmed by Chen at TC Travel, but neither had any explanation.
Instead, they had alternatives. Chen said that in Southeast Asia, Malaysia was drawing big flocks of tourists. Meanwhile Horvath said that Interlink is seeing success in promoting "more adventurous" destinations like Cambodia and Laos.
Jim Lehman, a 27-year-old expatriate in Taipei, flies to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Phen today. His reason: "I wanted to see Angkor Wat before it becomes a Disneyland. I've read that there was some plan to add a laser light show, and I'd rather get there before that happens."
But adventure travel has its pitfalls, and often they're related to travelers' risk-taking and carefree spirit. Two weeks ago I got an email from Hanoi, Vietnam that read: "Dear friends, I am on the English-teacher blacklist and am banned from returning to Taiwan until June 24, 2003. I suspect my ex-employer had something to do with this ? Wish me luck."
For the many with neither time nor foresight to go abroad, on-island vacations are enough. Usually they're in southern Taiwan. Darren Jorde, bass player for the band Milk, said that he and his band mates "are just gonna go down to Kenting. We'll just hang out and maybe, you know, jam all weekend."
There's also 35-year-old Huang Ching, a Taipei resident who works for a civil engineering firm who will be spending her first ever Lunar New Year away from her parents.
She's going to Taitung with a friend, and when asked whether she thinks she's being unfilial, she replied, "What! My parents see me every day. I've spent every New Year with them so far. How is that unfilial!"
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