After eight days of exploring the countryside of Taiwan, we find ourselves weather bound with torrential rain, thunder and lightening making the pleasures of the romantically named Sun Moon Lake a little harder to discover.

It's OK though.

We have a 5th floor fabulous hotel room right on the lake, good books to read and time to reflect on the amazing sights and experiences of our time in Taiwan.

From the stunning marble gorge and Mountains of Taroko, to the beautiful rock formations of Green island, the temples of Tainan to the tempest at Sun Moon Lake we've experienced natural beauty of a world class standard.

The most striking and beautiful of all is the kindness and helpfulness along the way. If we are lost (which is quite often!) help just materialises. We can be looking at a map standing on the footpath and someone going by on a scooter stops to help and point us in the right direction.

We had a major hiccup to our plans caused by an innocent typo this trip. The outcome truly illustrates this kindness. I had emailed Jack's Inn, our chosen accommodation on Green Island about pre booking our ferry to the island. In the return email confirming tickets it said 3.30 but should have said 13.30. We arrived at the ferry terminal to find our ferry had long gone and there were no more that day. Our booked accommodation was on the island and we had no idea where we were going to sleep now!

The ferry office let us use their phone to speak to Jack and explain about the email discrepancy and that we would now be coming in the morning.

We started walking with our backpacks and asked a young lad who had served us lunch in a local eatery which way should we walk to find accommodation as we could see none. He immediately looked up on his phone two options and pointed us in the right direction. Not long after as we walked along he pulled up on a scooter and tried to explain in halting English that one of the options would be better as they might speak English.

He'd left his restaurant especially to continue to help. Next he rang the better option, the "Sea Level" to see if there was a vacancy for us, confirmed it, then rode his scooter ahead showing us the way.

The room turned out to be perfect to rest our weary legs and regroup to sort out our dilemma. Once on wifi, we found we had an email that said we didn't have to pay for the unused night on Green Island or the unused ferry tickets. I can't imagine that happening in Oz! Jack had booked tickets for the morning ferry for us and all was good with the world.

We've been mostly travelling around by train and it is very easy and well organised. The trains are spotlessly clean,modern and relatively cheap.

This is not a country where you hear anger or see drunkenness in the streets. There aren't pubs in evidence at all just alcohol served in restaurants or to be purchased from grocery stores for home consumption.

Even the rubbish trucks here are a delight. They drive around playing "Mr Whippy" type music alerting everyone in plenty of time to bring out their rubbish.

Taiwan has been an amazing destination. We've hardly seen or talked to any Europeans and seen no Australians. It is under rated and over looked as a destination but shouldn't be!