The Maokong Gondola

 

We (I) put off riding the famous Maokong Gondola, which takes you from the zoo to Maokong, because I was worried it was too warm. No air conditioning or fans, windows only cracked open at the top for obvious safety reasons, and all of us in a little glass bobble for half an hour in Taipei, in August, seemed like a terrible ants-on-fire sort of situation.

 

But actually it wasn’t bad!

 

Naomi finally convinced us (me) to go late one afternoon, and so our crew schlepped across the city, taking the brown line to its very end, to climb aboard a gondola. And with some ventilation from both the top windows as well as some ventilation holes along the bottom of each gondola, and heading into the evening, it wasn’t too warm at all.

 

The views were incredible, looking over the city at sunset.

 

At that time of day, and perhaps at this time of the season, there was no line at all. You can bring your stroller right into a gondola, and while each one fits 5-8 people, I think they space you out if they can, and each of the four times we rode it, we were on our own. It takes about half an hour to ride from the bottom to the top, which is four stations total, although you can get off at any of the stations along the way.

 

As a nice bonus, they provide plastic fans for you in each gondola.

 

 

Whee! There are occasionally some stomach lurching moments as the gondola speeds up and swings down.

 

 

On the way back down, it got dark fast, and it’s quite dark out there. The gondola closes around 9pm (I think).

 

As someone who gets motion sickness in general, sitting in the pitch black in a swinging gondola is definitely a good way to bring on motion sickness, but we all made it back alive.

 

 

***

 

It was so much fun and also so relatively inexpensive that we rode it again another

day, starting earlier in the morning. It’s about $5 CAD/person, although I think Naomi, age 6, could’ve gotten a cheaper ticket if we went to the ticket booth to purchase it separately. I didn’t want to queue for that since Naomi has an Easy/Octopus/Presto card for all public transit that just tapped her on. Junia rode for free.

 

The gondola opens at 9:00 but we didn’t get there until around 10:00. This time we waited the extra time for the “crystal cabin” with the clear floors, and it was another fun ride. In the daylight, we could see so much of the city, and the tea farms, and forest.

 

 

 

What a gift to catch another perspective on this beautiful city.

 

Don’t forget the bug spray!