the jimmymac attack!

I recently had a day off and went on a day trip with a friend. I have spent almost all of my time in Taiwan in Taipei so I havn't seen much of the country. We took a train to Taoyuan which is actually quite close. It only took 40 minutes on the train but there's some nice places there and we were going to see some flowers and ride in kayaks and just have a relaxing day. When we arrived apparently there was no bus going to our destination. There were however about 30 taxi drivers willing to take us for a price. My friend is Taiwanese and I was letting her make all decisions since I could not communicate with anyone except her anyway. We got back on the train and went to another stop. This time we went into the tourist information office in the train station. There were 2 or 3 people in the office. My friend ended up talking at length to one guy. It turned out he was a taxi driver. Well again I let her make the decisions which was a mistake. The taxi driver was very persistent and my friend is easily swayed. It ended up in a haggle over the fair. He wanted 500 NT and she wanted to pay 400. I finally chose to go look for another taxi - there were 20 more outside. Well then the driver 'caved' and said ok, 400. My friend smiled and said, 'we win'. Like in the USA everyone is either a winner or loser in Taiwan. Yes, we won alright. When we got to the place and the taxi driver took off it turned out he left us at the bottom of the huge resevoir. To get to the resevoir and the kayaks and park would have been about a forty-five minute walk in the blazing sun and 32 degree temperature. We were in the middle of an ugly nowhere. No more taxis, no buses, no nothing. It was sad and depressing. Maybe the taxi driver thought he 'won'. He only got 400 but he did not have to drive the extra distance to where we wanted to go. Some people go the extra mile and some don't. Whatever happened we actually lost and I think really Taiwan and Taiwan tourism loses. If this is how tourists are treated no wonder Taiwan is not a hot tourism destination. In the end we just quit and took a bus back home again. It was all too much trouble to try to see something nice in Taiwan. And our special day off was a little disappointing. :-(