A few years ago I found myself eating faeces-shaped ice cream from the U-bend of a miniature loo. A trip to Modern Toilet restaurant, one of five such culinary paeans to the bathroom in Taiwan, was the surreal highlight of a trip that covered all of the East Asian bases.
I ate featherlight dumplings at atmospheric night markets; I poked about gilded Buddhist temples that were thick with the aroma of sandalwood incense; I enjoyed oolong ceremonies in 16th-century teahouses where I could almost hear the bustle of Ming dynasty merchants; and I trekked through the eye wateringly sublime Taiwanese interior. Here, marble gorges plunge into blue-green rivers, and fissures in the earth’s crust bubble with the waters that supply Taiwan’s 130 hot springs (ideal for soothing trekkers’ muscles, once you get a grip on hot-spring etiquette).
