When checking out of the Taipei hotel, the guy running the place asked if he could take a photo of us. This was a bit odd but we obliged, with our big backpacks. Who knows what the photos will be used for! We continued to borrow the Taiwan Lonely Planet, with the intention of returning it when we came back to Taipei for our flight out to the next destination.

We were heading off to Tainan, another large city in Taiwan . There were various train options for getting there, ranging from a high speed railway train, taking less than two hours, to a slow local train, taking six. We opted for the cheap local train, which took five and a half hours and passed very pleasantly. We think this is the first train we've taken since leaving the UK - if you discount metros, airport AirTrains and trolleys, which we do. (We remember now - it's actually the first train since Peru!) It was a nice relaxing journey, with plenty of leg room and time to read. Plus we'd picked up takeout vegetarian food from a buffet in the basement of the Taipei main bus station so had good food to accompany the journey.

On arriving at a busy Tainan train station, we sought assistance from the Tourist Information booth on buses to get to our hotel. The nice ladies gave us the information we wanted and off we went to get the bus. The bus turned up after a few minutes, but instead of letting passengers on, closed it's doors and parked up . We waited another half an hour before giving up and getting a taxi.

The hotel was fine. Though our room smelt a little like cigarettes, everything else was good. Plus we had a free breakfast thrown in. We identified a nearby vegan restaurant and went there for dinner. On the way, we realised that Tainan does not take pedestrian safety as seriously as in Taipei. With pavements ending abruptly or turning into eateries, no lights to enable people to cross the road safely, and scooter drivers driving at us, it felt a lot more dangerous. When we reached the restaurant, Ken decided to opt for the stinky tofu - this being a Taiwanese dish of fermented (rotten) tofu, a local delicacy. The waiter warned us that their stinky tofu was particularly stinky. Ken went for it anyway. It really stank and wasn't pleasant to eat either. Jayna's food was, however, very nice.

The Lonely Planet gave us a suggested walking tour of temples and local sights in the centre of Tainan, near where we were staying . As we had limited time, we thought this was a great idea and on Sunday 13th, did a long walk around lots and lots of temples. The walking tour took in 12 different temples (Confucius, Great South Gate, Wufei, Fahua, Koxinga's Shrine, Lady Linshui, Dongyue, City God, Altar of Heaven, Official God of War, Chihkan and Matsu), but we saw those and twice as many again along the way, not mentioned in the Lonely Planet. The highlights included the particularly ornate temples, and those with a story. Such as the Matsu temple, where five concubines hung themselves and now their graves are said to be in several different places, including Koxinga's Shrine, with the concubines shrine being at Wufei Temple.

We took lunch at a local Loving Hut, which was delicious as usual, and coincidentally met a couple on the street who we'd spoken to at breakfast. We drank tea and, in investigating a side street, came upon some parade that we didn't understand. There were people carrying a kind of chariot, and a band and singing, and a man was covered in blood. There was incense and suddenly the crowd started backing into us, when extremely loud firecrackers started going off. Ken decided to head after the band, and the firecrackers followed us into a narrow alleyway, from which there was no escape. It was genuinely scary and we high-tailed it out of there as soon as we could. We went to more temples to calm down and would sometimes hear more explosions going off in the distance.

One of our final temples, Chihkan, had the remains of a Dutch fort, built in 1653, as it's base. It has since gone through several iterations as Ming, Qing, Japanese and Kuomintang (China's Nationalist Party) and had a great feel to the place.

In the evening, we went back to the vegan restaurant and didn't order stinky tofu. However, someone else did and it really stank. Luckily, he ate it quickly and that helped the smell to dissipate. We could still smell it when we got back to the hotel. It's truly something not to be forgotten!

Next stop - Kenting!