The airport in Taipei seems crappy and run-down; it's lino-floored and filled with those tired yellow lightboards you see at BKK. At least in my present frame of mind, it feels tiny and provincial, like arriving on some forgotten island.

Strange things happen and nothing is clear. We need an ATM, a public phone and a busride - in that order - yet everything is opaque, misleading.

The ATM refuses to dispense anything but $1000 bills; then the tourist information desk blanks our query about where to buy an EasyCard for transport (we end up in a Cleese-worthy exchange where we ask for one thing, and he gives us directions for another thing entirely. 'EasyCard?' we ask. 'Ah! ATM!' he answers. 'Public phone?' we try. He says, 'You rent mobile?', closely follwed by, 'You need bank?' Our final query, 'Change for phone?' elicits much head shaking and remorse, as he leads us to a machine selling phonecards and delares there are no phones in Taiwan that accept coins - while I notice we are merely steps away from one which does ...)

The whole place feels daggy-dreamy and surreal, not at all high-tech.

The very first thing to greet you as you exit the airbridge is a large sign declaring that the ROC enforces the death penalty for drug trafficking. It's stark and scary. Before clearing immigration, we pass lightboards advertising medicinal pills filled with 'the nutrition of clams'. We walk over an ancient, pustule-grey rug made from coiled plastic loops, which has emblazoned on it, 'DISINFECTING CARPET'. Customs officials wear gleaming white socks, pants and shoes - lending the place the feel of an odd, time-warped golf club.

Eventually, we break the thousand dollar notes, get 100s, which we then feed into a machine to exchange for 10s, then into another machine go the 10s to become 1s, 2s and 5s. A call to R, at whose guesthouse we are spending one night, is placed and we eventually get on a bus to Tapei's main train station.

The bus is decorated with vinyl that was once offcuts from your grandmother's shower curtain: green-grey explosions of daisies and dahlias and babies' breath pepper the seats, walls and ceiling. Madness. QUITE the contrast after HK!

The bus journey is endless and wearisome, and there's still a train to come after this. Long time 'twill be before bed. Traffic is awful, freeways gigantic. Yet still something sleepy - not the frantic, busy-bustling Asia I crave. Curious, intriguing - I read on the plane in Cathay's magazine that HK workers sleep less than the inhabitants of any other city, with the exception of Taipei and Tokyo. Curiouser and curiouser ...

Turbulence on the way in felt like we were going to die. People at the front screaming as the plane fell nose-downwards through air that refused to hold us. All around was confining, fearsome cloud. No sight except the flashing wingtip light. Plane rocking like a dead bird caught in electrical wires. Horrible, horrible. Drops like those on a rollercoaster, where your body's in one place, and your stomach another. The pilot kept putting the thrusters up and up, gunning the plane like a car that's in trouble. Fear grew in the cabin like cancer cells dividing.

When we finally saw landlights, we were barely above them, yet the houses and roads and streetlamps were all shrouded in some kind of soupy mist. 'Cloud can't be down at street level, can it?' 'Must be pollution - revolting!'

A second later, we recognised it for what it was - hard, sleeting, sheeting rain - so heavy and burdensome it had turned the entire city to grey. As we skidded and shuddered onto the slick tarmac, the rain kept crashing down on every surface in twisting, serpentine sheets. Iron curtains falling from the sky.