Mandarin?

Boy, am I having trouble understanding people here. The pronunciation is so different from Beijing Mandarin. The differences that I notice are that "zh" is pronounced like "z" and "sh" like "s"( I'm talking pinyin here). People seem to understand me just fine, but I only get about half of what's spoken back to me (if that), which kind of puts a damper on the conversation.

Furthermore, there seems to be no standard system of transliteration here. For example, I've seen the name of the town where we're staying variously written as Zhongli (pinyin), Chungli (Wade-Giles?), Jungli (?) and even Jhungli (WTF??).

However, the language barrier hasn't been that much of a barrier to getting around. After all, it's more important that they understand me ( I want two tickets to Taipei, one adult, one child six years old...what track number?). And people here are very friendly and helpful.