Author: Andy Boyer

For no reason whatsoever, I decided to close out my trip to Taiwan with a long hike in the Tawianese forest.  I guess I can’t say "no reason."  Vittorio and I had taken a gondola up to the hills to see some pretty big temples, but he had to leave to catch his flight back to Europe.  I still had another 5 hours to kill, so I thought 3 of them could be effectively used wandering around the woods.

Plus, my Lonely Planet guidebook, which hadn’t really been right or useful all week, said there was this crazy temple buried in a wall behind the waterfall.  I had to see it. So off I went, up the rock stairs into the unknown forest.

I’m not sure why I expected it to be less humid in the middle of the forest.  But it wasn’t.  And I guess I forgot about the fact that there would be bugs, because there were.  Otherwise, the hike started stupendously.

It didn’t take too long for me to start talking to myself, mainly cursing how this idea had enetered my head.  Why couldn’t I have stumbled on the page in the guidebook that mentioned an air conditioned museum, or better, maybe a  martini bar. 

But I would carry on.  After all, when is the next time I would be able to see a temple in a waterfall?

After a few km, I reached a key fork in the road.  Unfortunately for me, the brilliantly marked signage did not mention which diretion my destination was.  I would be forced to use the guidebook, which to this point had gotten me lost on well marked city streets in two different countries.  Now I would use it for an unmarked forest trail.  Yippee.

I slogged through the trail when a frightening thought hit me.   Vittorio had left me in a totally different place than I was now.  Literally no one in the world knew where I was.  If I fell, I’d be one of those guys that just vanished off the planet.   Hmmm….

The hike was beautiful, except for the fact that I had no confidence in where I was going, and not very much hope that I was headed toward my mysterious temple.  The path kind of disappeared, but I finally found a creek, which seemed like a pretty good thing to follow if I was looking for a waterfall.  The bridge I came across did not instill confidence, but luckily the water was shallow enough to cross.

Anyway, after a few hours, I actually found this temple, and it was pretty cool – especially for something built into the side of a waterfall.  I walked through to take some pics from the other side, and there were actually some people inside there, which kind of freaked me out.  And they offered me tea.  Now, I thought it was a funny thing for people who don’t speak English to offer to sit down and pantomime with me.  But I appreciated the gesture, despite the fact that drinking unfiltered Taiwanese forest water before getting on an 11 hour flight seemed like a poor idea.  I passed on the tea, and headed back to the gondola, content with the way the trip was coming to an end.

You can say this for Taiwan – you certainly can’t get bored from a lack of experiences. Consider our range of activities in 72 hours in Taipei and the surrounding areas.

• Gorging on a variety of strange foods bought from street vendors for $.50, in nighttime street markets.
• Taking an elevator to the top of the world’s tallest building.  A 600 meter per second journey that goes 89 floors in 47 seconds.
• Taking a subway out to the Beitou Hot Spring, and getting in natural cold, warm and hot pools with 50 people who didn’t speak a lick of English.
• Wandering through a giant temple in the middle of a downtown park.
• Bussing out to a natural park on the country’s north coast.
• Taking a gongola ride up 2,000 meters to reach some temples, then hiking a few hours to find a nother temple carved into the wall of a waterfall.
• Nearly getting run over by one of the 198 million scooters that dominate the roads.
• Shopping at computer markets getting incredible deals on memory cards, USB drives and other small accessories.
• And then, eating more food from more night markets.

I’ll slowly get the pictures up to illustrate some of these activities, but the basic story is one of Taiwan being one of the most diverse places I have visitied.  After the fury and fervor of Hong Kong, Taiwan could easily be termed disappointing or unexciting.  But when you look at the wide range of activities, it really is quite a fantastic place.  5 million residents is nothing compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo, but it’s still a major city with more to offer than you can do in 3 days.  Plus, Taipei represents the very top of a long island.  There are another 18 million people in the rest of the country, in areas we didn’t even contemplate visiting.

When you consider how close it is to all the major Asian hubs, like Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc… it really becomes a place that could easily be the start and end points for my next Asia vacation.  

With Hong Kong as the only Asian country I had visited, I expected Taipei to share the same frenetic energy.  Perhaps it was because we arrived at out hotel after midnight, or because of the rain, but we walked around downtown Taipei trying to get our brain adjusted to the more reasonable pace.

It became obvious quickly that while Hong Kong was very westernized and street hawkers wanted to sell us watches, suits and cameras, Taipei markets were mainly about food.  great great food at every little booth, all for $.50 to $1.00.  Barely any English was being spoken, even in the most popular markets, so ordering or asking questions is more a game of charades than actual speaking.

if Hong Kong is New York on steroids, I don’t know what Taipei is.  It’s certainly big (5 million people) and spreadout, but it’s buildings are generally 10 stories, not 80.  (Except of course for the tallest building in the world, Tower 101, which is essentially Taiwan’s shout of, "Hey, we can build tall stuff if we want to.  See?")

Temples, gardens, parks, and hot springs abound, so the city feels like someplace someone can actually live.  we are doing the area at breakneck speed, including tour buses (something we would never ordinarily do) so we can cover more ground.  We’ll get some pics up soon.   

I guess I’m really off the marketing track here….

When the chaos bcomes overwhelming, there is Lamma Beach.  A quick 30-40 minute ferry ride to the southwest, and you land on an island with no cars or rodas, just walking paths from side to the other.  A few beaches are located in strategic points.  

Aside from the neat pier of seafood restaurants (that aren’t as cheap as you’d expect), there really isn’t much to do besides hike and relax, which is absolutley what you ant to do after a few days in the city.

A small disappointment, though not totally unexpected, is the beach water.   While the sand is quite lovely and the surrounding foliage leafy and green, the water is not the clear blue Mediterranean water Vittorio was expecting.  And really all you need to do is stare at the horizon to figure out why.  Instad of a row of sailboats gently bobbing on the sea, you see a line of freighter ships and tankers steaming to Hong Kong Piers.  I think Vittorio had visions of South Pacific in his head which were shattered by the sight of mammoth, double hulled transports.

Maybe worse, was the fact that the power plant that provides the juice for all of Hong Kong is sitting in the bay.  On one angle, pretty view, on the other, a giant monstrosity.  Very unsettling. 

But if part of the purpose was to explore a little and find a different area of Hong Kong, then we succeeded.  Plus how can you complain about a  place where you lunch on the fish that are caught in the seas under your feet.  

Off to Taipei tomorrow.