My latest adventure took place in Taiwan. My girlfriend Mary and I spent 9 days over the holidays exploring the island from the Northern to Southern tips. We hiked through gorges, climbed coastal, sandstone rocks, drove scooters, had encounters with monkeys, ate amazing food, and met lovely people everywhere we went.
Before I begin with the details, I should provide a little background information on Taiwan, since some of you might not know much about this place. Let's start with some geography. Here's a map:
As you can see, Taiwan is a small island East of China and North of the Philippines. The Tropic of Cancer cuts right through the middle of the island, so you could call it a tropical island.
Now for a brief history (this is important!). Taiwan is known as being inhabited by people of Chinese descent, which is true. But what you may not know is that before the Chinese immigrated there, the island was inhabited by several aboriginal tribes dating as far back as 10,000 BC. The Chinese didn't start coming to Taiwan until the 15th century, and only in small numbers. It wasn't until the Communist Revolution in China succeeded after World War II that many Chinese fled to Taiwan (approx. 2 million) to escape Mao's regime. The new Chinese immigrants in Taiwan formed the Republic of China (not to be confused with the People's Republic of China, which is mainland China's official title), and separated themselves from the rest of China. However, Taiwan still believed that mainland China was theirs and were just waiting for Communism to fail. At the same time, mainland China was, and still is, believing that Taiwan is part of China. In reality, they are two separate nations, and Taiwan is independent from China. So the vast majority of Taiwanese people are of Chinese descent and speak Mandarin, and only about 2% of the population is aboriginal, and most of them have assimilated to Taiwanese culture and speak Mandarin.
Ok, so now to our adventure! I flew into Taipei (Taiwan's capital and largest city) on Saturday Dec. 22 by myself. Mary's flight included a 24 hour layover in Shanghai and wouldn't arrive to Taipei until the evening of the next day. A friend of a friend lives in Taipei and offered to let Mary and I stay at his place for a few days. So I explored the city on my own and met up with my host in the evening. Taipei is very much like every other large Asian city I have visited: crowded, lots of advertisements, an efficient subway system, and not a lot of attractions or sites that appeal to me. After exploring the city for most of Sunday, I felt pretty ready to move on to other parts of the country. However, I did still enjoy my time. I visited a memorial for a former leader, ate some delicious greasy food (most of the food was quite greasy!), and went to a very busy Buddhist temple and got a more Chinese take on Buddhism as opposed to my usual Korean temple experiences (busier, louder, more decoration and designs, and a very prominent presence of dragons).
Mary arrived Sunday evening, and we went to a night market so seek out a certain food called "chung yo bing" that a friend had recommended to me. It took us a while to find it, but once we did, we were in love. We ordered seconds because it was so tasty! Night markets are something we found in every city we visited. And if you're wondering what a night market is, imagine a street or district of town with a lot of vendors selling cheap clothes, jewelry, art, touristy stuff, and cheap street food. We enjoyed every night market we visited and probably bought at least one item from each market.
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| Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial |
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| One of the popular temples in town. |
Monday morning, we took a bus up to the Northern coast of Taiwan to an area called Long Dong. The coastline consists of many dramatic sandstone rocks and cliffs. And on these rocks and cliffs are hundreds of rock climbing routes! So we brought our climbing gear with us and spent two days climbing the rocks with the beautiful, blue ocean in the background. It was one of the most beautiful coastlines I've ever seen. It reminded me a bit of the Northern California coast, but more dramatic and with bluer water!
Remember when I said that one of the main ingredients of an adventure is a bit of fear? Well our two days at Long Dong were full of it for me! Rock climbing has always given me at least a little bit of fear, which is part of the appeal to me. I know I'm safe, but it's still a little scary, and I enjoy the rush. But Long Dong required us to walk some pretty harrowing paths to get to the climbing spots. Remember when Frodo and Sam were climbing up Mordor to dispose of the ring, and they were scaling cliffs that could throw them to their death? Well, Mary and I were Frodo and Sam, scaling treacherous cliffs where death awaited us at the bottom of these rocks! Of course Mary was fearless, and I had to follow her and pretend to be a brave, fearless boyfriend when in reality I was close to wetting my pants. Clearly, since I am writing this after the fact, I did not fall to my death or have any accidents. Thankfully neither did Mary. And I hope to not do that again!
The actual rock climbing was great, we did some challenging climbs that pushed us both. We also met some other Taiwanese and Chinese climbers who shared their ropes with us and helped us find good routes to climb. They were just one example of Taiwanese people being nothing but generous and helpful.
Monday night, we camped out there on the rocks. No one else was anywhere in sight, we were completely isolated out there. Just us and the elements of nature! It was a nice change from spending the previous two nights in noisy, busy Taipei.
On Wednesday, we took a bus from Taipei down to the city of Hualien, which is halfway down the East coast. Once we arrived in Hualien, we rented a scooter and drove 45 minutes to Taiwan's most beautiful spot: Taroko Gorge. To describe the beauty of this place, I would tell you to imagine the rockiness of Yosemite, put it in a large gorge or canyon, have the bluest river you've seen running through the bottom of it, and cover the rocks and mountains with lush, tropical vegetation. Throw a hot spring and a few macaque (pronounced macow) monkeys in the mix, and you've got Taroko Gorge. It was nature done perfectly.
We spent two days and two nights hiking the many paths and trails past waterfalls, temples, shrines, and through the forests that cover the gorge. We camped at a nice camp site that had an actual toilet (Taiwan very much embraces the squatter toilets) in the middle of the park and slept to the sound of the river. Having a scooter was the best way to go because the park is quite large and it allowed us to maximize our exploration. We spent both of our evenings at a natural hot spring at the edge of the river. Some people had taken some marble rocks and formed a small pool for the hot spring water to pour into. So even though the cold river was rushing right next to us, we were comfortable in a hot, steamy pool.
On Friday morning, we were able to hike a special trail that requires a permit. Apparently this trail is not very well advertised, because we practically had the whole trail to ourselves. It was a nice 3.5 hr hike that took us high up the gorge and was the first place where we encountered the macaque monkeys. They kept safe in the trees, but were very curiously watching us the whole time. Seeing monkeys in the wild was one of the highlights of my trip!
Later on Friday, we were sad to leave Taroko, but knew there was still so much more to see in the country. We drove our scooter back to Hualien, spent a few hours walking around their market area, then took a train down to the Southern tip to an area called Kenting National Park. However, our train only took us to a city North of the park, and we still needed to drive about one hour South to get into Kenting. We figured we'd take a bus, get into Kenting around 9pm, and hopefully find a motel. I was pretty tired and was not feeling thrilled about having to walk around trying to find a motel. Luckily, the lovely Taiwanese people saved the day for us once again. Right as we were walking out of the train station, a young couple was talking to a cab driver and asked us if we would like to share a cab with them to Kenting and split the cost. We decided that'd be a lot more enjoyable and comfortable than taking a bus. Two more girls joined us (it was a large cab) and we went on our way. They all spoke decent English, so we had some pleasant chats with them. 5 minutes into the drive, one of the girls was asking the cab driver about where to buy fruit. All of a sudden, he makes a u-turn and takes us to a fruit market! We all got out and bought a plethora of delicious, local fruits (Mary and I bought a pineapple, some cherries, and a bunch of bananas). We got back into the cab and continued on our way. One of the girls asked us where we were staying that night, and we said we didn't have anything booked yet. All of them were shocked by this bit of news, and so one of the girls got on her phone, spoke to someone in Mandarin for a minute, then asked us, "Do you want a motel on the beach for $30?" Umm, yes we do! And just like that, we had accommodation for the night! And this motel was SO NICE and SO COZY! After spending the last six nights camping and sleeping on a couch, this motel was pretty much heaven. I was hoping to wake up to terrible weather the next day so I could just lie around this cozy room all day, but we woke up to good enough weather and we embarked on our next adventure in Kenting.
Kenting is a national park unlike any I have seen. It is full of small towns and is quite developed. There were many campy tourist attractions and a bustling night market. It still contained many beautiful nature parks and beaches and we had a wonderful time there. We rented another scooter and drove all over the area. We encountered more macaque monkeys, visited a place where fire literally comes from the ground (there are natural gases constantly rising from the ground and people have ignited these gases. We roasted marshmallows while others roasted popcorn), and went on some nice hikes. We were told the weather would be the best in Kenting, which was one of the reasons we went down there since the weather we'd had thus far was cloudy, slightly drizzly, and about 65 F / 18 C. However, the weather in Kenting ended up being the worst that we experienced for the whole trip. It was cool, rainy, and very windy. On our second day, the wind was so strong that we were nearly blown off our scooter! We ended up having a lazy afternoon that day instead of fight the elements.
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| One of the couples that picked us up hitchhiking. |
On Monday, we decided we would take an overnight train from Taitung to Taipei, since we had to be at the Taipei airport Tuesday morning. Since it was New Years eve, we figured finding a cheap motel in Taipei would be almost impossible, so an overnight train seemed like the best idea. So we hitchhiked from Kenting to the train station, then took a train to Taitung. We had about 8 hours to kill there, so we explored the town. It wasn't the most exciting town, but we found a really fun art and music district that was full of local art installments and a park where people were performing music. We drank some coffee there in the park, enjoyed the music, and paroused the vendors selling artwork.
We were told that there would be some great New Years Eve festivities by the local aboriginal tribes. We were told a general direction to walk to find these festivities, so at 8pm we started walking, hoping to have some sort of celebration for New Years Eve. After about 15 minutes of walking, we found ourselves in a dark, quiet residential neighborhood with no festivities in sight. Discouraged, we contemplated just turning back and heading to the train station. But here came more Taiwanese people to save the day! A van pulled up and asked us what we were doing. After explaining to them what we were looking for, they pointed at the house behind us and told us to go there. We initially thought that was a bit weird to just knock on a random house, but they strongly insisted, so we nervously walked to the door and knocked. When the door was opened, we saw a huge family of about 20 having a New Years party. They called the one English speaker to the door, and we asked him if he knew where the aboriginal festivities were, and he said "They're right here!" And I said, "Wait, this is the aboriginal New Years festivities?" And he said, "Well, we're aborigines, and we are having a celebration. So yes! Come on in!" The whole family started laughing and cheering loudly as they welcomed us into their home. The English-speaker asked us a few questions about ourselves and then translated for the group.
Soon enough, the family was tired of asking questions and just wanted to party with us. All of the adults were clearly drunk and had red-stained teeth. They sat us down on their couch and began shoving food at us and insisting that we eat, even though we told them we had just eaten dinner. To not be rude, we ate (I more than Mary), and all of the food was actually quite good. They turned on some traditional music and had us stand up and dance with them. We all held hands and did some aboriginal dances around the coffee table. They even dressed Mary and I up in traditional clothes. We were all laughing hysterically and having a great time. I was shocked by how quickly they just welcomed us into their home, included us in their celebration, and were so eager to share their culture with us.
After about 45 minutes, they told us we needed to go with one of their friends to a larger celebration. We hopped on his scooter (three of us on one scooter!) and he drove us down the road to meet up with a group of approximately 100 men, all dressed in traditional clothing. They were loudly singing songs, banging on drums, and walking from home to home. They would literally walk into these people's homes, fill up the living room, and sing for about a minute. Then, they would all spill back into the street and walk to the next house. Again, they welcomed Mary and I whole-heartedly in this celebration and made sure we were in the heart of it. They explained that part of their culture is to be very inviting and welcome to strangers. Clearly this was part of their culture they strongly embraced!
At 10pm, it was time for us to head to the train station, so some of our new aboriginal friends drove us back to the station. What started as a New Years we thought would be mellow turned into a New Years we will never forget! We sat down in the train, looked at each other, and said "What just happened?!" It was all such a mad whirlwind of laughing, joyful yelling, eating, taking photos, singing, dancing, and wondering what the heck was going on. It was a perfect end to our trip.
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| Getting dressed in traditional clothes. |
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| Dancing around the coffee table. |
All in all, this trip was almost perfect. The only thing that could have been better was the weather. But frankly, it was much better than the brutal, winter cold of Korea! We met so many nice people that helped us graciously along our way, like a Mandarin-speaking French man who helped us at the train station after we somehow missed our train. Or the couples who picked us up hitchhiking. Or the many many people who just asked us out of the blue if they could help us with anything. We saw more beauty than I expected to see. We ate better food than we have eaten here in Korea, and for very cheap! And yet, so many people asked us, "So, why did you choose Taiwan for your vacation?" as if we were nuts to want to go there. But we thought they were nuts for even asking. Why wouldn't we want to go to Taiwan?! It was an incredible trip, there wasn't a dull day or an unhappy experience.
Taiwan, you were great to us! Thank you.
