When the kids got back from GET week, they were told they had to go to school on Saturday. Apparently this is a deal the government makes with the people of Taiwan. The following week happened to have national holidays on Wednesday(Children's Day) and Thursday(Tomb Sweeping Day). So rather than making everyone come back to work for Friday before heading out for the weekend the government declared the Saturday before to be a work day. All businesses, schools, and government offices are supposed to be open for regular business and in return everyone gets a 5 day weekend instead of 2 two day breaks the next week.
We decided to use that time to tour central Taiwan since we weren't getting to see a lot of Taiwan otherwise. We started off with a drive up the west coast to Chiayi. We were a bit curious about Chiayi because the kids had an offer to go to a school there as well and we almost end up living there. It's been described to us as an urban-Asian-Boulder or Fort Collins. It's a medium sized university town on the edge of the mountains. Just outside of town you head up into Alishan National Park which is a big mountainous park similar to Rocky Mountain National Park except much more tropical. In Chiayi we borrowed bicycles for the day from our hotel and rode to Chiayi Park. We walked around the park and did a bit of geocaching. We also went to the top of Sun Shooting tower for a view of the area. Sun Shooting tower is an art museum, cafe, and landmark all in one. Then it was time to head back to the hotel and hit the road for Alishan. The roads were very twisty and narrow with trucks and tour buses often filling the way and scooters and motorcycles darting between cars. Probably some of the more uncomfortable driving I've ever done.
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| Floor of Sun Shooting tower |
We never actually went into Alishan National Park as it was far too crowded that weekend. Instead we stayed in the scenic area at Yi Pin Tea plantation in Rueli village. It was an actual working tea plantation on a mountain top surrounded by tea orchards, bamboo, and mountains. There was a vegetable garden right behind the hotel. The hotel itself seemed like it was not at all used to having western tourists and seemed to cater more to Taiwanese tour groups. These groups would all eat together in the restaurant and then tour around in a giant bus. The first night we were lucky enough to arrange dinner at the hotel. Turns out there were no restaurants in the area and all meals have to be at the hotel. But, if you don't tell them early in the day that you will want dinner you are out of luck. That night we went on a firefly walk organized by the hotel. Alishan is famous for fireflies. Somewhere between 3 and 42 different species depending on which guide you listen to or which plaque you read. I think 42 is closer to the truth. Anyway we went for a short walk through some fields and saw tons of fireflies. Then we went back to the hotel where they had organized some activities. These included pounding cooked rice in a giant mortar and pestle to make mochi for dessert, a variety of aboriginal dances, and a game where they spin you around blind folded and you then have to take a pitcher of water and dump it in a bowl.
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| Vegetable garden behind our hotel |
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| Sydney about to dump water somewhere near Piper's bowl |
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| Pounding Rice |
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| dividing up mochi with chopsticks |
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| Fireflies in Alishan |
The next day I made what was possibly the worst mistakes of the trip. We were going for what I thought was going to be a short hike of only 1.5 miles or less round trip. It was supposed to lead to a few caves and some waterfalls as well as Yuantan Pco-park. At least that is what the map showed. What I didn't realize(no contour maps) was that it was actually longer and essentially straight down to the bottom of the valley. I also didn't listen to one woman in Rueli who warned us it was steep. It was called Youth Ridge trail because it was used originally to bring supplies into Rueli and the trail was so named because only the youth of the village had the endurance to climb it. It started off as a gentle walk through beautiful tea plantations but very quickly started dropping down one set of steep stairs after another. It was very scenic but in almost no time we were a thousand vertical feet below our starting point with more descending to go just to get to a road. Margaret had wanted to drive to the sites. Since finishing herceptin in January she has felt better but still has been suffering through out the trip from aromasin side effects of intermittent hip, knee pain along with wrist and shoulder tendonitis. Worsened pain and fear of heights made her not enjoy the steep descent. Climbing back up would have been torture for her and probably impossible before sunset. I made matters worse by not being sympathetic and just trying to push everyone to get to the end. We had heard there was one bus in the early afternoon that we could catch from the bottom of the trail back up to Rueli. If we missed that bus we were going to have to walk all the way back up. We made it with about 15 minutes to spare but by then no one was having any fun. Along the way were some women we call the "Hello Kitty Girls" of society. Their husbands had driven them to the bottom of the hill so they could take a short walk to the waterfalls while wearing cute dresses and shoes to pose for pictures while other women were fully decked out in hiking gear, boots and hiking poles. One husband even held an umbrella as sun shade for his wife since she was holding hiking poles in each hand to descend stairs that weren't half as steep as the other side. Made me look like quite the big asshole in comparison. Anyway we were sitting at a little road side stall, exhausted and grumpy, waiting for the only afternoon bus when the bus just blew right on by without even stopping. I chased it up the road but it did no good. At that point Margaret would have been completely justified in killing me. Fortunately a man also sitting at the stall turned out to be a taxi driver and for a fairly steep price offered to take us all back up to Rueli. Margaret had heard him talking on the phone and jokes that he called the bus driver to tell them there were no passengers at the bus stop. I loaded everyone else into the taxi and then I spent the afternoon exploring the valley. I wanted to figure out where the sites were so we could hit them with short walks from the car the next day.
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| Starting down... |
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| bottom of canyon |
The next morning after checking out from the hotel we drove down to Yuantan Eco Park. Their parking lot was completely stuffed with cars with no hope of finding parking so I dropped everyone off at the park entrance and drove a good way back up the mountain to another lot and then hiked back down a chunk of the trail we had hiked down the day before and which I had hiked up the evening before. I pretty much had it memorized. Yuantan Park has some various nice waterfalls and is quite scenic. The trails are flat and easy. There is also a restaurant for lunch. We spent a few hours exploring the area and then I hiked back up the trail a ways(having now seen some sections of it 4+ times) to get our car and then we headed off to the next scenic area of Taiwan-Sun Moon Lake.
Sun Moon lake reminds me a lot of Twin Lakes in Colorado. It is surrounded by green mountains. It is composed of two lakes, one is supposed to look like the moon and the other the sun, joined by a narrow connection. Like Twin Lakes the lake level and contour was changed substantially when a dam was built about 100 years ago. Even the size of the lake is similar. Sun Moon lake though is much busier with thousands of tourists. It has two main towns. One is more Chinese and the other more aboriginal. There are dozens of ferry boats crossing the lake between the two towns. The lake is completely surrounded by roads and has a dedicated bike bath around about a quarter of the lake. We stayed in the local youth activities center. These are hotels/hostels that are found in many Taiwanese national parks. Most look like they were built in the 70's and are a bit run down. However they are often in prime locations and are quite affordable. Margaret especially loved this one because each room came with a shower and two toilets each in their own separate little room/stall. No more waiting for the bathroom when sharing a room with the kids and me!
For our one full day in Sun Moon we split up. Margaret went to the Formosan Aboriginal Village. This is a local theme park accessed via a tram. It has cherry groves, some rides, and exhibits on all the aboriginal cultures of Taiwan. The kids and I took a ferry across the lake and rented bikes and rode the bike trails that went around part of the lake. It was very beautiful but crowded. We had lunch at a pizza restaurant that had been built under a highway overpass and rode to the end of the bike trails. The last mile or two of which had some steep hills and much fewer people. In the evening we met back up with Margaret and explored the evening market fo Yi Da Shao-the more aboriginal of the two villages on the lake.
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