After spending some time in the capital, Dave and Jen embarked on a
south ward trip to the historic city of Tainan. (The previous capital of
Taiwan). After purchasing tickets, with a piece of paper writen by the
English speaking Information Assistant, which probably said "We are two
stupid White people who should have learned more Mandarin, but please
help us buy two train tickets to Tainan..." The train was a four hour
trip south via the Mountain route, and on the way we saw some beautiful
scenery of Taiwanese farmland and mountains. We checked into our new
hotel, much cleaner and nicer than Happy Family and cheaper too! Then
we had a look around town. Tainan is the fourth biggest city in Taiwan,
but it is noticeably slower paced than Taipei. It is filled with old
temples and monuments and so off Dave and Jen went, walking through the
streets in the rain looking for historic sights. Jen quickly got fed up
with having saturated shoes and soggy feet and so bought some gum boots
for 10 AUD which quickly lightener her mood. Too distracted by deep
fried spicy chicken we had just purchased from a road side vendor we
missed the street we were supposed to go down and ended up walking on
the road about half an hour out of town and out of our way without
realising. When it became obvious that we had clearly gone too far we
turned around again, soaking wet back towards town. Jen was stopped by a
lady in her car with an umbrella poking out her window, pleading Jen to
take her umbrella. She was not going to take no for an answer, so Jen,
bewildered at such hospitality, took the offering and said thankyou in
Mandarin a million times. The lady then drove off in the complete
opposite direction. Both Dave and Jen could not believe what had
happened, but then remembered Taiwan's reputation as having the most
friendly people and thought this was only natural to them!
Dave and Jen left Tainan for Lukang (Lugang), about 2 hours north of
Tainan in Central Taiwan, a place which is renowned for its food.
Again, having no idea where we were going or how to communicate to ask
for directions, a kind lady at the train information centre wrote us out
little cards saying "Can you please help us buy a bus ticket for
Lugang" and "Do you know where hotel ____ is?" Dave and Jen got on the
bus fine, but then realised that we did not know which stop to get off
at, neither being to Lugang before, we had no idea what it looked like
or what to expect. Jen approached two young teenagers and asked if they
spoke English and it turned out that they were getting off at the same
stop. This was lucky, considering Hello and Thankyou only get you so
far! These two kind Taiwanese teenagers, not only helped us work out
where to get off, but then proceeded to walk with us for half an hour
(I'm sure out of their way) to our hotel! When Dave tried to offer to
buy them lunch or give them some money they would not accept it, all
they wanted was a photo, if that would not be too much trouble for us.
Jen happily stood head and shoulders above our two taiwanese friends as
Dave snapped away. They probably just wanted to take our photo to prove
to their friends that their stories of the massive white people were
not made up...
Lukang definately has a lot of interesting food. Cow's tongues seem
to be sold everywhere. A dough sought of bread thing that is squished
and then fried to resemble a cow's tongue that tastes kind of weird and
comes in a whole array of flavours, strawberry, brown sugar, green
tea... Pork buns seem to be sold everywhere and more sweet bread! Dave
got a particular taste for these donut looking things, which were
really just croissants in the shape of a donut and bought 20! Everytime
we walked past his stand, the shop keeper would look at us and wave and
smile like an old friend... Dave was, after all, his best customer!
Dave and jen woke up early the next morning to check out the morning market. The whole town was transformed, what was the previous day a sleepy quiet place was not overrun with scooters, street vendors, shouting and chaotic traffic jams! Dave and jen happily explored the streets and market, jen buying too much fruit and boiled maize for brekki, while dave returned to his favourite shop for more donuts... When we'd had enough we started walking back to our hotel for a quick rest before we attempted the long journey back to Taipei. Jen felt a strong tap on her shoulder, then Dave did as well, we turned around and standing in front of us was a short, well built Taiwanese man in his late 40s. He motioned for us to follow him, and as we were curious and had time we followed...
It's probably important to point that this man did not speak one word of English and so instead our limited conversation consisted of hand gestures and smiles. He took us first to his wife's street side cafe and gave us each a large bowl of some sort of noodle soup. We were both already full from our breakfast, not 10 minutes earlier, and partially scared as to what comprises the bowl in front of us. Not wanted to be rude, Dave and Jen attempted to eat the noodle soup, with the help of spoonfuls of chilli, and were both particularly unsuccessful. However, Dave smiled and gave thumbs up, and Jen rubbed her stomach and said mmmmmmmmm, an onlooker probably thought we were re-acting out scenes from Friends -that episode of thanksgiving where Joey teaches the rest of them how to appreciate Rachel's trifle... When our guide had thought Dave and Jen had endured enough noodle soup, he motioned for us to get up and then proceeded to take us around the market...
It seemed like our friend was the man of the town, walking straight down the middle of busy roads, waving and talking to everyone as we passed by, stopping at various places to give us fruit to try, or trying to get Jen to do womens work (shucking oysters), so then he could take Dave drinking or do Man stuff... The funniest part for Jen was seeing Dave try all the different types of fruit, and not being able to say no, Dave was so good at pretending he liked fresh coconut juice our friend gave him a whole bottle of it! He gave us about $50AUD worth of food for free from his street vendor friends and then took us over to a clothing store where he got the lady to give us two free pairs of shorts! It was very funny watching the owners measure Dave and debate which style and colour would suit him best, finally deciding on black 3/4 length shorts... After taking us around his town for about an hour, he took us back to the place where we met him, gave us his phone number and said goodbye. Dave and Jen were shocked with what they had just experienced, but liked Taiwan all the more because of it, and were astonished that this man had given us $100AUD at least, of fruit, vegetables and clothes, for nothing in return.
After a long journey back, via the coastal route this time, Dave and Jen arrived back at old faithful -Happy Family. Sick of the city and craving for the great outdoors, Jen suggested that Dave and Jen spend our last day in Yangmingshan National Park -about an hours bus trip out of town. Yangmingshan National Park is a beautiful mountainous area with spectacular views of Taipei and filled with native wildlife, volcanic sulphurous springs and a whole mess of stairs! We got off the bus and it was raining and misty, but we didn't let that stop Jen from enjoying being in the fresh air, away from the city. Dave and Jen decided to follow the road up to check out some of the sulphurous springs, only to discover that the fog was so thick you could not see anything, only knowing you were nearby by the overwhelming smell of rotten eggs! Jen thought that the summit trail of Mt Cising, might be a good way to spend the morning and so off Dave and Jen set on the 1.6km trail of stairs to the top. It was a beautiful hike, but it was a shame that at all the lookout spots all you could see was a sea of clouds. Jen decided that we should take longer trip down hill, hoping that it would be less steep, however it wasn't and in fact it was probably more precarious (did I mention Dave was wearing shoes with no grip, constantly falling over and smashing his wrist and his camera?) than the original... Dave and Jen arrived at HQ, saturated and tired and Dave very sore and thought it was a good idea to go back home.
Looking back on doing this hike of stairs through the middle of the National Park was probably not the best idea considering Dave and Jen were supposed to hike MT Kinabalu only two days later and Dave had not exercised for a VERY long time... Of course DOMS set in like nothing else and we could both hardly walk, even after long applications of super strength tiger balm to our weary calves!
With an afternoon to spare, Dave and Jen went down to 'Camera Street' to bargain for a new camera for Dave... After visiting a couple of stores, we finally found the winner. Jen walked in, found the camera Dave was after and smiling her best smile began to bargain with the owner for his best price. Jen managed to get his price down by at least 1000 TWD to a price which beats the Australian price by about 50$! This particular camera even included an American warranty, which would be very helpful to Dave in the near future...
Dave and Jen, tired from the long hike and hard bargaining, went to our favourite sweet bread store, stocked up on food for the early morning flight the next day and had an early night, both very much in love with Taiwan, and also looking forward to the coming events in Borneo...
