Last day of the trip

The last day of our little trip was spent at sun moon lake. We took a boat across the lake to a temple on a small peninsula. Again there was a guide on the boat who couldnt shut up and the amount of tourists was overwhelming. When we left the dock area however, the tourgroups thined out and we could walk along the hiking trail up the mountain by our selves. It was a rather hard walk on the hot day but satisfying to get up, first to the temple and then, after one more leg on the trail, the pagoda (a kind of tower) on the top of the mountain.

The pagoda was surrounded by white gravel and made a quit stunning view. Too bad that a earthquake had made it unsafe to climb the stairs of the tower since this is said to be the best view of the whole lake. Instead me and Kai played around a bit and burried me in the gravel. Going down was less fun than going up since i never like to go back the same way and i dont like to go down, but at least it was less work than going up.

The place the boat took us to was more of a village with houses and a small market. We decided to eat street food for lunch then went to a small stage nearby to look at an aboriginee song and dance show. Very much of it was karaoke style with pre recorded music but not bad. Then the decided to teach some peoplke from the audiance a dance and of course the only foreigner was selected to take part. I realy dont like this kind of thing especially when i cant understand the language so well so i escaped when i had a chance.

After the show we walk along the water for a while but decided against taking the cable car to the top of this hill. Instead we walked out on a floating jetty to look at the fish swimming around in small enclosures. We got some fishfood and fed the fish, it was amazing what a chaos some small food pelets can create.

When we ran out of fishfood we took the boat back to the hotel side planning to rent a small row boat there. I turned out that row boat season was over and we couldnt find one so we collected our bags from the hotel then went to the bus station. Luckily a guy offered us taxi to Taichung for just 25 NT (very little) more than the bus per person. This was great since the bus takes around 2 hours but the taxi only one hour. From Taichung we then took the bus back to Hsinchu.

From Kaohsiung to central Taiwan

Next day we woke up late and headed directly to the Kaohsiung museum of science and technology. We looked around at the different exhibitions for a while but found that most of them were either old, or borken or both. Especially the hands-on-learning type of excibitions were bad.

When we got tired of the museum we went to the citys new sports arena, built for the 2009 world games. On a side note I do not know what these world games are. Ive never heard of them outside Taiwan. Anyway, the arean was closed so we couldnt see much of that. Instead we went in to Kaohsiung city to have some dinner then stroled around for a while in a another nightmarket playing eating more nighmarket food, playing more nightmarket games. Then we took a train and bus to central Taiwan and Yinis Parents house for the night.

The next morning we played with Yinis nephew and generally took it easy. For lunch her dad took us to a small restuarant and then, as luck would have it he offered to drive us to our next destination, Sun moon lake. On the way there we made a short stop at the paper dome, a church whose roof is supported by gigantic paper tubes. Not particullarly beautiful but quit impressive.

When we came to the lake in the afternoon we walked around for a while looking at the changing view and beautiful scenery then went back to the hotel and relaxed befor going to bed.

Kaohsiung baby!

The catchphrase for the next two days of our trip was “KAOHSIUNG YEAH” One of the first stops on the way was a famous subway station with a rather artful ceiling. Next up was an island in the harbour. We rented a few bikes and took the ferry. We biked around the island for a while, checking out the old fort on the mountaintop, and a fishmarket. One extra fun thing was that our bikes could connect together to form a small train wich brought us alot of attention from others. This was a fun little biketrip.

When we came back to the mainland we ventured closer to water again, this time love river flowing through the city. Walking along love river was nice although very similar to walking along any other river in the evening. We had some dinner in a small shop close to the river and then we took a river cruise. The cruiseboat ofcourse had a guide who could not shut up and generally the cruise was not super nice but not too bad either. The high point being the boat roof that could be lowered to go under the low bridges. The brightly lit bridges were also a nice sight.

The evening was spent in much the same way as last one, walking around in Liuhe nightmarket, eating snacks and playing market games.

 

On a side note, i forgot to mention in my last post that me and Yinis friend Kai Joined us for this trip.

Trippin’

Knappt hann vi sova en natt efter Malaysia innan det var dags igen men lite mer lokalt denna gång. Vi satte av på söndag morgon med tåget till Tainan och Yinis kompis Jesse. Eftersom jag sett det mesta Tainan, eller i alla fall de vanligaste turistattraktionerna valde vi att rikta in oss på lite mer udda saker. Eftersom Jesse hade bil var det inga problem att åka ut till den stora salthögen en bit utanför staden. Av någon anledning har man samlat saltskörden på hög  Och nu är det en stor kulle. Regn har smält ihop det översta lagret och tusen fötter har smutsat ned det till en smutsig salttopp snarare än sockertopp med ett rullande lager av lösa saltkristaller längst ned.

Vi försöker knuffa en stor släde upp och åka ned men den är gjord för dekoration och därmed extra tung så att man inte ska kunna åka på den men likväl är det kul att försöka. För att få lite action i alla fall letar vi upp en liten bana där vi kör fyrhjulig motorcykel några varv.

När vi känner oss tillräckligt insaltade så kör vi till nästa mål, en våtmark där man ska kunna se en speciell fågel. Vi ser fåglarna på avstånd och letar oss ditåt bland leriga fält och jag ger mig ut på lite krabbjakt i leran, bara för skojs skull. När vi närmar oss fåglarna blir de rädda så vi vänder tillbaks och får reda på att bästa sättet att se fåglar är med kikare en bit bort.

Fåglar i all ära men hungern driver oss in mot staden igen. Efter maten driver vi runt ett litet tag och sen är det dags att ge oss av igen. Tåg tar oss till Kaohsiung och vårt hotel där. Vi vandrar runt ett litet tag och går sen och lägger oss.

Back from Malaysia

Day nmber 3 we took a tour, I normaly donbt like it but it sounded like a good option this time. Our small bus left early in the morning for Kinabalu park where we walked around in the botanical garden and our guid, who was surprisingly knowledgable told us about different plants. From there we rolled down the mountain and found a restuarant and had a nice meal. A bit of a drive later we came to another park area where we trecked up a rahter steep slope then climbed a set of stairs to a platform. Ahead of us lay four bridges among the treetops. It was a thrill to wlak out on the canopy walkways, mainly built from ropes and nets. The swung and bounced with every step and it was a long way down to the ground. Not for the feint of heart. I consider myself a rahter fearless fellow but even I felt slightly scared crossing the longest one which had the longst drop and the most bounce. This was clearly the high point of the day and the real reason to take this tour and not some other one. After that we got some free time to relax in the nearby hotspirng and cool pool before going home.

The next day was our last real day and we planned to go scuba diving. However the man at the other end had mixed up the time when we made reservations so we missed the morning dive. Having less than 18 hours to our flight it was too late for the afternoon one. (The body needs a fairly long time to equalize the preasure before flying in order not to get sick). So we stayed in late instead thgen went out in the afternoon. Once again we found our way down to the local boat docs and found a friendly man named sam who took us out in his little boat.

We went to an island again but not for swimming this time. Around the island closest to the city are several water villages with houses on stilts. Se sam drove his boat around there and let us look around at all the houses and small boats and such. This was, in short brilliant. The houses were nicer and less junky than the ones we saw in hong kong and most people waved to us in a friendly manner. When we came back from this fantastic little tour yini wanted  massage, since I am not a massage person i left her at a spa and walked around for a while and picked her up later. We went to the waterfront market to have some freshly barbequed seafood for dinner and that is pretty much it. The rest was just getting on the early flight back to Taiwan.

Malaysia

Well, I guess i’ll tell the story from the begining. When i was planing this trip to Taiwan, I booked the flight so that I could s'tay as long as possible then didnt really think about it for some time. Then, shortly before i left i checked everything again and discovered that I would stay one day more than the no visa period. So what do do, get a visa or try to cheat? The solution was to book a cheap flight to malaysia thus renewing the visa excempt period when we came back.

So on monday morning we left for malaysia and arrived in Kota Kinabalu in the afternoon. We spent the afternoon and evening just walking around in the city taking it easy. A bit too hot for my taste but nice. We ate simple food at small restaurants just like we would in taiwan only the food tasted better since the malaysians use more spices.

Next day we walked down to the waterfront and almost emediatly  an old man came up to us asking if we needed to go to the island – just what we had planned for. So we took his offer and set out in a small wooden boat to Manukan island about 15 min off the coast.
There are no real beaches in the city so this is where people go for beach life. Almost the whole island is a resort where u can go swimmin, snorkeling or a whole bunch of other water sports.

We stayed there for most of the day doing the same thing as everyone else, relaxing, and playing in the water. Under the wooden jetty we found a large school of small fish and a nice man gave us some bread to feed them. Holding it in your hand and letting them eat is a strange feeling, though it reminds me of the skin eating fish in the hot spring. Later in the afternoon we rented a small kayak and paddled around for an hour or so which was nice. Around four we gatherd with everybody else at the jetty, and while they got on their modern tour boats we hopped inot our little brightly painted wooden one and raced back to shore. The hard wooden seating boards were a pain as we bounced along on the wavetops but i still prefered it over some tour. The second afternoon was spent in the same fashion as the first one.

Miniäventyr

Igår ville Yini ta mig ut på ett miniäventyr, sagt och gjort, vi tog skootern ut ur staden och kom till slut till en strand en bit norr ut. Vi kom ut dit mitt i skymningen så himlen var härligt orange och allt annat blev bara mörkare ju längre vi stannade. Vi vandrade runt på stranden och hade det allmänt trevligt ett tag även om det var ganska likt andra kvällar på andra stränder. Det mörknade snabbt så vi vände hem mot stan och bestämde oss för att äta på vägen hem. I vårt sökande efter restuaranger hamnade vi via irrvägar i Xinfeng och bestämde oss för att äta där.  Efter maten åkte vi den långa vägen hem och efter en kort paus tog jag skootern och hämtade upp Kai. I brist på bättre saker att göra åkte vi och handlade en billig flaska champagne. Väl hemma packade jag av metallkåpan och hämtade en stor kökskniv. Så var det dags att testa att sabrera en flaska champagne. På tredjeförsöket lyckades jag hugga toppen av flaska och korken flög iväg över rummet. Kanten på flaskan gick av på ett snyggt sätt så man inte riskerade att skära sig och det gick  inga flisor så vi behövde bara plocka upp korken och moppa lite så var det städat.

Sen återstod bara att dricka skumpan och småprata lite innan det blev kväll och dags att köra Kai hem.