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Day 1 – Taibei, Taizhong, Jiayi
We started the day early at the train station to catch the train to Taizhong. The transport system in Taiwan is remarkably well organised and clean and reminds me more of Japanese efficiency than the hustle and bustle of mainland China. After grabbing a few snacks for breakfast from the Seven Eleven in the station we made our way to Taizhong. The journey leads out of Taibei and through the Taiwanese countryside south to Taizhong, the train tracks are lined with rural communities, traditional houses and rice paddies, punctuated with the occasional small town.
We arrive in Taizhong at lunchtime and luckily a taxi driver takes a shine to us and offers to take us from the station to get something to eat and then travel to our first destination, the Gaomei wetlands, for one price. We stop off at a small shop to buy the local speciality of sticky rice packed into cakes, filled with fatty pork cooked in a traditional red-stew style (Hongshao), and some seafood soup and then head to Gaomei. Luckily my travel companion can speak the local dialect, so we have no problem with communication, but I have a short chat in mandarin and find the accent fairly easy to understand.
The drive to the wetlands leads into the country with wind turbines and green hills lining the road on the way. When we arrive it is the middle of the day and very hot, so we first make a beeline for a nearby temple and leave our bags there before venturing out into the sun. The wetlands themselves are a huge expanse of shallow sea which snakes along the coast of Taiwan. They are home to a lot of rare wildlife with mudskippers, a small amphibious fish, seeming to be the most famous. Also for any keen birdwatchers there are a lot of protected species of bird that nest in this unique environment.
After the wetland we took another taxi back into the city and paid a visit to the Mazu temple, one of the largest in Taiwan. This shrine to the protecting goddess of all who work and live at sea was particularly busy because it was Chinese Valentines Day when we visited and locals had come to worship. This lucky coincidence offered a great opportunity to see some of Taiwan’s spiritual life. In particular people were in the process of buying and burning ‘hell banknotes’, money that can be received by the deceased and used to better their lives in the after world. The temple was very beautiful late in the afternoon; smoke curled out of ancient cast iron incense burners and mingled in the warm air, twisting up around red paper lanterns and the ornate eaves of the temple building.
That night we left Taizhong and travelled to Jiayi. Before heading to the hotel we ate dinner in a traditional Taiwanese noodle house. This style of eating is especially suited to those with less than brilliant mandarin because it is all ordered from a small order sheet which is found on each table. You simply put a pencil mark next to what you want to eat and then the owner comes over and collects your order. Similarly, when it comes time to pay you take the sheet to the till and pay, no muss no fuss. I ate a turkey dish served on rice, with some boiled water spinach and a clear refreshing soup, Amon opted for a pork dish also served on rice. The hotel was an interesting affair; the room is above a garage so if you want to go inside unnoticed it is entirely possible to drive right in to the room without ever leaving cover. Once inside it became obvious what the room was intended for; low lighting, a huge hot tub and a button on the remote control called ‘romantic’ for the light setting. Also I saw something I have never seen before that I found particularly devious; on the remote control there were 4 buttons labelled ‘garage’, ‘market’, ‘street’, and ‘bus’, and upon pressing one caused the music or television to pause and the ambient sound of each location to start playing. I assumed this is for assuring Taiwanese wives that you are actually in the garage at 1.00am on a Wednesday night!
