Sunday October 3

I don’t know if any of the above made any sense. I don’t think I was very awake while I wrote it. The main point is that I changed my plans and I went to Green island by boat instead of driving to Kenting by scooter. And here I am on Green Island.

Everything went like clockwork. I think I was fortunate to have booked my ferry ticket the day before. The boat, unlike the one to Lanyu, was packed. I’m not sure that there would have been any tickets available. My heart sank as I saw how many people were going to Green Island. There were lots of children, too. It didn’t feel like much of an adventure. More like a picnic.

Still, it was interesting and enjoyable – and very Taiwanese. Lots of cyclists showed up in full Lycra gear from head to foot on their racers. The ferry people just loaded the bikes on without a problem. One couple showed up with a scooter and they got out a wooden gangplank and just loaded it on. Another guy had a big black dog and that was no problem, either. I spoke to him later and petted the dog for a bit. The man’s name was Cobra. He said he named himself after the Stallone character. The dog was a friendly beast and licked my arm from wrist to shoulder. Maybe I was salty. The ferry people told him he had to sit right beside the door to the upper deck with the dog. That seemed odd considering how scared the Taiwanese can be of dogs. they hardly dared go through the door. I think Cobra was surprised that I was so willing to pet his dog and get myself licked for my trouble.

Large trucks arrived and unloaded lots of boxes of food for the island. A group of men settled down on the upper deck with a large bag of tall-boy Heinekens. I was pleased to see a sprinkling of foreigners on the boat. There was a group of four traveling together. I didn’t have a chance to speak with them. They stayed inside in their seats and slept the whole trip. However, I did manage to strike up a conversation with a young fellow from France named Jean-Michel. I never did find out what he was doing in Taiwan exactly, but I did learn that he was living and working in Tainan. He hated it there. In France, he lived in the French Alps, and he found the flat terrain of western Taiwan depressing. I can understand that. The geography of the west side of the island is quite uninteresting. Tainan is a nice city, but there is no interesting terrain. And the coastline is also uninteresting, just flat and muddy with few or no nice beaches. He also complained about his coworkers and their lack of interest in doing anything. I guess he wanted to go on all kinds of trips with them, but they always had excuses and had to do things in a Taiwanese way, whereas he just wanted to pick up and go. He was a nice guy and though we had to nearly shout to be heard over the noise of the engines, we had a good chat on the trip over to the island. It only took about an hour and fifteen minutes. Jean-Michel tried at one point to sit inside for a while, but the constant sound of vomiting drove him back out onto the deck. I stayed out on deck the whole time, of course. Sitting inside means ice-cold air conditioning and horrible Taiwanese pop music plus the sound and smell of vomiting. The skies were clear and it turns out my face and arms burned pretty badly while I was out there. I thought I was adjusted to the sun, but I guess I’ve been inside, eBaying and packing for too long.

I had no idea what to expect on Green Island. It looked a little bit like Lanyu from a distance, but when we got close, I could see that it was a pale imitation. It had none of the dramatic mountainous coastline of Lanyu. Still, it had green hills and was a volcanic island, so it was certainly attractive and much better than sitting in Taipei for the weekend.

There was a lot of activity when we docked. Most people had made arrangements and there were vans everywhere waiting for them with local people holding up signs with names on them. A few, like myself, had made no arrangements and we were picked up by friendly and low key touts quickly. A local woman saw me and asked “Motorcycle?” I nodded yes, and that was it for the arrangements. There were, in fact, hundreds of scooters lined up at the ferry dock. She walked me over to a set of twenty parked against a building and got me to understand that it cost NT$400/day. She didn’t speak any English, but that was no problem. I paid her, and she handed over a key. She then made a sleeping gesture. I nodded again that I needed a place to stay. She indicated that I should wait, and in a couple of minutes, another woman showed up with some groceries in a couple of bags. The two of them climbed onto a scooter and indicated that I should follow. We drove for a few minutes into the town near the harbor, and then up to a brand-new concrete hotel. It would win no points for style or beauty or anything, but the room she showed me was huge and right on the roof. It had a TV and air conditioning, a brand new bathroom, two huge beds, a couple of chairs, and everything else one might need. It was NT$1,000 a night, which is about par for the course and I took it.

Jean-Michel showed up at the same hotel. He was actually with two of his co-workers who he’d convinced to come with him on this Green Island trip. The hotel didn’t quite match his vision of a nice bungalow on the beach, so he decided to keep looking. An hour later, they were back. He said that there was nothing better on the island. There were no other places to stay really except this one town and most of the hotels were right on the main drag, which he said made him feel like he was still in Tainan. So the hotel I’d been brought to was the best of the bunch. Later on, I think I saw some small rooms with a shared bathroom, so it was probably possible to get a cheaper room. however, I’m used to paying NT$1,000 in Taiwan. That was actually cheaper than I expected. I’d heard prices in the range of NT$2,500.

Green Island is much smaller than Lanyu and I set off on my scooter to drive around it and see what there was to see. The place seemed super normal compared to Lanyu. It felt like the rest of Taiwan. However, there was one area on the northern tip that was spectacular, and that has made the whole trip for me. It was an area of rocky cliffs and huge rock formations. One good thing about Taiwan is that no matter how crowded it gets, you can always get off by yourself. The Taiwanese tend to all do the same thing. They are rule-followers or something. In this case, there was a cave towards the left that you are supposed to see on this part of the coast. So they all went left to see the cave. I can never resist a bunch of rocks, so I walked straight out into a huge rock formation to see what was out there. It was very tricky walking, as the rocks were all volcanic and very sharp. It would be very easy to twist your ankle or cut yourself. I made my way over this rock formation, and on the other side I found a kind of paradise. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The first thing I noticed was a waterfall. And this confused me. I had climbed quite a ways above the water line. So how could water be pouring down a waterfall from up above? It made no sense. The secret was a set of deep, beautiful pools in the rock. The ocean swells crashed against the cliffs and occasionally there would be a wave so big that a bunch of water would get dumped over the cliff and up on top of the rocks. Up there, there were two deep pools that were constantly filled with this water. The pool on the left was the deepest one, but it got the least amount of new water. So the water there was quite warm. It was pure Lord of the Flies territory, and I quickly peeled off my shirt and jumped in. It was paradise. I hooted and laughed the whole time I was in there. It just seemed too good to be true – a secret swimming hole. I doubted that many Taiwanese would ever make their way over the rocks that I had climbed over and discover this area. My only company were some wild goats climbing over the cliffs and a whole bunch of ocean crabs.

The second pool was quite different. It got a lot of fresh water all the time from the ocean waves, and so the water was very cool. It was also more alive. There were lots of plants growing in the water and lots of fish swimming around. It took some care to make your way into these pools as the rocks were very sharp and dangerous, but once you were inside it was wonderful. This second pool was incredible. Every minute or so, a huge wave would hit the rocks and send a ton of water pouring over the edge. This water would actually stream across the pool in a pretty large wave. I tried to shoot some video of this later. It took some effort to clamber around the rocks and get close without killing myself, but I managed it. Hopefully the video will turn out okay. I’m such an idiot that I keep shooting the video in portrait mode. I keep forgetting that you can’t do that with video.

I spent a long time there swimming in these water holes. Then I walked along the coast. It was really beautiful. I spent the rest of the day clambering around the coast and then driving my scooter to the next bit of beautiful coastline. The scenery at Lanyu was much more dramatic, and pretty much every inch of Lanyu was dramatic. However, there is enough of this sort of coastline on Green Island to make it a beautiful place. Today, my plan is to hike across the “Ancient Cross-Mountain Trail” and make my along another section of beautiful coastline that I saw.

Oct. 4, 2010

Last Day on Green Island

This morning, I hopped on the scooter and went to Hi-Life for coffee. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get off the island. I woke up in the middle of the night and found that it was stormy and windy. If I were stuck on Green Island, it wouldn’t have been good. I really had nothing else to do there. And I needed to hook up with my train.

I went back to sleep and later on it seemed to have cleared up a bit. I still wasn’t sure the ferry would run, but then I saw the 9 a.m. ferry arrive. So that reassured me. I drove back to my secret swimming hole just for one last visit. I didn’t go swimming, but just wanted to see what it was like when there was a high wind. After spending some time there, I drove back to town and had breakfast and then showered and packed at the hotel. No one was there, so I couldn’t really check out. I just left the keys. The ferry was at 12:30, and I got to the dock at 12:10. The ferry was late, so I had to wait for quite a while. A lot of people got on the ferry. I wanted to stay out on deck, but the ferry people said it was way too rough and wet to stay out there. I had to go inside and sit in a seat. Once we started to move, I realized they were right. It was REALLY rough. I was very worried that I was going to get seasick, and I took all kinds of measures to prevent it. I listened to podcasts and kept my eyes closed at all times. I even put on eyeshades. It was a near thing and I had to fight the sickness the entire time. I had to count down from 100 and do deep breathing and all kinds of things. I tried to visualize myself on a rocking train, and that helped for some reason. It is a combination of mental and physical stuff this seasickness. The trip went by much faster than I expected, and I made it without really getting sick. I’m very glad it wasn’t more than an hour, though. That would have been hellish. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be on the open ocean for days on end if you were seasick. It could be miserable.

I hopped in a taxi to take me to the train station. That ended up costing NT$320. I was way too early for my train, and I managed to change my ticket for a train that was one hour earlier. It isn’t much, but it will mean sitting in the station a bit less. I think I get into Taipei at roughly the same time, though. It is a slower train. Oh, well.

 

 

Tags: Green Island Trip, scooter, train