Day 9

Friday February 22, 2013

7:30 a.m. Taipei

 

It’s Friday today, a few days after my trip ended. I had to go back to work on Monday and a bunch of other stuff happened, so I haven’t been able to finish up my trip journal. I’ve got some time today, so here I am to put a period on that epic scooter trip.

I woke up in my room at the Ling-Dung Temple. There was hot water just down the hall, so I filled up a thermos that was in the room and then had a cup of coffee or two at the desk there. I love moments like that. I had these special packages of pre-assembled filtered coffee, so it was stronger than instant, and it tasted great. Packing was getting more and more automatic, and I had soon packed up my gear, taken it down to my scooter and strapped it all on. An older Taiwanese woman was standing near my scooter watching all this and she asked me where I was going and where I had been. She was pretty impressed, as are all Taiwanese, that I had gone so far on the scooter. They don’t view them as viable transportation for trips out of any city. They use them for trips to the corner store and to work and school and back and not much more. To take them cross-country and into the mountains is very rare.

I spent a while considering my route back to Taipei. The obvious route to follow would take me through the Tri-Mountain National Scenic Area and eventually back onto route 3, which I had taken when I left Taipei. It’s a scenic route. In the end, though, I made a snap decision to head for the plains of the west coast instead. I thought I could drive along the ocean and see what there was to see over there. What sealed the deal for me was the existence of tiny route 126, which cut off from the main highway and went past the Ming-De Reservoir. From there, I could pick up route 13 to the coast and then see what happened after that.

The first part of the trip went like clockwork. I came down out of the mountains and then turned north. There was little traffic that early in the day and I had the roads to myself. Route 126 showed up on my left, and I was pleased to see that it was a small road leading into some low hills. The area around the Ming-De reservoir is a recreational area. It’s officially called the Ming-De Reservoir Special Scenic Area, and there were a few things to do around there. I pulled over to the side from time to time to do some exploring and take some pictures. I visited a nice temple right beside the water and did some walking along the water’s edge. To get to the temple, I had to walk along a suspension bridge to a small island.

Further around the reservoir, I crossed a much bigger suspension bridge to a bigger island. I’m not quite sure what the island was all about. I had to pay a NT$100 fee to cross the bridge. The island had a nice restaurant and coffee shop, some walking trails, and a small collection of animals. There was a set of cages with gorgeous multi-colored birds. These impressed me the most. I wondered, though, if it was the best practice to have so many of these song birds so closely packed together. I understand that song birds often use their songs to establish territory, and I wondered if having so many birds of so many species right together drove them a bit nutty. Do they sing like crazy to establish their territory and then get all screwed up because so many other birds are claiming the territory with their song? Do they sing themselves into exhaustion or something? I have no idea. But they seemed healthy. I can’t say the same for most of the other animals there. I felt very sorry for two large adult raccoons inside a small metal cage. There was barely enough room inside the cage for them both and they had developed that obsessive pacing behavior that animals in small cages often develop. They couldn’t really even walk, so their pacing was simply turning from one side to the other and then back again – one paw over the other from side to side endlessly. They probably keep that up for 18 hours a day. Who knows? I can never understand conditions like that. What person can sleep at night knowing that animals under their care are in that type of situation? It’s not like the island was hard up for space. There was tons of open land on this island. How hard would it have been to build a suitable enclosure for these raccoons? Perhaps I don’t know the real situation. Perhaps they are often taken to a larger space and were only in that cage for a short time. But it didn’t look like it. It looked like they were in that cage for good and forever. There were also some dogs there in cages. One of them was as large as a bear. At first, I thought it was a bear. He didn’t look very happy either. The cage was barely large enough for him to lie down in. There were also some big and beautiful rabbits in a cage. Oddly enough, I saw some of these rabbits running free around the island later on. So perhaps all these animals are let loose to roam from time to time. That seems unlikely, but you never know. Finally, I stumbled across a little corral with some goats inside. Several of the goats were so thin as to be called emaciated. I could count their ribs and there was a huge hollow where their stomachs should be. Had I known that this island was a zoo like this, I would not have gone. If you want to ruin your day, you can always do it in Asia – just visit a zoo. Animals are often kept in appalling conditions. Of course, that is only in the smaller or poorer places. The Taipei City Zoo, for example, is a very good zoo and a pleasure to visit. It wouldn’t be up to the standards of the very latest zoos in the world with huge natural enclosures, but it isn’t bad. If you wanted to pick up a cause, you could easily champion animal rights in Asia and never run out of things to protest and things to do. It would be heartbreaking, though.

I had some trouble plotting a route north after I left the reservoir area. The west coast is where most of the people in Taiwan live, so there are endless towns and urban areas to navigate. The naming and numbering systems for the roads, cities, and counties can be erratic and confusing and I had a lot of trouble finding my way. I found, to my disappointment, that there really was no convenient road that simply followed the ocean and gave nice views. There seemed to be a larger highway that came close to this, but scooters were not allowed on it. Only cars and full-size motorcycles were allowed on it. There were other bits of road near the coast that were even marked as scenic areas, but you never saw the ocean.

It was not a total loss, of course. Though I wasn’t seeing the ocean, everything else I saw was brand new. At one point, I spotted a giant statue looming over a town. I tracked it down and found it was a harvest god on top of a temple. The thing was huge and impressive and I went into the temple and climbed the stairs up to the roof where I could peer up at it from its feet.

A short distance away was a large art center, and I stopped there to check out an exhibit of wood carvings. I’m always very impressed with carvings and sculptures. I can’t even imagine the type of brain that can create things like that. I simply don’t see in any kind of 2- or even 3-dimensional way that would allow me to draw or paint let alone carve a chunk of wood and come up with that sort of stuff. I wonder if the people that can do that are even aware of what a special talent it is. I wonder if they can imagine what it would be like to have a brain like mine that is simply incapable of seeing like that. I can look at this scooter that is sitting outside this window and I can it see fully. However, I could never reproduce what I see in any way. I wonder what it would be like to be able to then put pencil to paper and recreate that scooter or carve it out of a chunk of wood. I suppose one is meant to look at all that art on display from an artistic perspective – look at the image and what the artist is trying to convey. Me, I’m happy just to appreciate the sheer technical skill that goes into making the thing to begin with. To me, people that can do that qualify as a separate species to whatever I am.

The only other major stop on this final leg of my journey was when I spotted a sign pointing to the Yongan Fisheries Harbor. I’m not a seafood lover. In fact, I’d say that I dislike seafood. Given a choice of a seafood dinner or going hungry for the night, I’d choose to go hungry and wait until I can get something else. But I do find fishing harbors and fishing villages and fishing boats endlessly interesting and fascinating. There is always a lot to see. This fishing harbor was not like the ones I’ve seen on the east coast. On the east coast, the fishing harbors are also functioning towns and villages. This harbor was simply that – a harbor with a bunch of fishing boats. However, it had been developed into something a bit more. There was a big 4- or 5-story warehouse type building, plus a scenic pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge didn’t actually go anywhere. It was put there simply as a visual exclamation mark for the harbor. People could walk up to the top of the bridge and pose for pictures and walk down it again. It’s interesting in a way at how little it takes to entertain us humans. You always hear that expression, “If you build it, they will come.” And that really is true. There was absolutely no reason to build a bridge there and there is nothing particularly entertaining about a bridge, but it was obviously a huge attraction. I guess people just need places to go to entertain themselves and when they look at a map or see a picture of this colorful bridge, they decide to make a day of it and go check it out. Of course, the real draw here is the seafood on offer inside that huge building. That’s where the real action was. The Taiwanese will travel a hundred miles to get a good meal and when that good meal consists of seafood, they’ll travel two hundred. That the bridge was there is just a bonus. In any event, this fisheries harbor was very popular that day. They’d built a large parking area on a peninsula going out into the water, and that parking lot was full of cars parked everywhere and there nearly was gridlock as newcomers arrived and tried to find a place to park.

I parked my scooter at a random spot – an illegal one – and then grabbed my camera and walked around. I climbed up on the bridge and took pictures of it from every conceivable angle. I climbed the lookout tower and walked through the warehouse, taking pictures as I went. It was all great fun. Families were out in full force, with the children clamoring for bubble-making toys and kites and other things that were for sale.

An advantage of the route I’d chosen for returning to Taipei was that I could follow the coast all the way into northern Taipei to an area called Bali and then swing down right into the heart of Taipei to the neighborhood where I lived. From looking at my maps, it looked like by doing so I could completely avoid the massive urban sprawl of Taipei to the south. I wasn’t sure of that, but that’s exactly how it turned out and I was amazed at how easy (though long) it was. I encountered no traffic at all as I drove along. I just zoomed at high speed down this wide and empty road with occasional mistakes and detours and backtracking. At one point, I saw the aftermath of a terrible car accident – two cars reduced to rubble at an intersection. When I reached Bali, things got a bit more complicated, but I found my way without excessive trouble, and almost before I knew it, I was whipping along Cheng De Road with thousands of other scooters in the heart of Taipei and was soon right back at my apartment. I felt a bit numb from the long distance I had travelled at such high speeds. I’m more used to slow stopping and starting as I work my through dozens and dozens of intersections. This route was much smoother though in the end less interesting.

It was only the matter of a few minutes to carry my bags up the six flights of stairs to my apartment and then unpack. I was home. As always, my apartment felt tiny – though not in a bad way. I live in a small space and even hotel rooms often seem large by comparison. But I kind of prefer a small space. I don’t need much space and a small space is easier to keep clean.

I’ve been slowly going over my pictures from the trip and I love them all. I have such good luck with this new camera that I bought. It’s almost an embarrassment of riches. Nearly every picture I take turns out to be a good one. So instead of taking a thousand pictures and deleting nine hundred of them, as I used to do, I now end up keeping nearly all of them. It seems a bit silly to take so many pictures. I don’t have a practical use for them. But I enjoy it very much, and in my case, 90% of the experience would be lost if I didn’t have the pictures. So much happens in life that by Friday, what happened on Monday is practically long forgotten. On a trip like this, the effect is intensified. So much happens in a single day that it seems impossible that it all took place in one day. And when I go over the pictures, it takes me back to those experiences and I can experience them again and appreciate them in a new and sometimes even better way. One often takes things for granted, and it isn’t until you are away and in a new context that you can see what a place or an experience was really like. So I’m glad to have that photographic record and I enjoy going over the pictures.

And that’s the end of the trip. These scooter trips are what I will really miss about Taiwan when I leave. But I guess I am soon to trade in my scooter for my bicycle and for new horizons. This trip was good for that – it brought home how enjoyable it is just to be on the road.

Tags: Asia, CNY Scooter Trip Taiwan 2013, Ling-Dung Temple, Ming-De Reservoir, scooter, Taipei, Taiwan, temple, Tri-Mountain National Scenic Area, Yongan Fisheries Harbor