Tuesday February 1, 2011

7:35 a.m. Fushing Youth Activity Center

Life simply doesn’t get any better than this. The skies are blue, the air is crisp and cold, I have a hot cup of coffee, and I am sitting at a floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall window with a beautiful view of mountains and lakes. I also have a tremendous room with an equally wonderful view. It’s a western style room with two beds, a big bathroom, and all the trimmings. All this for NT$1,000 ($33 Canadian) and that includes breakfast.

I discovered this place a long time ago on a bike trip. I had been intending to ride a lot further that day, but I turned down a side road to visit this village called Fushing. I rode to the end of the main road and found a large set of white buildings called the Fushing Youth Activity Center. I went inside and the second I popped out the back and saw the tremendous view, I asked if there was a room available. There was, and I took it and based the rest of that trip from this place. On that first trip, I got a Japanese style room with no furniture and tatami mats on the floor instead of a bed. The room was meant for 8 people, but they let me have it all to myself. I don’t understand the math or the logic, but the deal is that it costs NT$1,000 per person regardless of how many people are in the room. If 8 people stayed, it would cost NT$8,000. Since I was alone, it cost me NT$1,000. This time, I lucked out and got a western style room. I can sleep on a tatami matt on the floor no problem, but given a choice, I’ll take a nice soft mattress and tables and chairs any day of the week.

I ended my story yesterday with the owner of the restaurant taking me to see a hotel of some kind. He had arranged for his sister to call him when I was ready to go. He came back in a truck with his daughter as translator and I followed him on my scooter. It turns out his daughter wasn’t much use as a translator. She might have been studying English, but her father’s English was much better and louder. Her voice was soft (and hidden behind one of the face masks) and I couldn’t hear a word she said. It turned into a bit of a comedy as the father tried to say something but then turned to his daughter for help. She spoke to me, but I couldn’t hear her. Her father then listened to what she said in English and repeated it to me. It was like he was interpreting for her rather than the other way around.

I had no idea where we were going and I was pleased to see that we turned down some very narrow mountain roads and then into a private residence in front of a typical Taiwanese home – all concrete and clutter. An older woman was puttering around the place and a friendly dog came running up and jumped up and placed his paws on my chest.

It’s common that things take much longer and are generally much more complicated than in Canada. In Canada, I can imagine the conversation:

Man: This foreigner is looking for a place to stay. Do you have any rooms available for tonight?

Woman: I’m sorry. We’re cleaning for Chinese New Year and none of the rooms are ready for guests.

Man: That’s too bad. Thanks anyway.

I have no idea what they said in Chinese, but the conversation went on for fifteen minutes and would fill several pages. The end result was the same, and I wasn’t able to stay there. I wasn’t too upset, as it was still early in the day and there was time to find something else. It would have been interesting to stay there, but it was just a house and I’m sure the room would have been simply a concrete square. I’d have used it as a place to dump stuff so I could go out exploring and then as a place to sleep but nothing more.

The man and girl went through their interpreting routine to say goodbye and drove off. I followed them out and turned right when I reached the main road to continue exploring. I had my tent and sleeping bag and figured I could also camp somewhere if needed. I’d seen a sign for some kind of campground at the end of the road and thought I’d check it out.

I drove through the mountains turning in here and there to look around and take pictures. Being on the scooter wasn’t as convenient as being on the bike as I had to do a lot to get off the scooter. I had to turn off the scooter, of course, and then take off my helmet, find a place to put the helmet, remove the keys and put them in my pocket, take off my heavy backpack and rest it on the seat of the scooter, take my knapsack from the footrest, take out the camera, and then go for my walk. If there was little to see, I’d be back shortly and have to do all of that in reverse to get on my way again. It was a long and complicated process. Still, at least I could go much farther and faster on the scooter than I could on the bike, and that came in handy at the end of the day, as I will explain.

I stopped at a few places – a small temple, a path across a stone bridge, a shack with lettuce growing out front – and then reached the end of the road at the National Forest Recreation Area itself. I was surprised to see that there was an actual park of some kind with an entrance fee and a gate. Apparently, there were some nice trails inside and a couple of waterfalls. There weren’t, however, any campgrounds. It was strictly a daytime hiking area. Had it been earlier, I would have found a place to leave my scooter and backpack and gone in for a hike. However, it was quite late, and the park was going to close soon. I’ll save that for another weekend over the coming months.

The girl at the park was very friendly and her English was good enough to explain all of this to me. She said that it would take about two hours to hike to the waterfalls and back, and they were closing the park long before then. On the road away from the park, I stopped at another small temple and realized that if necessary, I could put up my tent there. It wouldn’t, strictly speaking, be legal, but I don’t think anyone would be too bothered about a lone foreigner in a tent. There were a couple of small flat areas near the temple – flat areas being a rarity in Taiwan – and there was running water and even a bathroom. Had it been later, I would have set up my tent and settled in for the night. However, there was still an hour of daylight left, and I thought I’d continue driving and see what there was to see. Then I could always return and set up camp for the night. That’s the thing about this kind of travel. I always like to have a base where I know I’m going to spend the night and then I can relax and go out exploring. However, you can’t really leave all of your stuff inside a tent. It’s not secure. So, like a turtle, you are stuck with your home on your back. It’s the age-old conflict between the convenience of having a lot of stuff with you and the convenience of having a light load.

There were some small villages and towns along the road and a sprinkling of high-end hot spring spas and resorts. People had mentioned a hotel in the area, but, not surprisingly, they couldn’t really pinpoint it any more than that. This is another common trait of travel overseas. With my maps and guidebooks and time spent exploring, I often know much more about the local area than the locals do. Strange but true. Local informants are rarely helpful. They generally don’t know how far it is to nearby places. They don’t know what is around their area, and they don’t know what places are or what they are called. Perhaps it would be the same in Canada, but I don’t think so. If someone were to ask me the distance to London or Toronto or about the local roads, I would be able to answer their questions pretty accurately. Here (and most places I’ve been) local people are generally quite clueless.

In any event, I drove around and did not see any hotel that was within my budget. All I saw were the fancy hot spring resorts. One was high up in the mountains, and I drove my scooter up the winding access road to the top to check it out. I didn’t bother to ask about prices. It was sure to be one or two hundred dollars a night. The Taiwanese often comment that it is cheaper for them to go on a holiday in other countries on a package tour than to travel in Taiwan. When you stay in places like that, it would be true. There are cheaper alternatives – such as this Youth Activity Center – but they aren’t that well known. There are also a sprinkling of cheaper hotels, but they are very difficult to find. The solution might be homestays. The place that the restaurant owner brought me to was a homestay – what they call a minsu – and these can be cheaper. The trick is finding them. I’ve often thought that traveling with Taiwanese friends would make all of this easier. I’ve imagined how great it would be to have someone who can speak Chinese and find all this information and organize things. However, I don’t think that would be true. My experience, as with asking locals, is that the Taiwanese aren’t much help. Even when it comes to having lunch with my Taiwanese co-workers, the task of finding a place to eat still falls to me. They generally don’t step up and reveal all these amazing places that I didn’t know about. They are often totally unhelpful. The same goes for buying bus tickets and train tickets. I guess the difference is one of lifestyle. The trip I am currently on – just setting off on a scooter into the mountains for eight days – is completely unheard of. For the Taiwanese, it would be a huge adventure. I’ve mentioned similar trips and they are always amazed that such a thing is possible. They would never drive a scooter as far as Hualien. Yet, foreigners routinely take their scooters on the road and circumnavigate the entire island.

I never did find a non-resort hotel, and as it was getting dark, I made the snap decision to drive to Fushing to see about a room at this Youth Activity Center. Here, a scooter showed its great advantage over a bicycle. The trip from where I was to Fushing would have been a much more difficult prospect on a bicycle. It was freezing cold and windy and the road was very steep. It wasn’t far on a scooter, but on a bicycle it was a long trip. On my scooter, I simply twisted the accelerator and raced along enjoying the twists and turns of the mountain road. I kept an eye on my rear view mirror to keep watch for the blue trucks of death, a couple of which almost ran me off the road, but other than that it was a fun and fast journey. I passed through a little town called Sanming, and I looked for a hotel there, but I didn’t see one.

Fushing on a Monday evening was a pleasant surprise. I’m used to it being a very busy place with weekend visitors. On a Monday, the road was practically empty and I drove right to the Youth Activity Center. I parked my scooter out front and walked up to the front desk, where a lovely young woman smiled and told me that they had a room for me. I couldn’t believe my luck. Things would have worked out if they didn’t have a room. I could have found a homestay perhaps or I could have driven back out to the main road and looked for a place to put my tent, but I was much happier to have this amazing room.

After settling in, I walked out into Fushing to look for dinner. Not surprisingly, the entire town was closed up. Every shop and restaurant was closed and only one or two people were visible on the street besides me. I walked the entire length of the town’s main street, but nothing was open except for a convenience store. It was no problem, because convenience stores here really do live up to their names – they are very convenient. You can do anything at a convenience store and get almost anything, including a very tasty meal that you can heat up in the store’s microwave. The meals are cheap and tasty and filling. There wasn’t a big selection at this place, but I got a nice dish of rice with shrimp and a big plate of dumplings with plum sauce. I sat outside at a picnic table in the dark and cold and enjoyed my hot meal. One of the local dogs came up to beg some scraps, but he ran away in fright every time I tried to give him something.

My meal finished, I walked back to the Youth Activity Center, curled up under three heavy comforters and read a book on my Kindle until it was time for bed. I was very tired and it was an early night. I love that about little trips like this. I’ve always been a morning person. I run out of steam pretty early in the evening, and it’s a great thing to have spent the day on the road and be good and tired. Then you can switch off the light and enjoy a long deep sleep from as early as you want. I think I was sound asleep by 8:30 last night. I woke up often during the night as a big windstorm had kicked up and doors and windows were slamming and banging all over the center, but I slept well, and my eyes popped open the second the sun peeped over the horizon. I showered and shaved and took my camera outside to take some pictures of the mountains and the lake. Then it was time for a 7 a.m. cup of coffee and breakfast.

Breakfast is a strange affair at times. It is by far the most difficult meal for westerners overseas. For lunch and dinner, I can eat pretty much anything and be satisfied. But I’m conditioned to want a certain type of food – and coffee – for breakfast. In most countries, however, I’ve found their breakfast is not much different from their other meals. When it is different, it is some weird hybrid of east and west. In hotels like this, they often have a breakfast buffet. There is usually rice pudding/soup. I always have a large bowl or two of that, though it is completely tasteless. The Taiwanese put this bizarre red stuff on top for flavor. It is like wood shavings. I’ve never been fond of it. The other dishes are equally strange. At this Youth Activity Center, there is a large variety of food at least, and the coffee is good, hot and plentiful. It’s a good breakfast made better with a good view.

I decided at some point last night to stay another day and night if I could. There’s no point driving for hours and hours to end up somewhere else which wouldn’t be as nice as right here. Certainly, there are few places to stay as nice and as economical as this place. It’s possible to walk down a beautiful but steep path all the way to the lake far below, where a suspension bridge crosses over. One could probably spend a week here and always find somewhere new to go. One thing I learned the last time I was here is that Chiang Kai Shek used to have a house here. It was right on this spot and enjoyed the same view. You can buy postcards and other souvenirs with his picture on it. I find it weird that he is still considered a great man by many of the Taiwanese. I guess it isn’t so surprising. Dictators who killed thousands are still revered by lots of people all over the world.

Before I even went in to breakfast, I stopped at the front desk and I was very happy to learn that my room was available tonight as well. I paid my NT$1,000, and now I have an entire day and night to enjoy here before I continue my journey south.

1:30 p.m.

After breakfast, I hopped on my scooter, gassed it up at the local gas station (3.5 liters for NT$110) and headed down the road. Right after Fushing, the road goes straight down for a long time, winding down and down. I knew from my previous trips that there was a nice waterfall there and another national forest recreation area. The first road I came to branched off to the left and led to the Dongyuan Mountain National Forest Recreation Area. It is named after the main mountain peak, which they say resembles a giant eye looking east. Most things in Taiwan are named after what they look like. From the brochure and information signs, I learned that this used to be a logging area right up until 1982 when logging was outlawed. Much of the current forest was replanted at that time. It would be hard to tell, though. To me it looks like natural forest – like all forests.

The road up to the park was steep and winding and the temperature dropped dramatically the higher I went. I was passed several times by guys on super-charged motorbikes and scooters. Racing through the mountains is a very popular (and dangerous) pastime. I don’t know where so many guys get all the money for these expensive motorbikes, but there are a lot of them. They generally ride in packs, and I always worry about the one at the end of the pack. He is always the least skilled and going slower than the rest. I always imagine him speeding up and trying to catch up and then losing control and crashing. These guys almost seem like an advertisement for the motorcycles they are riding. They dress in all the latest high-tec gear. They drive with exaggerated motions as if they are imitating what they see racers do on TV and in magazines and commercials. Then when they stop somewhere, they tend to line up all their motorcycles and scooters together in a perfectly straight line. The group I saw yesterday had their scooters within an inch of each other. It was if they were parking there for an imaginary photo shoot.

As always, I didn’t really know where I was going. I just followed the road and saw what there was to see. On my way up, I saw a sign for a sheep farm called Green Light. It looked like it was open to tours, and I made a mental note to stop there on my way back.

The road passed a number of tourist attractions, but, as is often the case, I couldn’t tell what they were or whether they were open. Most did not seem to be open. The parking lot would be roped off or locked and the buildings closed up. The sheep farm was the only place that looked open. If I had to guess, I’d say that the others were restaurants or a type of B&B. I think a lot of these places cater to company or student groups and they open only when a large group makes a reservation.

The road ended right at the entrance to the park. I paid NT$80 to go in plus NT$20 for the scooter. At first, I wasn’t sure if I could take my scooter inside. An elderly man was selling tickets at the front gate and I parked my scooter outside and walked up to him. However, I could see that there was a wide paved road beyond the gates, and I asked (in English and sign language) about my scooter. I actually said “motorcycle” because they call scooters motorcycles here. He indicated that for NT$20, I could drive my scooter inside the park and park it there, which is what I did.

The man also gave me a map of the park. It was in English, and I could see that there were a number of hiking trails to choose from. After driving my scooter around to check the place out, I settled on one called “The Intellectual Trail.” It was so-called because one learned about the logging industry on this trail.

It was a beautiful trail and I enjoyed my 2-hour hike very much. The forest was thick with trees and other growth. The environment in Taiwan is very lush and green. It is usually extremely hot, and I found it a pleasure to be there in the cold winter. Even so, I started to sweat badly in all my layers of clothing, including my new bright orange hunting jacket. It was perfectly silent in the forest. I’m not used to that, and I stopped several time to simply enjoy the complete lack of sound. There wasn’t even any insect noise. Sometimes in Taiwan, the insects can be as deafening as rush hour traffic.

In the end, I decided that I had chosen badly in my trail. The other main trail went in a loop and brought you back to the visitor’s center. My trail simply went straight into the mountains and never came back. It went on and on and joined up with some other trails that led to the tops of some nearby mountains. I climbed quite high (at least it felt high), and then I could do nothing but turn around and retrace my steps.

I realized as I was sitting and resting at one point that my pictures weren’t turning out that well. They had looked good as I was taking them, but when I looked at them carefully, I realized that the green of the trees wasn’t coming out right. It was coming out as a blue-green. And the browns were not brown at all. I played around a bit and I realized that my white balance was set to sunshine. I changed it to cloudy skies (which it was) and suddenly the pictures were perfect. The colors of my pictures matched exactly what I was seeing around me.

For this reason, it would be nice to have a camera with a larger LCD screen on the back. Anyway, it taught me that when I start taking pictures at a new location, I should take one or two and carefully look at the colors to see if they are accurate. I don’t generally do that. In the old days, colors were always good. Green was green and blue was blue and red was red. I guess with digital cameras, you have to check the white balance and change it so that the colors come out right. It’s funny that when you read camera reviews, they talk about the ability to change the white balance as a great thing. I think it’s the opposite. The only reason you need to change the white balance is because the camera doesn’t get the colors right in the first place. If the camera was better and got the colors right, you wouldn’t have to mess around with white balance. Anyway, I changed the white balance and then I retook all the pictures as I retraced my steps. It will be interesting to compare them when I get back to Taipei.

I thought about taking another trail, but I was too tired by that point. I don’t get much exercise these days, and my 2-hour climb had left my legs pretty wobbly. I didn’t want to set off on another 2-hour hike. Another interesting point about the hike is that I didn’t see one other person the other time. You think of Taiwan as a crowded place, but in the mountains there is a lot of empty space.

On my way down the mountain, I stopped at the sheep farm, where I am now. Whatever this place turns out to be, it is well-advertised. They have large banners on the road and they are attractively designed with a friendly-looking fluffy cartoon sheep on them. I’m sure the banners explain in Chinese what the place is, but I couldn’t read any of it, of course. I probably would have stopped there anyway, but I was particularly interested because of my friend Michael’s sheep farm. I thought I could check it out for him.

I missed the entrance on my way down and had to turn around and come back. I was very careful doing that because it meant doing a full U-turn on the road. The road winds so tightly there is almost no room between turns. Motorcycles come by at very high speeds. They’d be on me before I could blink. Cars and trucks tend to go fast as well, and they routinely take the corners wide and right into oncoming traffic. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen a number of YouTube videos of scooter and motorcycle accidents on these roads. One of them happened quite recently. A van pulled out to pass a car right on a blind corner. He crossed the double lines and was driving in the opposite lane as he went around the blind corner. A motorcycle just happened to be coming the other way. The motorcycle driver had no chance to do anything. He just laid the motorcycle down and slammed into the van. The van driver pulled sharply to the right and wiped out a scooter that happened to be right beside him. It was a horrible accident. It was good that I saw those videos. They reminded me of how dangerous these roads are and how bad the drivers are here. I naturally drive slowly anyway because I’m in no hurry to get anywhere. I’m busy looking around and stopping to take pictures and check things out. But I drive even more carefully because I know how dangerous the drivers are. In this case, I drove down the mountain for a couple of kilometers before I got to a stretch of road that had a bit of distance between the curves. Then I stopped and made doubly sure that no one was coming screaming around the corners and I did my U-turn.

There was a small scooter parking area at the front of Green Light, and I parked my scooter there. A young man was at a ticket booth. I saw that he had some tickets and they were NT$100, so I figured I’d just buy one and then see what there was to see.

The first thing I saw was a very large building. It didn’t look Taiwanese at all. It was more like a large wooden-frame structure you would see in Canada. When I stepped through the front doors, I was inside a very large restaurant. Wide stairs to my left led to a second, third, and fourth floors where they had a range of bedrooms for rent. Out the back there was a wide verandah looking out over a spectacular mountain and valley view. Some grassy slopes led down from the building but I didn’t see any sheep on them. Nor did I see any farm buildings.

I wanted to just walk around the place first, but I’ve learned that when you are in a place like this it is often best to just go with the flow. I didn’t know what my ticket was for or what this place was yet, so when a woman came rushing up to me and took my ticket and then ushered me to a seat in the restaurant, I just let it happen. If I didn’t do that, then things would get confusing and I’d never be able to get back into the flow. In this case, most people are there to have a meal or a drink. The NT$100 ticket was your entrance to the farm, but it was also a coupon and entitled you to NT$100 worth of drinks or food. If you had something to eat or drink, that money would be deducted from your bill. It is a simple enough thing, but it would have been impossible for anyone to explain that to me.

I sat at a table at the window and ordered a cappuccino for NT$150. The woman brought me my coffee and then said, “Give me fifty dollars.” My ticket covered one hundred dollars and I had to pay the remaining fifty. There was a lot of food on the menu, but I wasn’t hungry yet, and I decided to just have the coffee, read my book on my Kindle, and enjoy the view.

I went upstairs at one point to use a bathroom up there and to explore the place. That little walk revealed all kinds of little Taiwanese-style things. On the surface, it looks like a Canadian building, but scratch the surface and you all kinds of little things that would rarely and probably never happen in Canada.

For one thing, there is the question of quality. The restaurant served some pretty expensive and classy meals by Taiwanese standards. They were obviously steak and lamb dinners. The standard price of about $17 Canadian is pretty cheap for a multi-course steak dinner, but it’s expensive in Taiwan. The rooms there cost between $100 and $200 Canadian a night. So it’s an expensive place. And yet, the walls and the stairs were very cheaply made with fake wooden wallpaper that was peeling. The stairs were falling part and there were weird ugly decorations everywhere, like dirty stuffed bears. The décor was, simply put, bizarre.

The bathrooms were another Taiwanese thing. The men’s and women’s bathroom were right beside each other and you could see right inside both of them. The men’s urinals were lined up along the wall right inside the door in full view of anyone who happened to be in the hallway or going to the women’s bathroom. The entire far wall was glass from top to bottom and anyone standing at the urinals was in full view of anyone who happened to be walking around in the gardens and lawns outside. I was tempted to wave at everyone out there. Plus there was no hot water. Only freezing cold water came out of the taps. This odd combination of the expensive and the cheap is common in Taiwan.

By the time I finished my coffee, I was hungry, and I decided to try one of the meals.

The meal was incredible and it was a very good thing that I was so hungry. There were many courses including a delicious soup, garlic bread, salads, and other things that I don’t have names for. The lamb itself was delicious and served with a wonderful array of side-dishes from mushrooms to squashes and a bunch of other things I couldn’t identify. There was even dessert and juice and coffee. All-in-all, it was a bargain at NT$482. I started to think I was on a serious luxury vacation instead of a scooter adventure. My meal on day one was fantastic and this lamb dinner was just as good. On top of that, I was staying in a luxurious 3-person room which I had all to myself. (Just as a final odd note, I should mention that even though this meal was like a 5-star meal, I had to go up to the cash register and pay for it first. That felt odd – like I was at a fast-food restaurant. It’s so different from a fancy place in Canada where they bring you the bill at the end and they even have to have it folded up and hidden inside a covering.)

After the meal, I walked out into the grounds of Green Light. There were quite a few grassy slopes with lots of picnic tables and chairs. There was a souvenir shop with all kinds of sheep-related objects. I was about to give up on the sheep when I suddenly heard the unmistakable bleat of a sheep. It brought me back to my couple of months on Michael’s farm. I followed that sound and eventually found a field and a barn way down at the bottom. Five sheep were in a field and another dozen or so were in individual pens inside the barn. A couple of Taiwanese were there as well and they were reacting to the animals in a typical Taiwanese way. Most people here never have contact with farm animals. They never see them, and for them to be up close and personal with a sheep is kind of like how a child would react in Canada the first time they see a sheep or cow.

I don’t know what kind of sheep they were. I’m sure Michael can tell me when he sees the pictures. It was certainly a small operation. Michael’s operation is small, but his farm was far, far larger than this. This was more like a petting zoo. And the sheep were nothing like the fluffy friendly creature you saw on the posters and banners. I don’t know how you keep a sheep’s coat white and fluffy, but however you do it, they weren’t doing it here. These animals were filthy. Their coats were heavy and matted and dirty. They also seemed completely lifeless in their pens. They simply stood there not betraying with even a swaying motion that they were alive. Michael’s sheep were full of life. They ran around and jumped and played and bleated so loudly that you were deafened. These animals were comatose. Not sure why that would be. I took a few pictures and then walked back up the hill to the main building and left.

My trip back to Fushing went very quickly and I was looking forward to a relaxing evening reading and perhaps walking around the town. It was very quiet in Fushing, just like the first day. It wasn’t even dark yet, but everything was closing up and shutting down.

It rained heavily during the night, and I woke up to heavy fog. The fog is so thick (I’m sitting in the Youth Activity Center’s restaurant again) that I can see nothing of the mountains, valleys, or the lake. At least it isn’t raining. My plan is to hop on the scooter and head south and see what the day has in store.

 

 

Tags: North Cross-Island Highway, NT, scooter, Taiwan, tent, Youth Activity Center