Thursday February 3, 2011

7:20 a.m. Cottage in the Mountains

Where to begin this latest adventure? I’m writing inside a beautiful wooden cottage high up in the mountains. I don’t really have any idea where I am because I came up here in a fog as thick as soup. It’s cold up here, and without any kind of heating, the thermometer reads 7 degrees Celsius inside the cottage. Luckily, this is a very modern cottage and it has an electric blanket on the bed. I was toasty warm all night. I’ve never been a fan of electric blankets, but this one is on the bed itself, like a fitted sheet. So you lay on it. That seems to work better, and I had a toasty space underneath the down comforter. And the comforter is not your typical small Taiwanese slippery nylon thing. It is big and made of soft cotton.

I got to this cottage through a chance encounter. After I finished my coffee at the roadside coffee shop, I hit the road. I didn’t plan on covering a lot of distance. It was about 25 kilometers to a mountain village called Baling. The scenery on the way there is spectacular and rugged, and I planned to continue to explore the area as I went. I hoped I could find a place to stay in Baling. If not, well, I had two meals in my backpack and I figured I could camp somewhere.

Before I’d gotten very far, I came across a set of buildings and I spotted a tourist type of map on a wall. I pulled up to check out the map and while I was doing that, a small brown poodle kept running towards me. The dog’s owner, a man in his thirties, kept stopping the dog, but I finally got him to let the dog go and come over. On impulse I asked the man if he knew anything about the town of Baling and if there was an inexpensive hotel of some kind there. At first, I didn’t get anywhere. I think I asked him six times, and I got no response. For some reason, instead of answering me, he got out his cell phone and made a call. He asked me if I wanted a hotel in Baling. I asked him, “Are there any hotels in Baling?” But he simply wouldn’t answer.

This went on for a very long time, and in the end he finally said that his mother’s house was a hotel. It cost NT$1,500 per night. Did I want to stay there? I said that I would assuming it was a nice place. He said it was a nice place. We exchanged cell phone numbers and he told me to call him when I got to the police station and he would come get me.

 

The journey to Baling was fantastic. Clouds had moved in and it was very cold and it had started to mist and sprinkle, but that didn’t matter. I don’t think I mentioned it, but a man I know who runs a local pub in Taipei brought in a bunch of hunting and skiing gear the other day. His friend had a clothing store, and he was selling this stuff very cheaply – $10 per item. Most of it is not really suitable for Taiwan, but I bought a bright orange rainproof hunting jacket and a pair of camouflage rainproof pants. These two items saved my life on this trip. I would have frozen to death without them. The pants are big enough to fit over my jeans and shoes, so I could just stop at the side of the road and pull them on. So I was warm and dry.

The road was extremely narrow and dangerous, so I drove carefully. Even then I almost witnessed one bad accident as a blue truck pulled out to pass me on a blind corner. Not surprisingly, a truck was coming around the other side, and the two of them slammed on their brakes and nearly collided. If I hadn’t been driving defensively, I would have been crushed against the rock cliff by the truck. The lucky thing is that I’d just seen that video on YouTube I mentioned. The exact same thing happened on that video, and when the truck doing the passing saw the oncoming vehicle, the driver instinctively pulled to the right back into his lane and hit the scooter that he was passing! I constantly monitor my rear view mirrors and when I saw this blue truck pulling out to pass me right on this blind corner, I slowed down and pulled as far to the right as I could. Then, when he pulled to the right to avoid the other truck, I wasn’t beside him. I had slowed down and stayed far behind.

I stopped in all the towns that I passed just to drive around. That usually meant driving up incredibly steep roads twisting and turning up the mountains. They are aboriginal villages – the Tayal or Atayal people. Being Chinese New Year, lots of children were setting off firecrackers. The most popular kind are rockets. They are attached to little sticks and they rocket into the air, where they explode. It has made my day interesting as these rockets explode all around me. I keep thinking my scooter is backfiring.

When I arrived in Baling, I looked for a police station, but I couldn’t find one. I called Eric anyway (the fellow with the brown poodle) to tell him I’d arrived. Baling was only a couple hundred meters long, so I figured he could find me. However, when I had him on the phone, he told me that I had to find road 116 and drive to Shanbaling. This was new information, and I wasn’t that thrilled about it. I wanted to be in the town itself with restaurants and people and activity. I didn’t want to be in a house miles up in the mountains. I quickly looked around the town of Baling and discovered that there were, in fact, two hotels. One was a basic place with simple but nice rooms for NT$800/night. The other was a hot spring spa type of place with much more expensive rooms. I thought I’d much rather stay in the basic place than be trapped with some family way up in the mountains. I had made the arrangements, though, and I figured I might as well at least look at the place. I could always come back to Baling.

So I set off down the road and quickly found road 116. It went steeply to the left and within minutes, I found myself locked inside that thick fog. It was nearly impossible to see and I rose slowly into nothingness. I climbed for what felt like a very long time and the temperature fell and fell and fell. I passed little clusters of signs that seemed to point to hotels and spas, but the buildings themselves were lost in the fog. Once or twice, I thought I was in Shanbaling, but it was difficult to tell, and the places were gone before I could blink. I finally arrived in what seemed to be a larger place. It had to be Shanbaling, and I drove slowly trying to find a police station. It was the strangest thing to be inside a town and yet be totally unable to see anything of it. Buildings drifted in and out of the fog and I had little sense of the place. A man in his twenties came up to me out of the fog and asked me in English where I was going. I told him I was looking for the police station, and he turned out to be one of the local police officers. He ran beside my scooter as I drove and directed me to the place. From there, I called Eric. He said it would take him ten minutes or so to get there and to wait for him.

I passed the time chatting with the police officer. He looked at my camouflage pants and my hunting jacket and he said that meeting me made him think of a movie he had just seen. He started to tell me about the plot, about how a lone man arrived in a small town and met some bad police. The bad police arrested him and beat him, but the man turned out to be an ex-soldier and he got guns and destroyed the town. He was, of course, talking about the movie Rambo. In his mind, I was Rambo, but he hastened to assure me that he was not “bad police.” He was “good police” and he wouldn’t beat me. He laughed and laughed as he told me about the movie. My arrival – a lone foreigner on a scooter of all things emerging lost in the fog – was the best thing to happen to him in months probably.

It took a long time for Eric to show up, and right away I started laying the groundwork for my eventual return to Baling. I didn’t want his feelings to be hurt when I saw his house and decided not to stay there. Eric was in his car and he turned on his four-way flashers to lead me through the fog to his mother’s house.

To my surprise, we wound our way through the town’s narrow streets and then left town. We climbed higher and higher into the mountains on unbelievable roads. The fog got thicker and thicker and the rain started to fall heavier. I kept laughing aloud and wondering where in the world I was going to end up. That is the thing about asking for help overseas. You might get help, but then you lose your independence and you never know what is going to happen. I couldn’t believe where Eric was taking me. We passed lots of signs in Chinese, and I got the idea that there were many home/hotels up here in the mountains.. The fog was so thick, though, that I couldn’t see any of them.

Eventually, Eric stopped his car and got out. He said that the road here was so steep that I should leave my scooter and walk down. I looked at the road and said it was no problem. I’d certainly driven up or down much steeper roads, so we continued on. Finally, our long and crazy journey ended, and I found myself among a group of cottages that could easily have been in northern Ontario. They were beautiful buildings with lovely balconies and big glass windows. They were made out of wood and had screen doors. Eric introduced me to his mother and father and then showed me the room that was available. I was expecting a cement dungeon in someone’s home. This was a gorgeous room with everything you can imagine, and I quickly agreed to take it. NT$1,500 is not cheap, but it’s not super-expensive either and the experience was not to be missed.

Eric told me that this parents had been building and running this place their entire lives. It was smaller than I thought, – only 2 buildings and 8 rooms for rent. The other large building I saw belonged to someone else. Eric assured me that there was a lovely view somewhere in all that fog. If the sun came out in the morning (which it has), I would be able to see it.

They have a kitchen here and serve incredible meals for NT$200. The meal I got was fantastic. It was so good and this place is so incredible, that I felt a little bit guilty. My life here in Taiwan (other than long work hours) comes with so much pleasure, and it often seems that I don’t deserve it. My favorite restaurant near where I work is a buffet style place. You simply grab a paper plate and then go down a long area containing perhaps 60 different dishes. Every vegetable, every meat, poultry, or fish dish, every tofu dish, everything you can imagine is laid out there and you just point at the ones you want and they put them on your plate – the most amazing meal for at most $3. And on these weekend trips, I just set off and drive through beautiful mountains and night after night find beautiful places to stay and eat fantastic meals. It’s a life that so many people in the world can’t even imagine. I compare my food choices here with the food choices I had in, for example, Guinea. Like two different universes.

I was surprisingly tired last night after I arrived. I had my dinner and then I curled up under my comforter with my Kindle. I started a new book called “The Voyage Out” by Virginia Woolf. It’s incredible to have 1,700 books to choose from all on one device. I noticed, though, that the battery doesn’t last very long in cold weather.

Very early, I turned off the light and went to bed. I slept long and hard and got out of bed at around six this morning. I was surprised at how tired I still was – particularly my eyes. This past year, my whole body seems to have changed subtly. My eyes are much worse. I suddenly find myself wearing my glasses a lot. The world is out of focus when it never was before. My eyes also seem to be sore a lot and I have big dark circles under them even when I’m rested. Oh, well.

The sun was out when I woke up. A short time ago, a woman knocked on my door and brought me a cup of coffee and breakfast. Another day has begun. I plan on staying in this area. I will explore the area up here and then probably spend the night at that basic hotel down in Baling. I think there is a lot to see up here (now that the fog is gone).

Thursday February 3, 2011

2:00 p.m.

I am in Baling now. I spent a wonderful morning up in the mountains in my mountain cottage. I was out early taking pictures. The sun was out and the fog and rain and clouds were all gone. It was incredible to wake up and see where I was. I had seen nothing the night before when I arrived. I was surprised to see that there were a number of these mountain cottages around.

A young woman brought breakfast to my room. I spoke to her later and I found out that she was from Indonesia. She is the only employee at this place, which means that she must do a tremendous amount of work. Eric’s mother and father work there too, but I imagine the Indonesian woman does most of the actual work like cleaning and cooking, and that would be a lot of work.

I sat with Eric and his family for a while drinking Oolong tea and coffee. I learned that during Chinese New Year, they are usually fully booked every night, and their rooms cost NT$4,000/night no matter how many people are in the room. They charged me NT$1,500 as a favor.

There was lots to see and lots to talk about while I was hanging out. They have a temperamental dog at this place and it bit the face of Eric’s brown poodle. The poor dog that did the biting was only doing what came naturally, but he was in big trouble because of that. Poor guy. They also had a big, beautiful white cat that I got to pet for a while. I saw birds everywhere including a huge hawk or eagle soaring over the valley. When I climbed up high on the road, I got a view of some distant mountain peaks that were covered in snow. Considering that Taiwan is in the tropics more or less, you can imagine how high those mountains had to be in order to be snow-covered.

All of the rooms were booked for that night, and they had to get the rooms ready, so I packed up before 11 in the morning. That is their standard checkout time. I was a bit anxious to get on the road because I wanted to make sure I could get a room at the hotel in Baling. The way things work here is that on Chinese New Year’s Eve, everyone visits their family. On Chinese New Year’s Day, a lot of people hit the road for a short holiday or drive to their other family’s house (if they are married). That means that the roads and hotels were going to be very busy today and tomorrow. There were rooms available yesterday, but there was no guarantee that there would be any today. I wanted to stay longer with Eric and his family, but it was time to go and I packed up my bags and left.

My drive back down to Baling was a revelation. I knew I was high in the mountains, but I had no idea how high. The views the entire way down were incredible. The road twisted and turned the entire way. It’s amazing that I did that entire route in the fog and rain the day before. When I reached the main road, I went straight to the hotel. At first, I seemed to be out of luck. The road and parking lot were filled with cars, and when I asked about a room, there was some discussion. It turns out the discussion was only about the price. It was NT$800 yesterday, but for Chinese New Year the prices were now NT$1,200. It seemed high considering that I had my cottage in paradise for NT$1,500, but that room normally was NT$4,000. So I agreed to the 1,200. In fact, I booked it for two nights. I wanted to spend the day just hanging out in this area. Tomorrow, I will drive around more of the mountain roads and then return here for the night. After that, I’m not sure. I’ll still have 3 days left of my holidays. That’s a long time, but I don’t know if it is long enough to go much farther south. I’ll need one day – Monday – to drive back to Taipei. It might be a good idea actually to drive back on Sunday. The roads are sure to be jammed on Monday.

I went out walking after I checked in and had lunch. Kids were firing rockets all over the place, and I kept ducking. There is a river here with some high bridges and I walked around taking pictures. Then I found a little place across from my hotel where I could get a cup of coffee. I turned out to be something of a celebrity. They don’t often see foreigners here apparently, and seven or eight children and adults all gathered around my table to talk to me. They were amazed at the color of my eyes. And they study English with magazines from the company I work for. I amazed them even more when I opened one of their magazines and showed them my picture inside it. They even asked for my autograph after that. To be honest, that happens quite a bit. I feel kind of weird when it happens, because I know that the magazines aren’t that special and my job isn’t that special. Yet, they treat me like I’m someone famous.

My room here has a TV, and I watched a few minutes of CNN before I went out for my walk. It was all about the demonstrations going on in Egypt. I guess it’s a good thing that I changed my plans and decided to stay in Taiwan longer. Otherwise, I probably would have been in Egypt right now.

 

Tags: Chinese New Year, North Cross-Island Highway, NT, scooter, Taiwan