Back to Taipei

The long trip back to Taipei was broken up with some little stop offs. Our esteemed guide, William, has an odd style. There is no lead up information when we stop off somewhere, apart from how long it will take to get there. So when we arrived at the Hakka Tea DIY Welcome sign no one had a clue, really, what we were doing there. Led to a table holding a bowl of nuts, herbs and grain, a little woman walked up with a big lump of wood and started to grind the ingredients in a bowl. Now, getting her drift, we all had a go. The result, when boiling water and something like rice bubbles was added, was like a toddler’s experiment in a mud pit. It is the Hakka people’s tea. The Hakka are the people who immigrated to Taiwan from a region of China. Their tea is famous. Hmmmm.

William applied the same hush hush approach to our next stop. On the itinerary, it said Indigo Dye. The place was mysterious. Set out like an old fashioned village, it was pretty cool, in a Shintaro sort of way with old timber bridges over a little creek, red lanterns and little cottages. 

Another little woman appeared took a piece of cloth, some sticks and rubber bands and started to clip and bind the cloth. A big vat of blue dye was the big clue. Then she showed one she had prepared earlier...a piece of blue dyed cloth with white patterns. Ah ha! We were going to make our own.

It was good fun. I wanted to do a Bluebags flag, but my skills were so limited, I was gonna be happy with anything I got.

Below is a photo of our finished products.

No prizes for picking the remedial student.

The drive today was the first time since we arrived in Taiwan, that the landscape was less than spectacular. In fact, it was pretty darn ugly for a couple of hours as we travelled through flat freeway terrain, past the city of Taichung. Smoggy and very built up, this little fella. The next surprise field trip was to the persimmon factory. In his inimitable style, the director said nothing about it except “persimmon factory” and he was right. We were soon in a place where there were lots of persimmons.

We had our photo taken in front of the persimmons.

Below is a photo of me looking back into the persimmon factory, reflecting on the experience. You will note the trays of persimmons, quite possibly recently picked, or else picked some time earlier. The juice on the floor near my feet is, almost certainly, persimmon juice.

Michele asked if they produced anything else but persimmons. The answer was no. 

We arrived at our hotel in Taipei and said goodbye to William. He had been excellent, actually. Although he didn’t have the confidence with his English to go into more depth with a lot of the content, he really looked after us and was a great guide. Doing Taiwan this way was brilliant, in fact it would have been very difficult to do it any other way, really. We were taken to so many places we would never have found on our own, he avoided the tourist traps and gave us an “authentic” experience. Good on ya Willy. Good on ya Michele. Good on ya, Core, the chief organiser.

Left to our own devices, we trudged off to Din Tai Fung. It had been given a huge build up, by absolutely everybody. A short wait, where we got to work out our order, was a bonus and then we were in, chopsticks and soup spoon in hand. The dumplings were excellent, but not my pick as the best of the trip, and the shrimp sticky plate was delicious. The mint tea kept coming and a little panic set in that we hadn’t ordered enough. We put the panic to rest, by grabbing the waitress and loading up a truckload more. When I came up for breath, I could hardly move. 



Our next day we dared the trains system and took off outside the metro. It was complicated, but not their fault, our fault. We finally reached Shifen where the little village has built up alongside the train tracks.



We made our own happiness lantern, where you write your wishes in colour coded categories, then it is cast to the skies as a mini hot air balloon. I had a sudden craving for those little Whittaker’s Almond Gold Bars they sell at IGA.



After seeing Taroko Gorge, the waterfall looked a little piddly, I’m afraid, but it was lovely country once again.

Then we took off to Juifen. After some confusion at the train station, we jumped in cab. Blow me down, if, after a short, tight drive up a mountainous road a vista of ocean, mountains and islands didn’t open up on our left hand side. It was spectacular. We climbed higher towards the old gold village of Juifen. This was a surprising highlight. The Juifen old town road is a tight little bugger, that runs through a million great little shops, selling really unusual merch and top food. Every now and then, a sensational view opened up between the shops. You are high on the side of a mountain above the Pacific Ocean, looking down a jagged coastline. Brilliant little spot.

This bloke below sold Michele and Nick a really cool ceramic flute, he could play it like nobody’s business. He did a neat Stairway to Heaven.








It had been a long day in the countryside and we were back on the metro system, heading home. The Taipei metro is the best I have been on. It is clean, efficient, quick and really simple to follow. Despite the unbelievable traffic, there is no aggro and politeness is built into the system. Lines where you queue really help and people jump in to assist you if you look confused. Makes me wonder about Sydney. Surely we were clever enough to put something like this together??

Oh, and another thing. Imagine a group of Asian tourists in Sydney, all wearing stupid gold caps with backpacks on a mini bus, holding up queues with inane questions asked in Chinese?? Bloody hell. Beautiful people here. Beautiful. The most beautiful people. Beautiful.



Below is the step by step instructions to the escape sling. Typhoons and earthquakes are realities here, but more frightening still is the escape sling.