Taiwan Trip: Day 13 (01/08/2013)

On the road again... Last time!

We knew when starting off from TaiZhong (台中市) at 6.30am that today would not be the best day of our trip. It was not for  the taste of the breakfast we grabbed at the closest 7/Eleven – no better nor worse than the previous days, or about the weather – already nice at that time of the day. The motorbikes had not been stolen; we had had a good night sleep… No, the only bad thing about that day was that it was going to be the last one of our trip around Taiwan, a 13-day exciting adventure!

We have not carried away many memories from the 180 km we drove from TaiZhong as the road and scenery had nothing special and the bitter impression that this was going to be our last ride in a long time busied our minds. The sun shone hard on us for the whole ride and we finally made it to New Taipei City (新北市), where we stopped for the proverbial McDonald’s meal. A well-deserved one since we had been desperately looking for the restaurant in the previous 2 hours, although the whole way seemed beforehand paved with dozens of MacDonald’s, that we methodically let by in our wish to get to NTC as early as possible.

The old bike gave its last breath, again

Back to our bikes, we were both ready and eager to ride the 10 km that separated us from my flat and a nice shower… Only my bike was not. Starter, accelerator; nothing worked, no sign of life. Definitively punished for having enjoyed life too much in the past two weeks, I felt helpless but Ben encouraged me and we pushed the stubborn charger to the closest garage where the mechanic, with whom any conversation proved difficult in the first place, implied that a spark plug might be out and that he could not do anything for us. Pissed off and tired, I let Ben call the owner of the bikes, with whom the signed contract said he would provide assistance within the area covered by the Taipei MRT system… Notwithstanding our presence within that area, he let us in our own shit and reminded us that the bikes had to be returned at 6.30pm on the same day if we wanted our deposits back. Jerk.

Fixing is easy with Google Translate!

Back to the garage, we insisted on getting the bike fixed and the mechanic asked his apprentice to try and deal with us. No English spoken again, our Chinese hadn't gotten any better in the meanwhile, so he came up with an alternative. On a computer at the corner of the garage, he typed characters that Google directly translated into English. The first word that appeared was “wage”; "Of course we will pay you if you fix the bike!" Following this blessing, the bike was lifted up and almost completely taken down to pieces, in order for them to establish a diagnostic. As opposed to what we thought we had understood earlier, the piece that caused the breakdown was the battery.

Operations in process

We used Google Translate in turn and here was their answer: “Ordinateur moto Godfather végétal 1250 NT”. Hum, the NTD 1,250 we understood, but the rest of the sentence needed a bit more clarity if we were to pay this amount. It was more than time to ring my absolute Joker, my savior for so many times during my stay in Taiwan, my beloved flatmate Jimbo! At 2.00pm, I wasn’t too surprised when he told me I had just woken him up and that he had a bad hangover. We let the apprentice explain to him the situation in Chinese (in Taiwanese actually) and, back on the phone with Jimbo, he summed up “Hey, they can put you a not-Yamaha battery, more cheaper (sic), I think it’s good!”. We quickly accepted and sat down waiting for the new battery to be delivered, sipping a Pocari Sweat drink offered by the garage! An hour later, the bike was in one piece again and stood on its wheels. A thick white smoke coming out of the exhaust and two weeks of experience convinced us to have the oil changed before moving on. After all, NTD 1,500 (c. 35€) were still far less than the NTD 7,000 deposit we would have had to pay otherwise!

Last dinner with old and new friends

Just enough time for a shower, a refreshing drink and we headed towards Taipower Building, where we were meant to return the bikes. To our astonishment, Jeremy did not inspect the bikes thoroughly, merely started them, pulled the accelerator and gave us back our cash.
High five with Ben, mission accomplished and we are sure to remember this trip for long; or at least for the next few days: proud of our tanned skin in the morning, we decided not to put sunscreen on… And learned a good lesson when we arrived, red like two crayfish!

We drove 180 kms on the last day

So here we are, 13 days and roughly 1,350 kms later... Our last day together in TaiPei conveyed mixed feelings of happiness, completion and newborn nostalgia... Travelling is growing; so they say. Though the saying cannot be literally applied to Louis whose head still is less than 1m from the ground (got you buddy), we could not more agree with it. It is with minds full of unforgettable pictures and melancholic but eager hearts that we eventually left Taiwan, which definitely has a lot to offer.

We do hope you took pleasure in reading us and/or that you grabbed useful insights for your next trip. Do not hesitate to contact us if you want some tips. Thanks a ton for your visit!

'Til next time Asia...

Taiwan Trip: Day 12 (31/07/2013)

Boat trip on the pure Sun Moon Lake

We allowed ourselves to rest a bit more on that day (until about 7:30am) as we had booked on the previous day a boat trip around the Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) starting at 9:00am. Once our nice American breakfast (eggs and bacon!) finished, we headed towards the pier. The tour was actually quite short and we were happy to have paid only NTD100 for it. We had 1 onshore stop nearby a temple but stayed close to the boat as we didn’t understand how long the stop would last (only Chinese was spoken on the boat). We nonetheless enjoyed the second part of the trip on the forefront pontoon of the boat, which was all ours as Taiwanese and Chinese tourists remain afraid of the tanning sun. We sailed nearby the scrap of island named Lalu that is worshipped by the local Thao tribe and thereafter went back to the departure harbour.

Majestic WenWu Temple

Back onshore, we bought some souvenirs and packed. We rode our bikes around the lake with great pleasure and stopped at the WenWu temple (文武廟), located on the northeast side and overlooking the lake. You can therefore enjoy breathtaking views of the sky-blue water thanks to one platform sitting on the temple’s roofs. Despite works going on, the sacred venue remained impressive with its well-kept stone-carved façade, beautifully ornamented roofs and massive size.

20min hike = 20l of sweat

We then headed towards ShuiShe Village (水社村), the main tourist resort of the lake. From there, we looked for the start of MaoLanShan trail (猫蘭山步道) but ended up driving back and forth with the sole help of our Lonely Planet guide’s undetailed map. We eventually found the remote starting area and climbed the very steep slope towards the weather station in less than 20 minutes. The Lonely Planet guide was presenting the trail as a 2-hour walk so you can easily imagine how soaked with our own sweat we ended up. Some local hikers even made fun of us on their way down. Nonetheless, the view of the lake was much worthwhile and we took it easier on our way back to ShuiShe, where we had a bowl of noodle soup for lunch.

An old classic for lunch

At that moment, heavy rain started to fall and made us quite worried about the trip that was ahead of us. We still took our time for dessert and Louis treated me with a warm waffle as it was my birthday – he even managed to find a candle. Bellies full, we left the Sun Moon Lake and headed north as we had to be back in Taipei the next day. However, we were forced to stop 10kms later near PuLi as heavy rain soaked us and blocked our vision. We waited inside a convenience store for 30mins, twisting and mopping up our clothes, probably ruining the cleaner’s work.

Heavy rain made it trickier

Once on the road again, we had a hard time figuring out our way and often stopped, getting more and more upset as night was falling. During an umpteenth stop along the road, a lady in her fifties got out of her house trying to help us with our pinyin map and quickly involved her daughter but they didn’t look too sure about the way. Despite all their kindness and will to help, I was pissed as I knew it would take ages to leave them and we were running out of time. Louis knew it too but was more open so I reluctantly played low profile as I had made us lose time on the morning, trying to find by myself the way towards the MaoLanShan trail. Do not get it wrong, I love Taiwanese people but they always try to help even though they have no clue. The ladies eventually achieved to have us enter their house and offered us a cup of ice tea while the now-involved husband (who was sitting in a wheelchair for he fell from his house roof years ago, if we understood well) was screen-shooting Google maps, drawing arrows on Paint to show us the way and printing out the sheets. Meanwhile, we probably broke all rules of Taiwanese hosting with our dirty clothes, soaked shoes and gross manners… Oh, the irony of this anthological situation!

We drove about 100 kms on day 12

We left them 30mins later and decided to try our luck but even with the help of their maps, we couldn’t find our way. So we changed our itinerary and headed towards TaiZhong (台中市). At first magical with the stunning expanding sunset, the drive then became tricky with bits of rain, nighttime dark sky, fast cars and crazy stray dogs crossing the road. We strenuously made it to TaiZhong and were lucky to quickly find a cheap hostel. Heading out for a McDonald’s, we opted for a Subway, a lighter (?) option. Both mentally and physically tired, we collapsed in our beds as we wanted to get up early on the next morning in order to benefit from the most of daylight hours and avoid similar troubles. Well there would be troubles, although not similar… Stay tuned!

Taiwan Trip: Day 11 (30/07/2013)

Tough waking up at 3am!

Day 11 of our trip started with the sound of the alarm at 3 am, after a night of more or less 7 hours at the Catholic Youth Hostel where we had the whole 6-bed dorm for ourselves. Putting on clothes was the only thing to do before leaving, as hot water was only available from 5 to 11 pm and we did not fancy taking a cold shower, especially considering the temperature at our altitude (c. 2000 meters). At 3.25 am, we were good to go, both wearing the warmest clothes we could find: long trousers, 2 pairs of socks, undershirt, T-shirt, shirt, hoody and sweat-towel used as a scarf.

The Chinese tourist ain't ever tired

10 minutes later, at the ALiShan (阿里山) train station, we finally understood why the lady at the counter had advised us to arrive earlier than the 4.30 am we had planned: around 500 people (most of which were Chinese tourists) were already queuing there, in the dark and cold morning. As a matter of fact, owning a ticket does not mean that you will get on the train at the time of your choice: you will depend upon the first-come first-served rule and therefore have to get up early if you don’t want to be standing stupidly at the station by the time the sun rises, like quite a few people were doing when our train left at 4.30 am.

Not much to be noted during the train’s way up in the darkness, except maybe the amazing capacity of Chinese people to take micro-naps in any possible position and regardless of how crowded a place might be! Other “chinoiseries” included the Chinese man wearing suit-like trousers (like many Chinese tourists), a yellow shirt worn on top of another shirt (white) and of course, to ensure the overall cohesion, a tie!

Just in time for the sunrise

By the time we reached the observatory, the sky had already started to lighten up. Surprisingly, considering our relatively late arrival, we managed to elbow our way through the crowd and reached a strategic spot to wait for the sun to rise above the impressive mountain range in front of us. At 5.33 am, the sun showed up and Ben took dozens of pictures of this splendid show, in which the « wows » of the audience also played a significant role.

YuShan National Park

We left ALiShan at 9 am, headed to the YuShan National Park (玉山國家公園), stopping after a few kms to watch a group of monkeys seated on the entry sign of the park. We had a quick but nice chat with a family from Taipei, led by a spoiling grandmother that had us eat green beans. Our next stop was the DongPu (東埔) Lodge, a usual stopover for people climbing the YuShan. The ascension of the Jade Mountain (3,952 m) had been part of our plans for the trip but we had figured out in the previous days that it would take us too much time and therefore gave up the idea.

(Aggressive) monkeys at YuShan

We stopped again a stretch further to enjoy a nice panorama and…pressing the starter and the accelerator to start the engine and move on…the accelerator cable broke, leaving me puzzled and really confused as to what to do. A quick look at the map showed us we were no further that 20 km from the next village, which would have been an endless way had I had to push my bike for that long. Fortunately enough, most of the way was downhill and I could still use the gears, even with the engine off, to control the speed of my motorbike. The few flat or uphill sections were crossed respectively by using my feet to avoid stopping, moving my body back and forth to gain speed or basically pushing the bike. Without Ben lighting the way, pushing me and cheering me up, all of that would have been a nightmare; special thanks to him!

Motorbike issues did not take any beauty away from the National Park

Impossible is not Taiwanese

It took us an hour to to reach TongFu (同富) – the first village on the way – where we stopped at the first (and only) garage. Through gestures and small talk, we showed the problem to the mechanic, who, although he understood the problem, came back from his warehouse without the piece we needed. At this stage, many would have given up but he kept examining the bike and arranged for me to be able to hold the broken cable to accelerate. To prevent me from cutting myself, he even taped the cable and rigged it up into a ring-like shape to make it easier to hold. He refused any kind of payment by explaining me (or so I understood) that the same thing had happened to him in the past and that his makeshift solution wouldn’t allow me to go much further than the 30 kms to ShuiLi (水里), the next sizeable village on our way.

The touristy Sun Moon Lake

I pulled on the cable for a long 15 km, fearing that it might break at any time; a small village, YinChi, quickly appeared and we stopped at a garage there. Seeing we were foreigners, the mechanic introduced us to his kids, as proud as one can be of telling us that they were learning English at school. We offered him a cigarette that he accepted and smoked straight away, whilst diving into the mechanics of the motorbike. The man let his kids give us back the change on the €15 we paid for the cable, having them call us « ShuShu » (叔叔, uncles), which made us laugh and feel like we belonged there.

"La chambre du vieux jardinier"

The bikes nice and functional again, we rode the last 30 kms to our destination for the day, the Sun-Moon Lake (日月潭, Ri Yue Tan), where we arrived around 4 pm and checked out the Youth Activity Center located in the Itha Thao village where a bed in a packed dorm would have cost us $NT 900 each…way too much for our budget! From there, we got into a nice guesthouse, tastefully decorated, although the indicated room rates didn’t seem to match our budget… asked if we spoke Chinese, we answered “yi dian dian” and, in a mix of English and Chinese, we were shown a splendid room with two big beds for a price of $NT 1800. Then came our usual speech on how tight our finances were and how cheap our previous rooms were, “no sooner than yesterday, we paid only $NT 700… We are on a Taiwan tour, etc.”. Understanding the mismatch, the host negotiated with the guesthouse manager (his mother) for a room within our price range. He then led us to the 7th floor (the elevator stopped at the 6th) where, in addition to a laundry room and an office, a beautiful room awaited us, for a price of NT$ 800. We took it without hesitating even for a second; that’s the story of how we got the nicest room of our trip !

We drove about 130 kms on day 11