Taiwan Trip: Day 9 (28/07/2013)

Sweating at 7:30am

Early wake up after a good night sleep to enjoy the quietness and emptiness of the streets of TaiNan (台南).
Following the itinerary recommended in our Lonely Planet, we found ourselves passing by and visiting most of the city’s highlights within a few kilometres whilst sweating as hell under a heat reaching 35-40 degrees.

Memorable photoshoot with strangers

Looking at the Confucius temple from outside the walls, we stopped on the street at a group of a dozen Asian tourists chain-taking pictures of a lady holding an umbrella and posing for them. Puzzled and interested, we did not manage to figure out whether she had been their tourguide or a superstar but nonetheless took pictures of her or, more honestly, of the people taking pictures of her! (Writing about this makes me think of this hilarious tumblr http://picsofaznstakingpicsoffood.tumblr.com/ which shows situations often encountered in Taiwan and in Asia in general). Someone from the group noticed our presence and all of a sudden, the whole group turned to us, took photographs of and with us and patiently nodded to our self-introduction in broken Chinese. After talking for a few minutes, we still had no idea who the umbrella lady could have been, but one thing was for sure: the group members were “ZhongGuoRen…TaiWan De”!!

 

Squirrels are quite active!

The visit of the temple was nice and it allowed us to enjoy the fans disseminated throughout the rooms. More interestingly, we got to witness a sexual intercourse between two squirrels right in front of the temple, where squirrels were more numerous than human beings. Animals being what they are, the male didn’t seem to bother whether the female consented the coitus or not…

Exorcism at DongYue Temple

Throughout our various visits of landmarks and temples, the DongYue Temple (東嶽殿) overwhelmed us with its eerie atmosphere. The temple is famous for people willing to get rid of their sins and communicate with dead relatives. The air was filled with heavy incense, obstructing our eyes and nostrils. One worshipper was screaming to the sky while another one was experiencing some scary exorcism… People are living their beliefs much intensely, which comes quite in contrast with the other temples of the country. We skipped the Chihkan Tower because we were just exhausted by the heat and did not want to pay for entrance tickets as well as dive into the packed area containing the monument.

Temple celebration

Just before we sat down to have a quick and deceiving San Rou Fan (a bowl of rice mixed with three types of meat), we stopped at a large square where a ceremony was held. Dozens of people danced, carried religious symbols, played music, ignited firecrackers in front of the entrance room of the Temple while we, along with many passers-by, watched and prayed for our ears to keep their working condition after all of that would be over. Once again, we did not really understand what was going on there, whether it was a wedding or a burial or simply a Buddhist holiday…but most importantly, we enjoyed these moments, let ourselves be overwhelmed by people, noises, smells and tastes and just took a large bite of what makes Tainan such an enjoyable and easy-to-live city.

Taking notes at the laundry shop

Once the first half of the day had passed, we rode the 80 kms separating us from ChiaYi, our next stop. Leaving Tainan County took us 20 kms with streetlights every 200 meters making the way even more boring than it would have been otherwise: grey sky, large national ways going through depressing towns and ending in Chiayi, not the most tourist-friendly place either!

Nice hotel (and cheap, 700 NTD for a double bed in a cosy en-suite room), pretty central, with a laundry shop nearby to wash our clothes for the second time of the trip and enjoy a refreshing beer. We ventured into the city, grabbed a decent chicken noodles for 30 NTD and called it a day, eager to rest properly before heading to the picturesque and nearly mystical Alishan and Sun Moon Lake areas.

We drove 80 kms on day 9