From now on its downhill to Lidao
Trip Start
Nov 06, 2006
1
62
99
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Lidao,
Taiwan
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Total Distance: 33 km
Altitude up: 170m
Altitude down: 1460m
Wake up at 4:30am and at 5:00am it is 13 degrees outside, but luckily the wind has died down. Today it is mostly downward from km 149 to km 177 and from 2.560m to 1.100m. The sky is clear, landscape beautiful, but dryer and softer. A big bird dressed all in blue walks majestically across the street - we later see a picture of it and recognize it as the Mikado pheasant. At km 155 we arrive at the Chiang Yang Forest Bureau Center. We visit the exhibition hall with Bunun tribe and area information
Seeing Japanese Youth hostel from other side
. Here we also see the bird picture. We the walk 3 park trails of 650, 850 and 1700m each, mostly interlinked. The center is also the starting point for several trails for which permits are required. One hike is to the Chia Min Hu lake , which is a 14 km hike from 2100m to 3400m - air at this altitude is already thinner and makes breathing more difficult. Usually it is a 2 days hike with an overnight stay in a huts ( 2 huts with 60 and 100 people capacity ). 2 to 3 busloads of people are just returning. We walk on till km 169.5, a small village called Motien. The walk downhill really hurts the joints like ankles, calf, knees and a bit the hips - probably in the teens and twentees this would not happen. Motien has two things - one is a small shop with simplest restaurant and an even simpler homestay, all belonging to the same old lady; the other is the starting point to the trail down a valley to a meanwhile pretty famous hotspring beside the river. We are sitting down in the shop stretching our sore legs horizontally and buy Supau, a cold sport drink. A talk with the old lady owner convinces us not to go down the few hundret meters today . The lao ban niang ( lady boss ) is teaching a new housemaid Chinese - she has come from the Philippines 1.5 months ago - I do not reveal that my Chinese is still lousy after 15 years. At 2:15pm we finish our extensive lunch of Supau, cookies, dried beans and fruits we brought from Meishan
Siangyang waterfall - original deleted, sorry
. Although the lady offers rooms for 700 NTD for 2 person and 1000 for 4 person we go on to Lidao because we hope to find a place a bit more lifely ( believe me that's only a very relative term out here ). At 4:00pm we arrive in Lidao, a village about 1 kilometer away from the road located on a plateau above a river valley. Homestays are at 800, 1000 and 1200 for two person. There are several homestays, but all are empty or even not open for business. We choose the cheapest one ( including breakfast as we find out the next morning ), but more central and with a balcony. The owner, a resolute older lady, is also the mayor of the village. When we check the price a young lady tells us, but when we come back a middle aged man, drunk, shows us the room - we are not sure he is authorized to do so or just someone being drunk-bored. Later we get the connections - he is the young ( useless and mostly drunk ) son of the landlady and the young lady is his Vietnamese wife. They have very young boy.After dinner of spicy tofu, fish and rice we visit the central basketball place to whatch an activity. The place is full of 60 to 70 school children and women and men in their traditional clothes as well as rifles for the men. We learn that the children are from several different tribes, live in the school and are on a weekend gathering to learn about the customs of the Bunun tribe. The older village people show the hunting tradions:
- Men sit together around a fire and share Mi Jiou ( Millet wine ) and meat.
- They shoot their rifles in the air
- Individually they receive the blessings from the medicine man by a symbolized hug and touch of cheeks on both sides.
Last look on alpine mountains - Yakou ridge
- The women preapre the food while the men perform the above- Women and men share food and sing and dance together
Very good, a traditional show for other tribes. Later this evening all kids and some men go to hunt Fei-Shu ( flying squirrels ) in the mountains. They all sit on the flat bed of a truck and off it goes. As it is already dark I cannot take a photo of the moving car - pitty.
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Side remark:
The kids in the remotest villages are all too familiar with Baseball, the Taiwanese and American league. They know every detail about them, names ( the only English they shoot from their hips in perfect TV English ), clubs, league and what do I know ( or better I do not know ). Here starts my problem:
a) I have close to no clue about this sport, except someone throws a ball, someone tries to hit it with his bat and if he does he begins running in a square
Flowers
. I am not sure that's because someone is goimg to chase him.b) For all kids a foreigner is an American, also after I have tried and failed to convince them of another nationality.
c ) As all foreigners are Americans they all know about baseball ( that makes some sense, if there wouldn't be point b).
So after quite some time and increasing embarrisment, I concede defeat and try to change topic ( how to change topic with 10 to 15 years olds ?) as soon as possible. OK, soccer/football - no , forget it.
Good night!
That's it for the day!
