Taiwan...full circle Part Three. Kending.

Here I will present the next stop in our trip, southmost part of Taiwan, Kending. It is a national park area, and the best way to go around is renting the scooter, or buying the daily ticket for the bus which goes around, and comes every half hour or so.

We arrived from Chiaji by bus via Kaohsiung. Taiwan seems not to be big island, but it took 2 hours and some to reach Kending from Kaohsiung, and not at slow pace at all. We arrived late, after 10PM, but no problem to find accomodation, Kending is The Coastal City of Taiwan. Nightmarket of Kending is famous-crowd as usual in such places in Taiwan, only here it is the crowd at leisure time. Taiwanese resting, interesting sight-but no any pic as it would be possible mostly at night-market, where we were too much occupied by eating.
Daytime we usually spent around, enjoying nature.
This is the sight of Kending from the southmost point of Taiwan. I like the sight

Tourist Miki.

Kending is famous for its weird rock formations.

As usual, no swimming, coastline is rather rough.

Well, if it is not rough, there are some details not expected in National park: this dome is...Nuclear Power plant. Khm. 25 years or so old Westinghouse or so...thank you very much for swimming in the garden of it.

I think after this I would look like this guy even without tatoo artist working on me. This one we met going around with people from the company, and my friend recognised the company. They were nice people and this one showed us some of the art applied to himself. Really...incredible!

In the Kending area is also this-southernmost in Taiwan-lighthouse. Very photogenic one.

Interesting that they needed to build the fence for the defence of it.

A little of history.

Taiwan...full circle Part Two. Sunrise in Alishan.

Hot summer Sunday in Athens, rest after a hectic week. Good time to continue Taiwan blog, for those who could be interested, and for myself, until it is not covered with the European summer holidays layers. My time starts to make a palimpsest, more than I would expect. I must confess to resort to Zen thinking more and more, when trying to encompass it.

Here I will describe part of the southern trip: Alishan and Kending. Alishan is the area EXACTLY in the Tropic of Cancer, so I was following one Western writer ;-), and Kending is the southmost of Taiwan. I know many will not have any ideas about this, so I attach here Lonely Planet map of Taiwan-OK, I add a small ad for LPlanet: it IS a good book, at least for taiwan and Greece, which I tried until now on my skin. Must have if you go there, even if you are native Taiwanese (or especially then!) :-D

Alishan is the place where you go to see the sunrise. Full stop. Translated Taiwanese way: we went so to come to Alishan in the evening-we were late for the last bus or train, so we took a taxi (lady found us and added us to 2 nice Hong Kong students who were on their holiday trip) and after a hour and some of quite curwy and high-going 80km drive (for only 400 NT$=10 eur per person!, bargained to 350NT$). After crossing the gate (and paying around 100 NT$ to enter) we were in Alishan village.

We took a room (quite cheap accomodation, considering how frequented is the place, it was around 30 eur for the double room, in the private accomodation of not the worst quality!). Task was to be awake EARLY in the morning (around 4AM), catch the small train to the summit of the hills around (about 2400m above the sea level), then walk to about 2500m height (some half hour walk on the paved road, with stairs etc., as usual in jungle mountains here). You are not going alone for such an event, as you could imagine, there is a crowd of people, in fact it was full small train, I had to stand half hour drive. When this crowd arrived to the top and walked a little to the summit of the mountain, a beautiful view opened in front of us: tops of the highest mountains from here to Tibet, 1500m higher than the place where we stand. YuShan or Jade mountain is 3952 is on the right here. Sun was just to come out, and the play of colors was delightful.

But, it obviously needed, in Taiwanese style, and advertisment. It is known that Taiwanese are all about business-leader of the Alishan village proved it: he announced the sunset to come, with MEGAPHONE, yes, but also was praising local food and other touristical points. It was a...say, unbeliveable thing to hear at 5AM in the tops of mountains, even in Taiwan. Unique experience, I tell you. I think after this I will go to Julian Alps in Slovenia with MUCH more respect for what I see and experience.

OK, so announced, here was the sunrise. We were lucky,as it was the 1st sunrise visible in last 5 days, because of the clouds.

As sun went higher, the previously hidden mountains uncovered their beauty. Not so stark one as in Alps, I must say, but still beauty and silence. It is completely different experience than in stone of Alps.

Towards the East, clouds above the plains towards the Taiwan Strait.

One for album (we're here at 5:30AM, after being awake at 3:30AM, this would leave mark even on Brangelina!):

Descent was some hour walk through the park-like area, one interesting comment under one Cedar tree, yes, someone felt obliged to specify what to do with such tree...

Afternoon, we went down to the Chiaji(Jiayi) by the best narrow-track train I experienced in my life-3:30 of beautiful ride, through 70some tunnels and descending from 2400m to some 100m. It costed also around 400NT$ and be certain to do it, it is really awesome experience. Especially if you have kids or locomotion illness, as descent from the mountain in the bus is shorter (takes about hour and some) but CURWY.
This is the picture of the old train, from the 1st half of XX ct. (it was machine transported from USA) for the transportation of timber

Today it is small, quite shaky train:

In the bus stop near the train station, we were reminded Taiwan has army, and mountain areas are exploited for the exercise. I would not like to go around at 30 celsius and 90% humidity in full army equipment! Poor guys!

Taiwan...full circle Part One. Jhuzinhu, Danshuei and Fulong.

As announced some time ago, I went to Ilha Formosa (=Beautiful Island) again. Thanks to the stars. And Sienny.

Except hard working (inevitable when Sienny is in question), I planned to close my circle around the island, to visit the southmost region, Kending, and Taitung. It turned so that I managed even a bit more. Classic Taiwan tour to Alishan, to observe the sunrise, and a Green Island tour, completed my experience of the island. Anything else than 'excellent' would be far from my feelings about it all.

As 1st, some comments about work: given such students as those with whom I was interacting in Taipei, everything is possible to do. Even when lacking more general picture, they surpass the troubles by good will and great effort, and eventually they do the task! Not the case always and everywhere, as we well know.

There was a lots of sightseeing this time, so let me divide it in pieces.

Some flight impressions, as I had window places both to Bangkok and further, and it was mostly during daytime...

Instead of flying above Rhodes and then towards Iran, as shown in on-flight map, Boeing 777-300 of Thai Airways took more nortehrn route and crossed Turkey accross, to my surprise.

This is Anadolia, I think (by timing)

and then came this, what could be Ararat, but I am not sure, as it could also be Kizlar Sivirisi...I made the photo when I realised this is not Syria, which I expected to see below at that moment (I realised when I saw the Black Sea shoreline and then the fires of the Kaspian sea oil fields).

After this was night, with usual few lights of Turkmenia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. So, after the short stop in Bangkok, these are the rugged lands of Thailand

and here we meet the South China sea

This flight was as lecture of geography, here is very edge of Indochina peninsula:

In the horizon above the Taiwan strait is the PRC, Mainland China. High time to go there once!

Behind the hill is Taipei,landing soon!

The first task when in Taiwan was to get better insight in Taipei. It was the first time that I spent almost month in Taipei, so I saw some parts I failed to see last times, and also I visited some typical surounding spots for Taipei people.

Usual look of the Howard International single room, for you just to get an idea-it costs usually 2500 NT$ (~60eur), ASIAA got it for me for 1700NT$. Considering that it is Taipei...and 5 min walking from Physics dpt. in NTU campus, it was for sure the best location for me.

Taipei is surounded by mountains-only hour drive out of the city (by bus), behind Beitou, can bring you to the serene landscape of Yanmingshan national park. With my personal guide we went to Jhuzinhu area.

This is the real jungle area, gardens are rich, everything GREEN

This was one weekend, the next one I decided it is time to finally see Danshuei, harbour part of Taipei, and, sure, the famous Night (and day, I would say) market there. Trip is by MRT,Taipei metro, which pops out for this last part

And then by small boat

Yes, I was there:

and behind me is the taiwan Strait

One usual pic from the streets of Taipei

and one unusual

As I said once before, religion in Taiwan is alive

During my last stays in Taiwan, even during the long one (half year), I did not manage to swim in Pacific. I decided to correct this failure, so we went for Fulong, which ChiC, one dear friend, said is the closest good place for swimming. It is less than 2 hours by train accross island, and it is magnificent beach. U can swim, U can surf! We started from this temple on the very beach (in the toilet of it we changed to swimming gears)

On my 2nd swim I saved the...shark!:-D U can see I am HAPPY! Notbecause of shark, but because of decent swimming there, finally! Water was around 30 cels, I think (outside was 35 at least!), I tried to find some colder stram but there were rarely some-waters in the places which Taiwanese use for swimming are shallow, you can stand. It sems other places are considered VERY dangerous-in some of my next posts you will realise it is probably true: ocean waves were quite big force even on this safe beach, if there'd come some serious one it would not be too pleasant encounter!

The beach is ideal!

It is formed in the entrance of a river into the sea

If you proceed straight south here, the next shore is...Philippines! If eastwards, you hit the middle of Mexico.