Taiwan: Days 3 and 4 (Monday and Tuesday)

Monday was an adventurous day for us though we certainly didn't intend for it to be so. We started out the morning by driving to Douliou, one of the small towns that David had served in on his mission. Apparently, Douliou is home to many crazy people, but we had no fun run-ins. We drove through the town, and stopped at the church building there and I was once again regaled with missionary stories (which is fun the first day, but after a week, it gets a little old :-).

We didn't really stop and explore in Douliou--not much to see anyway--so we decided to head elsewhere. I suggested we poke around the little mountain town of Rueili, which my tour book
described as a scenic little outpost famous for its fireflies, waterfalls, and hiking trails. None of the maps we had were very clear about how to actually get to Rueili, but we set off anyway, confident that it wouldn't be that difficult to find.

Well, we missed the road we should have taken for a direct shot at the town (which we wouldn't have seen anyway since we were on the highway, and the only way to access the road we really did need was from a local road) so we decided to head on to Alishan National Scenic Area and take the smaller country roads to reach Rueili from the back way. It sounded like a good plan at the time.

A short while into our trip, we stopped at Chukou, a small mountain town boasting a small Buddhist temple and a suspension bridge over a dried-out river bed. It was a picturesque place, so we decided to stop and check it out.

The little towns were always the most fun to stop in because we got lots of strange looks. Not many white people come through these parts, I'm sure.

We'd eaten a big breakfast that morning, and we weren't hungry yet but we bought some mountain apples at a roadside stand and bought a few snacks inside a 7-11 and then continued on our way.


The first hour of the journey was very scenic and beautiful as we climbed up twisty mountain roads. (Though not very pleasant on our stomachs as both David and I have a tendency to get carsick.)

Most of the land up in the mountains is used to grow tea. All those rows and rows of green bushes are all tea bushes and most people travel to this area to sample teas at various tea houses along the road to Alishan National Forest.

By this point, we'd been driving for awhile and had seen no signs for Rueili, so we contemplated just turning around. But David asked a few locals for directions and learned that the turn-off for the road to Rueili wasn't very far away so we decided to continue on our journey.

As we pressed on, the roads grew much more narrow and in some places, whole lanes had been washed away by recent heavy rain and landslides.

But even though we passed whole houses still sliding down mountains.....

.....and a strip of crushed buildings, we still didn't stop.

We had finally found the road to Rueili and seeing no indication that we couldn't still access the roads, we pressed on, though we saw fewer and fewer cars.

And then we came to this. The whole road was completely wiped out. And you know what? It still didn't stop us.

Because there were signs pointing to a small dirt road that promised access to Rueili. We'd come this far, it seemed like a shame to stop now. So down muddy dirt roads we went, climbing up and down mountains, driving through big muddy puddles and squeezing through impossibly narrow spots. Our rental car was not cut out for this kind of abuse. At one point, we took a wrong turn and ended up on some guy's chicken farm. We couldn't turn around so we had to back up the hill. I was growing more and more panicked (and hungry and cranky, since we hadn't stopped for lunch) and eventually we finally decided to admit defeat and turn around.

Our poor rental car after the journey out of the bowels of the mountain valleys. It wasn't a great car to begin with but it made a lot more noises after our off-roading adventure. It was about 2 p.m. when we turned around and started to make our long journey back to our hotel. We eventually made it back about two and a half hours later and I begged David to go to McDonald's for dinner since I wanted real food after our harrowing adventure. He kindly obliged. French fries have never tasted so good.

Tuesday, by comparison, was a much calmer day. After a relaxing morning, the Qiu family picked us up at our hotel to take us out to lunch. Brother Qiu, his wife, daughter, and a family friend took us to a Japanese restaurant in Yuan-lin. (The restaurant that they had originally wanted to take us to was closed on Tuesdays.) Brother Qiu was the Branch President in Yuan-lin when David served in that area eight years ago. They were incredibly nice and friendly people and we enjoyed our lunch immensely though I didn't get to partake in much of the conversation since only the daughter spoke much English.

The food--what I did eat--was quite delicious, though there was a lot a shrimp and fish heads mixed into things. Asians just fry up whole fish and eat it, bones and scales and all. I couldn't even handle all the tiny shrimp in the fried rice. Luckily there was fried rice with chicken as well. I eat a lot more seafood than I used to, but I can't eat it the way Asians do. Also, the Taiwanese don't drink anything with their meals, except for maybe tea, and they never drink cold water since they think it messes with their digestive systems.

After our lunch, David and I headed north to Taichung, the largest city in the area. David served in the Taichung Mission which comprised the central portion of Taiwan (there used to be 3 missions in Taiwan, but now there are only 2 so Taichung now includes all of the southern half of Taiwan). We drove to the mission home which is right next to a church building and a massive department store in central Taichung. Unfortunately, most of the missionaries were not in at the time, but we talked to one Senior Missionary married couple who were there and David bought some of their new language materials. He's very determined to keep his Chinese up.

After chatting with the Senior Missionaries for awhile, David and I went to check out this massive department store before we met another of David's friends for dinner. Kevin, who lives in Taichung, was a recent convert when David first served in Taichung. Luckily, he speaks great English so I actually got to participate in this conversation. Kevin took us to a "hot pot" restaurant. Basically, each person is given a pot of boiling broth and then you can select a variety of meats, vegetables, seafood, and noodles to boil in your pot. It was quite tasty. (Plus I'm always a fan of getting to cook my own food, especially meat, to my desired doneness, which is probably why I like Korean BBQ so much.) They even had "desserts" but Asians really don't like very sweet things and so their desserts always taste bland and flavorless to me. After a good meal, we said our good-byes to Kevin and headed back to Yuan-lin for our last night there.

Next up: the old town of Lukang and Sun Moon Lake.