Leon and I decided to spend winter break together. Lemme recap the best moments. To preface, we did not plan anything: Inspired by Leon and his backpacking travels on the Interrail, we decided to be spontaneous, planning hostels, activities, etc. day by day. This ended up having consequences (lol) because this was Chinese New Year, aka the busiest, most touristy, most expensive, most booked time of the year. 2 days before break started I ended up, miracuously, finding a route (one bus, two trains) that could get us to Taidong. We had both never been to Taidong (southeast Taiwan), and heard the southern region of Taiwan was more bustling for Chinese New Year, so we thought it was perfect time to travel. Spent the first 2 nights at a hostel in Taidong...Taidong city recap: Cute little city, spent a lot of time on the park with old train tracks/old train. It was relaxing, walking and shopping and talking. On Chinese New Year, we called *everywhere* if there were spots open for dinner, but we only found 2 open restaurants in all of Taidong, both of which were already full and booked long ago. We ended up going to the night market instead (for the 2nd night in a row), where we met 2 foreigners (one from New Zealand, one from UK). Good food at the night market, though. We drank a beer on the grass and bought fireworks and told stories. It was lovely. Chaos incoming: Ok, the night of Chinese New Year, we still hadn't found a place to stay for the next night. We stayed up until 2 am in our hostel frantically (I was frantic and a bit irritated **sorry Leon**, Leon was much less frantic) searching available hostel options, activities. Zooming into cool looking places on Google Maps, we found a random hot springs a couple hours away from Taidong. We didn't read much into the details of the hot springs (*mistake* lol) but decided to plan our next day around that. We rented a motorcycle that night, already anticipating going around somewhere, and we booked the cheapest hostel closest to the hot springs, which looked about an hour drive from the hot springs. With no other plans, we went to bed. Did the most dangerous thing in my life to reach the most beautiful thing in my life: We left the hostel at 8:45 am, intending to get to the magical hot springs at 11 am. The quest to the springs was long, slightly unpleasant, and pretty: we motorcycled up through a moutain with really cold air, visited this grasslands (wanted to play dead on the field for some reason, see pcture below) and it ended up taking 4 hours instead of the so-called 2 hours (!!!shoutout google maps!!!). 12:40 pm we reached the trailhead (holy grail). Also, along the way, we stopped for lunch at a random stall on the side of the street—it was an aborginal family stall selling delicious food. They were so warm and kind, chewing Beetel nuts, offering to sing Karoke with us, and giving us Congyoubing (aka scallion pancake aboriginal style, aka just a lot more green onions) and this really great beef stew all for $160NTD (about $5.30 total for 2 of us). They were from the Buneng tribe, and talked about how the area they lived in was so behind compared to Taipei. They gave us some advice with the hot springs (i.e., go slow, leave early, wear gloves) and were bewildered that we were going without a guide ("uh oh" was my thought). We wanted to stop on the way back from the hot springs, but we had no time. We got to the trailhead at 12:40 pm. This was really late, and we were also stressed that we had no data. Reviews said that hiking this trail in the dark is way too dangerous; as such, we laid down a hard deadline to be back at the motorbike by 4 pm. Being unprepared as we were, we had no idea how long it would take to hike to the hot springs = anywhere from 20 minutes (what Leon found) to 1.5 hours (what I found. It ended up being what I found hahahehe). Realistically, arriving at 12:40 pm, we realized we only had about 20 minutes at the hot springs if we accounted for hiking times. So, we were stressed and were a little angry at ourselves for letting this happen. But onward we went! The hike ended up being crazy: ropes, huge rocks, at one point I was bouldering to not fall into this freezing river, we crossed a freezing river 3 times, had to strip down to the fundamental clothes. We passed 2 groups on the way which made us feel a lot better, and we chatted with them. Seeing another group do this eased my nerves a lot. We had to wear gloves (there was a pile at the beginning of the trailhead) and follow this rope—across huge rocks, through rivers to finally get to the hot springs which was incredible. At one point, I had to put Leon's phone in my mouth to carry while we swam across the river—we both didnt have a hat or fanny pack to hold above our heads. Definitely one of the most adventurous things I've ever done, and one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The green, the shapes of the rocks, the way the water and minerals shaped the rocks, it was perfect. The water temperature was perfectly hot. We spent about 20 minutes, which ended up being perfect, and headed back up. Night in Hostel at Chenggong Township: We got to the motorcycle at 3:45ish pm, just before our goal. We were relaxed and ready to go drive to the next hostel in the daylight. It took a physically painful (glutes were sore for the whole next day) 4 hours to get to the hostel. By the time we got there, we were just so tired, hungry, cold, sore, a little miserable, and in need of shelter and a break and a beer. But alas, we received no reward. We entered our room in the hostel and started laughing/crying because it was the worst hostel both of us had ever been to. The beds were all wooden mattresses, and the one piece of decor was a Heiniken tapestry. The bathroom shower had a floating 7-11 spoon in it, and there was a big spider that I kept an eye on the whole time I was showering later that night. Anyway, we were so tired and hurting, but we ultimately thought it was a funny adventure. Upon leaving the hostel to get dinner, we quickly realized why the hostel was so cheap: the township had nothing in it. There was about one intersection of stores and resturants. Cold and distressed about where we were gonna eat that night and where we were gonna sleep the next night, we ended up eating at 7-11 because there were no other adequate options. I had a microwaveable Indian curry and a hot choclate to ease the distress. After eating, I recall crying because we had no plans for the next night and Booking.com/Airbnb/Hostelworld/VRBO was all way too expensive. We decided we needed a change. It was rainy and cold, so we needed sun. We were like, okay, let's go to Kending and camp (because there were no affordable hostel options at all). I have to say, though, one good thing about this night was that I was there with Leon. It was the best thing to experience all this unexpectedness with him. The next morning....we drove down to Taidong, visited a cool bridge, dropped off the bike, and took the next bus/train to Kending. I called approximately 20 tent places at the train station and finally found one place that allowed us to rent a tent: on the phone, they said we could take away the tent to another campsite. We intended to do this so that we could camp on the beach! We get to Kending after 4-5 hours of travel from Taidong. So, it was dark. We got to the tent place, and once we got there, the worker told us that we couldn't bring the tent away from the camp site. The problem was that this campsite that we rented the tents from was boring, there was no view. But, there was a campsite on the water that looked great. However, things were fine because Leon haggled a bit, and we were able to bring the tent away. **thank you leon!!** Leon loves hitchiking. So, we ended up hitchiking to the other campsite (although I was cringing the whole time his thumb was up and he was smiling at cars). It was a nice family. I saw their car earlier, and it looked like they pulled to the side for a few minutes, talked about it, then turned around and picked us up. We were so grateful. It was fun. I was kind of on edge, didn't really know what to say, I felt awkward, so I felt like I left absolutely no space for silence. lol. Feeling thankful for that family! Got to the campsite, set up everything with our phone flashlights, said hello to our neighbors, and headed to the night market for good food (we tried a bunch of different meats, rices, treats, watermelon juice). Aftwards, we stopped for a beer at our favorite place (from last time we were in Kending)—this Jamacian outdoor bar. It was great vibes, and although we were a bit cold, it felt nice to have a place to stay. Got back to the tent and fell asleep without a mat, but luckily with sleeping bags. It was hard rock and dirt (no pad :( but at least we had shelter). It was kind of funny how things worked out so humorously unfortunate for us on this trip: the first night it was pouring rain the whole night (good thing we put the fly up!),. The second day, we were a little miserable. We hadn't showered for a while, it wasn't actually sunny in Kending (it was like windy and cloudy). But, we spent the day running around on the beach to the water (highlight!) and getting a tap beer at 7-11 (whaaaaat?). We were like, OK, we spend one more night with the tent, then leave first thing in the morning because we really just wanted our beds. We ended up going to a rechao for dinner—like a big Taiwanese pub where you drink beer and eat small plates. Yummm! That night in the tent, it was so windy. The sides of the tent were brushing against my face. We were on the water, so it makes sense. Anyway, we were so excited to leave in the morning, although it was cutting our break a little short. Lastly, of course, they were sold out of seated tickets to Taipei, so we bought standing tickets to Taipei. We sat in-between cars, on the floor hearing the loud noise of the train, for 5 hours. It was actually funny. The rest of the break, we studied and chilled (much needed). Although the trip seemed pretty unfortunate, there were so many happy things. A stranger gave me and Leon snacks to welcome us as foreigners. I was able to see the sea. I chatted with friendly strangers. We used big fireworks! We drank a beer on the water in Kending. We motorcycled through these great gorges. We laughed a lot about how everything was so up and down. I think that was the last time I will ever visit those cities in my life, so I am grateful it was really memorable.
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施安雅我是個愛喝咖啡 吃東西 和朋友家人在一起的人。我從西雅圖來台灣學中文 學九個月。歡迎! Archives
March 2023
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