Taiwan Part 5 - Saturday and most of Sunday! With Orchid Island.
We all get up mostly on time, and head to… 7-11. We did so to prepare ourselves for what sounded like the most treacherous boat ride of our lives, and therefore equipped ourselves with salty foods, carbonated beverages, water, and a delicious hot dog. I should have got money at this point, but I didn’t. I will suffer in a future paragraph (explicit foreshadowing).
We head to the ferry and wait for Jenny and Dylan (more specifically Jenny in this case as she was the one who got the tickets organized on Friday, but you know, we wanted Dylan too of course). I then realize as they are getting the tickets I have barely no cash, if any at all.
Thus begins the scramble for money. Evan and I run back to the 7-11 (we have 15 minutes), and it takes us about 7 minutes to get there. I am apparently not in good running shape, or perhaps the clothes I have on (jeans, a sweater) are not conducive to running, but either way I’m breathing heavily and sweating like a dog. Evan basically prancied his way there in comparison. It’s like comparing a gazelle to a gorilla. Woe is me.
We get there, and I try my card in the ATM. Doesn’t work, wtf? Okay, well, Evan to the rescue! He gets me 5K NT. (Turns out I was just being a noob and totally could have got money). Okay, money acquired! We run back. Frack.
Alright, we get back and… everybody’s already boarded except Megan. And my ticket is with them. More running! With luggage! Fuck yes!
We make it on time and Jenny has my tickets. She *gives them to me*. I put stars around this because I actually don’t know if I got them later on, and can’t seem to prove that she did give them to me. She very likely did, considering how many things I left behind during our island trip. Either way, this becomes a pinnacle event to the ventures back to Green Island and Taidong, which should be chronicled in its own miniseries of books and sold for millions. I’ll call it The Case of the Lost Taiwanese Tickets.
Anyway, we’re on the ferry that has been dreaded by Megan since Friday. Dylan, being resourceful as he is, actually has seasickness prevention pills. So, we all take one for fear of disruptive intestinal tracts and upheaval. The journey begins and… yeah, it’s pretty rocky. I’ve been on whale watching boats that were equally bad though so I turn out to be fine with it. Not so true for other passengers, as we could tell by the gurgling sounds I heard. Pleasant!
We kept ourselves distracted with snacks and carbonated beverages, and card games. Evan and I lost every Euchre game. Neither of us suck, but apparently we are not a good team. Hmph. We also play hearts, where I end up third. Seriously? Weird.
Time flies, and we arrive at Orchid Island. No upheavals! “Hooray!”, most of us exclaim, particularly Megan.
We get off the boat, and Jenny works her magic to get 4 scooters, a van for our luggage, and a guide back to our hostel. I had never driven a scooter but insisted I have my own — I am very happy I made this decision, as scooters are flippin’ sweet. At first it was a little awkward; my scooter didn’t like turning on easily and I was pretty shaky on it. Eventually I got it to go properly (and eventually I started speeding irresponsibly). We gas up, and then scoot our way to the other side of Orchid Island. The weather wasn’t particularly nice, yet we still got to see the island’s landscapes and coastlines clearly. Was really fun to drive through the little towns scattered around the island and seeing pigs, roosters, dogs, cats, and folks trotting along. We arrive at the hostel after a half an hour to an hour of scooting. Nice hostel! Really friendly people there, and for 100NT a person they’d make us dinner. Schwing! We totally take up on that offer — who in their right mind would reject local, home-cooked authentic Taiwanese food?
Once we put our stuff away, we were off! We scooted too and fro. The first spot was the weather station at the top of the island. During our scooting, Jeff fell off his bike after making a sharp turn. He seemed okay until we got to an intersection to stop and look at where to go. Upon walking towards us he just collapses. It was a total “Holy crap, shit just got real” moment. Within a few seconds he opens his eyes. He also humorously indicates he’s the only person who knows first aid. Yeah, not good!
It all turned out okay thankfully. We got him some water and bandaged up some parts. For a while we had him be passenger for a bit, particularly going up the hill to the weather station. The drive up for me was particularly fun considering it was the first day I had ever driven a scooter. I was totally up for the challenge (it looked pretty ridiculous, and it was). At the VERY END of the drive I drove into a barrier, thankfully very slowly and I didn’t get hurt at all. Bit of damage to the scooter but nothing noticeable. Probably the most fun drive I’ve ever done, and it makes me want to own a motorcycle.
We got to the top, and basically all I can say is “what a view!”. You could see the whole island from up there. We took a lot of pictures, and attempted jumping photos at Megan’s request. I think we ended up with something around 15 attempts at jumping shots before we got one of her jumping.
Again, I can’t really describe the view. It was pretty awe-inspiring. I’ll defer to Facebook photos here (when they become available). Either way, if you ever find yourself in Taiwan, I would recommend going to Orchid even just for this view.
Once we’re done here, we continue to scoot around the island, stopping and going for various picture opportunities. We saw a purple crab with green eyes and stopped for this crab for about 30 minutes as we watched it walk upside down along a cliff. Seriously, it was purple and had neon green eyes, and walked like a spider. Oh, and that cliff was pretty remarkable too.
Keep going, and we eventually stop at the 5 Holes of Heaven or something. Basically a cave with 5 enormous holes in it. Jeff, Evan and I decide to climb on top of it — whooooa man I want to climb more. The climbing alone was fun, even if it was simple. And I’m not too shabby at it apparently! We get on top where I have the best urination of my life — peeing while looking at enormous mountains and valleys is a pleasure one cannot describe effectively in a blog. We continue up, and apparently find out that wind is far stronger up above, which makes for some really good flight-boy pictures and equally amazing views of the coast. I hope Megan still has that shot of me as I peer down below from the top of the cave… goooood tiiiimes maaaan.
Anyway, we finish with this and continue driving around on our scooters (at this point I am extremely addicted to my scooter and start speeding and trying to do sharper turns as if I was in a moto GP race or something— exhilarating when you have wind blowing in your face at 40 km/h). We stop by an aboriginal town where we see a bunch of hand made canoes, very intricately detailed and flourished with black feathers, which were pretty neat to see. We meet with a native shopkeeper who sells handmade necklaces and knick-knacks. I buy one (250 NT — so, about 7 bucks), since I felt I wanted to get a memento of the trip and give it to my brother when I go back to Ottawa. It’s his birthday present from me, so again I refrain from saying what it is, but I think he’ll like it. When I post a picture of the scroll I’ll also post a picture of the necklace.
Eventually we have traveled the entire island. Really fascinating views all around, and very relaxing altogether, even spiritual in a sense. I felt very at ease during this part of the trip, and at the same time it felt adventurous — exactly what I wanted (and it wasn’t over!).
We headed back to the hostel, and enjoyed a cornucopia of local food. Some of the dishes we had were a bitter melon melange (bitter melon being a very popular fruit in Taiwan, as indicated by its presence in all of the local stands and night markets in Taipei), a seaweed vegetable dish, another local green vegetable dish, a noodle dish with chicken or pork, some really good noodle soup, a bunch of stir fries with local meats and vegetables, and, of course, rice. I was really impressed by the meal, and would call it the most memorable of the whole trip and one of the tastiest (hard to say any of them were really the tastiest, as all of the food was fun to eat and tasty). I was also just so impressed by the hospitality of the hostel owners. Actually, since we were a big group we ate separately, but other visitors ate with the hostel owners and other individuals staying at the hostel. It had a very homey feel to it, which I really appreciated and found rather endearing. The people were just so friendly and inviting.
One of the visitors was a native to the area who came back for a bit, and wanted to give us a guide to the islands owls. We had learned from the shopkeep earlier than one of the most prized inhabitants of the island were its owls, which are known to be the smallest on the planet. So, of course, we agreed. We scooted over and we got to have a pretty fun night adventure searching for super tiny owls. It sort of had a Blair Witch feel to it — pitch dark and in a forest with only one flashlight and a camera — but amusing because our guide, Penny (who was amazing to meet), kept “talking their language” (i.e.: hooting) and asking them to show themselves. Cute, you could say. Anyway, we end up actually seeing a few, and holy shit they’re tiny! We saw a bunch throughout the trip, took pictures, hooted, videotaped them, etc. Good times with owls.
Then realized we were lost in the forest. Huzzah!
We see another group of people coming into the forest (I guess it’s a tourist attraction) along with another woman staying at our hostel and a French guy living in Taipei that we had seen earlier. They decide to join us to get on our way back to the hostel. After about 15 minutes and the help of Evan’s phone’s compass, we find our way back to the scooters. Adventure is fun!
The next immediate adventure I had was in taking that second guide back on my scooter as a passenger. Given that it was my first day using a scooter, she was, understandably, a bit worried about my wobbliness (which I purport was due to the additional weight on the scooter). She kept telling me how scared she was for her life, followed by laughing. I didn’t know whether she was joking, or laughing to sort of downplay how scared she was for her life. I assured her I wanted to drive because I wanted to practice. We spoke about Canada, and how scary my driving was. That woman was a pleasure to meet, seriously (you’ll find out why), but being told “I’m going to die” (essentially) does not make driving easier, lady.
We get back to the hostel (I let her drive the scooter up the steep hill, because I didn’t want her having a heart attack — and yes, she was better driving scooters than I was) and hang out outside, chatting with Penny, the French guy, and the woman on my scooter. I found out that I actually do look Canadian, even though prior to our owl adventure I was told I look American (and Evan apparently looks German, or might be Native American).
Anyway, the conversation led to basically a Mandarin lesson. That woman forced me to learn 1 through 10 in mandarin, and how to do basic addition in Mandarin. I feared for my health had I not done it successfully (or at least not going to bed any time soon). She would not leave me alone. I don’t despise her at all for this, it was very entertaining and I enjoyed the conversation/drilling immensely. I also found out, while being drilled with math questions, that Penny went to the University of Calgary, and that she doesn’t like taxes. Eventually I was barraged with comments and super impressed faces because of how much Mandarin I knew after having been in Taiwan for only a week or so. I made a conscious effort to learn as much as I could on the trip, so I was happy to see these reactions.
Also, Mandarin girls can talk in really endearing ways — I’m not sure what Penny was saying exactly, but every time I told her a fact she’d respond with a sort of Mandarin “Eeeeeeeh?” kind of question, which I found very amusing. I’m curious to find out what it was she was saying, exactly.
Afterwards, we headed up to our room (Evan, Megan, Jeff and I shared a room while Jenny and Dylan got another). This is where we proceeded to drink a lot of sake, vodka, and some really gross liqueurs. One of the liqueurs we bought apparently translated to “Young deer antlers before ossification”. There was also a picture of a deer on the bottle, so I think the translation was accurate. At first it tasted okay, but then it tasted awful, even in shot form. I now know to avoid deer antlers, especially before they’ve ossified.
Went to sleep at around 1 or 2 am. We had “agreed” to be up for sunrise, which was at 5:30. I got up at 5 and waited outside for others to wake up. At 7:30, I decided nobody was waking up on time and tried to go back to bed. 15 minutes later, we are all up (though not necessarily happy about it, in one particular person’s case) and we head out for breakfast!
I got coffee, which in Taiwan is instant coffee with milk and sugar. It still tasted good, surprisingly, and now I was “awake”. Then we ate a lot of really delicious food (Taro bun for breakfast!), and paid maybe 5 bucks for it all each. I dunno, something ridiculously cheap.
As we left, I got the impression the head lady at the counter wasn’t too happy with us, but I don’t know why. I think she thought we were weird.
The last part of the trip before the ferry ride back involved a hike up to Crater Lake. Crater lake is in a crater (who could have guessed?). This was an amusing hike as there were parts where we actually used rope and “climbed” up (though there were steps along with the rope, so it was more guided). Eventually we get to the lake, and it was really cool to see, but at the same time rather destitute. Nobody really tried swimming since we all though it was chemically dangerous (there was no life in the water, and all the trees in or slightly close to it were dead). Good times.
At this time I got to talk to Jenny quite a bit more and learn her background. She seems like a really fantastic lady, and I had a really nice conversation with her while everyone else was prodding the lake to see if, essentially, the stick would burn or die immediately or something.
A few of us ended up walking into the water to see what would happen. It felt like sponges on the bottom. It was a little weird. Anyway, good photo ops!
Dylan had suggested we head back to see if we could go snorkeling (well, he could go snorkeling, as he had equipment). So we marched on. Climbing back down the giant cliff was actually more fun than going up I found, FYI. We continued on, and I ended up spraining my ankle (still sprained to this day, hooray).
No matter! We continue and find a nice corral area to put our feet into water and let Dylan explore snorkeling opportunities. We chilled out and chatted, and times were good.
And then we headed back to the ferry to venture forth to Green Island!
Oh, and I lost my “given to me” ticket. Uh oh. *Cliffhanger*
Tune in for the next part, where we figure out how to get me off each of the respective islands! (I have been typing all of this in a cafe, and want to go home now, so that I can go work on the photos at Jeff’s place)
