Having circumnavigated the nation on a bicycle four years ago, 25-year-old Hsiao Chien-hung (蕭建宏) returned home to Sanchong District (三重), New Taipei City (新北市), on Wednesday after a 94-day round-the-nation walk.
Hsiao said he decided to walk around the island because he felt the bicycle trip he took four years ago was not “in-depth” enough to fully experience the nation’s culture and admire its scenery.
After he was discharged from the military, Hsiao worked as a marketing communicator in the gaming industry for a year before deciding to quit in February to pursue his dream of walking around Taiwan.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
Although his parents originally opposed the plan, they later accepted it after he insisted.
Hsiao said he had posted messages on Facebook asking for volunteers to accompany him on the journey, but of the five people who responded, only an old classmate actually walked 20km with Hsiao when he started the walk in Miaoli.
Hsiao took a trolley with him on the journey loaded with 30kg of equipment, including a tent, sleeping bag, simple cooking equipment, toiletries, a change of clothes and a trashcan to pick up trash littering the roadside as he traveled.
“I wanted to contribute to society while traveling,” Hsiao said, adding that he had in total emptied out the trashcan more than 70 times.
Hsiao said he mostly pitched his tent in schools at night or slept at police stations or abandoned farms. One night he camped on a beach outside of Toucheng Township (頭城), Yilan County, to view a total lunar eclipse, he said.
Hsiao said that on average he walked 13km per day and that he endured aching joints “mainly through strong will.”
When asked why he was so determined to make the journey, Hsiao said cryptically: “If there was a tomorrow,” adding that people are prone to procrastinate on things they want to do, which means they never do them.
“I choose to take hold of the present and live my dreams no matter what,” Hsiao said.
Hsiao said the part of the walk that left the biggest impression was when he climbed up the -Alangyi Ancient Trail (阿塱壹古道) in Pingtung County.
“Taiwanese people are so warmhearted,” he said, recalling people taking the initiative to greet him when they saw the sign he carried, offering him drinks and giving him encouragement.
Some of the Aborigines he ran into even treated him to alcoholic drinks, he added.
Hsiao said he made many new friends on the trip and that he plans to publish details of his journey in a book in order to thank those who helped him.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
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