"We'll take you all the way to Kaohsiung!" the young, flashy couple enthusiastically exclaimed. Yong, the 24 year-old lady at the wheel of the car, steered us around a corner, tires squealing on the pavement. The centrifugal force hurled me against the doors.
"She opens car very good!" Yong's brother in-law, Min, said in English as we tore through downtown Taitung at 90 km/h. As we neared the mountains in the southeast, Yong became preoccupied with the radio dials, causing our car to veer into oncoming traffic.
"Oh my God. We're going to crash!" my partner Alison cried out. We lurched back into our lane and I lunged for my seatbelt.
A simple goal
"We're going around the island in sixteen hours, beginning in Keelung," Min told me. I wondered to myself whether sixteen hours was an estimate, or a goal.
Our goal was simply to travel a loop around the entire island, beginning and ending in Hualien. We hitchhiked whenever we could, rode trains when time became an issue, and hopped on buses to get off the beaten track. We began on Dr. Sun Yatsen's birthday and completed our tour in four days.
The volcanic rock of the east coast gave way to the red soil and mountains of the west. Rays of sun broke through the clouds like a beacon through the dense humidity of the west coast. The placid waters of the Taiwan Strait were tinted beige in contrast to the aquamarine Pacific. As we sped north into the evening, the distant horizon slowly lit up like a Christmas tree. I felt an acrid stinging in my eyes. Many had warned me about Kaohsiung's mammoth industrial district, but nothing could have prepared me for that moment of repugnance as the foul air congested my lungs.
A curious meal
In the city, we shared a quick plate of dinner at the Hsinhsing St. night market, before Min and Yong departed. We wandered into a pub and met up with two Canadians who were teaching English in town. They held nothing back in treating us to a thorough inspection of Kaohsiung's nightlife. The next thing I knew, I was peering through a transparent tabletop to see a live snake. No, it wasn't something in my drink. I glanced around the restaurant and for confirmation; inside every table was a glass terrarium containing a snake, frog, turtle, or lizard. I ventured downstairs to explore an exotic turtle pond and somehow ended up with a Burmese python wrapped around my neck and torso. "Don't worry, it won't bite you," the waiter said as he ran to fetch our camera. Later, I paid our bill and stared at a live alligator as it walked over my cash on the counter top.
A temple interlude
The next day, a fifty-minute train ride took us north to Tainan where we watched the late afternoon sun cast its golden hues on peeling red paint of the Kuankung temple. Across the street, hordes of tourists clambered up the steps of Fort Provintial, posing for cameras along the way. We wandered through the narrow stone alleyways that interconnected like a continuous maze leading infinitely from one temple to another. On a whim, we ventured into random alleys for exploration's sake and found ourselves in a walled courtyard. Three ladies graced a stage in colorful costumes and performed a Chinese opera. Rows of elderly spectators gazed serenely at this holiday spectacle from fold-up chairs. In the center of the red brick courtyard, a frenzied huddle of men with uniform yellow shirts stamped on a circular mound of sand. No one seemed to mind that they completely obstructed everyone's view in the process. Inside the adjoining temple, people crowded around a man who was performing an exorcism of a woman possessed by a ghost. The sights, sounds and smells put me on sensory overload. All I could do was sit back and observe.
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