Taiwan's annual Matsu pilgrimage, for all its pageantry and color, is captured best as a deliberately chaotic celebration of people on the move.
The road -- all 300km of it -- is long. And the atmosphere and intensity is as relentless as the drumming, the deafening roar of firecrackers and the slightly out-of-tune horn blowing that precedes the goddess along her path.
For Chiang Ying-ying, a Taipei Times photographer, it is the people -- their ability to eat, rest and sleep in the strangest of places -- without complaint -- which makes for much of the magic.
The pilgrimage ends today when Matsu returns to her home temple in Tachia, Taichung County.
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