February 25, 2010

Prince Roy and Spicygirl took us to breakfast at their favorite restaurant, a little place near their office, decorated in tasteful shades of blue. I’ve seen a lot of blue in Laos for some reason, and it’s always tasteful. In fact, most of the men in the place, apparently on their way to work, wore blue shirts. The noodles, however, thanks to my outright hatred for spices and cilantro, were fairly tasteless.

Proceedings at the airport were quick thanks to our lack of check-in baggage, and we passed the time before boarding watching badly produced military programs on the airport TV. We also ran into the group of Malaysians once again; they were on our flight.

The Air Asia flight took off more or less on time for once, and the flight was mostly smooth. Laos faded into a grey haze below as I took pictures of the red plane engines framed by the blue skies out my window while enjoying the massage chair treatment courtesy of the child sitting behind me.

Back in Kuala Lumpur, we were picked up by another Malaysian friend, Tianshun, who drove us to get massages given by two fellows from Fujian Province in China. They expressed their desire to work in Taiwan, as yet stymied by government policy. Back in the car after some fried rice, Tianshun regaled us with stories of car theft and other social order delights of KL, which he connected with recent immigrant workers from Indonesia.

We headed to KL Tower, an observation tower not quite as tall as the Petronas Towers, to get some shots of the city as dusk fell. It was full of tourists, and as the sun set I realized that the background lighting made night-time shooting very difficult. The tourists’ trying to use flashes on the glass didn’t help things, either. So I took shots of the tourists instead, earning a glare from a man after photographing some women in burkas sleeping by the window.

After coming back down, we attended a “Cultural Show” which featured three dancing men and three dancing women. The dances themselves were rather effeminate; Tianshun insisted that all Malay danced were that way, and in no way reflected on the sexuality of the dancers. There was also a traditional Malay band on traditional instruments. I got the feeling that some of them also played in rock bands.

February 24

We were up early again this morning, this time visiting the morning market, a busy scene. Vendors were setting up stands, laying out colorful vegetables and presiding over large spreads of bloody, fly-covered meat. Already the monks were out begging for alms, and I shot a couple of photographs before moving on past the one corner where all the foreigners gather to watch them. We went back to the temple to visit our wifi-stealing friends, Thong and Dham, but Dham had a headache, and Thong, looking very serious, sat us down at a table and proposed that we fund his higher education. It was all a bit awkward and sad.

We walked on to the end of the street and down to a rickety bamboo bridge across the river, but a man was waiting there to collect a fee, so we turned back and walked to another temple, where a man and a woman hurried up to us to collect another fee, but we declined, tired of all the fees. I suppose it’s just a natural result of being oversaturated with tourists from rich Western countries for so long.

We found a small, run-down temple that didn’t charge for entry, and walked around the grounds. A monk was practicing writing Japanese on a chalkboard, while other monks listened to rock music in their dorms. A rough model of one of the airplanes that takes off every day from the Luang Prabang Airport hung on the ceiling; I wonder if they dream of being on that plane. But I’m probably overanalyzing things.

We had some lunch at a café where Chenble startled the resident tomcat into thinking another cat was nearby by meowing in a high register. The tomcat jumped up and searched around our table, even looking out the window for its nonexistent mate. After lunch we browsed the market for gifts for friends, and then went back to the hotel to check out. A tuk-tuk drove us to the airport, stopping at the gate as tuk-tuks aren’t allowed inside.

As we got our tickets checked in the lobby and sat down to wait before boarding the MA-60 back to Vientiane, I was thinking of all the monks of Luang Prabang, most born to poor families who couldn’t afford to raise them, novices until the age of 20, when they can either chose to become full-fledged monks or a civilian life. As the plane took off, I got a good view of the town, including the monasteries and the statue on the hill where we had watched the sunset the night before. We’d told Thong we might be back at 11.

The flight down to Vientiane was a lot bumpier than the one there; the plane stayed at lower altitudes in rougher air, but things never got truly scary. We arrived ahead of schedule, taking pictures of the clouds on the tarmac before walking into the arrivals area where Spicy Girl was waiting. She drove us to the big arch at the intersection of several roads, built by the French in 1969. It seems that they never quite finished it; the interior was rough and unfurnished, all bare concrete. The upper floors were all gift shops, but the view from the top was nice. The grates on the windows at the very top minaret mirrored the shape of the roads below, weaving the scene into a portrait of the Buddha.

Back at the bottom of the tower, Spicygirl marveled at my daring in snapping pictures of random people there. “What if you offend someone who wants to fight you?” she asked. I handed her my camera.

“Try swinging that around,” I said. “The 16-35mm 2.8L is not only a fine lens for wide night photography; it can also render a man unconscious with one blow.” When it came time to take a shot of policemen guarding the presidential office, though, I ate my words and asked if it would be ok to photograph them. They said no.

We drove to another temple, a big gold thing that had just closed as it was already 4 p.m. On the way in we were recognized by the group of Malaysians we’d met at the waterfalls outside of Luang Prabang, where they overheard Chenble mention that he’d caught ghosts in one of his shots.

Prince Roy was getting off work at 5 p.m., so we drove to a spot nearby and walked around, poking around an old temple that was undergoing renovation. Again, many cats roamed the place. Spicygirl and Chenble agreed that the Lao reverence for cats might have something to do with the nation’s financial status.

Prince Roy met us at a nearby café, and we set off for dinner at a pseudo-Korean barbeque place, where meat and vegetables are cooked over hot coals. It was good, but I ate too much. Now we’re back at the princely estate. Tomorrow we fly back to Malaysia, and find out if Air Asia can get at least one flight on schedule.

February 22, 2010

Prince Roy drove us to the domestic terminal of the airport this morning, dropping Spicy Girl off on the way. We had plenty of time, so we had some breakfast in the international terminal. The domestic terminal was an exercise in retro design, sparse and muted. I had some reservations about having breakfast before a flight in a relatively small prop plane, but I needn’t have worried. The flight was smoother and more comfortable than a large jet would have provided. The pressurization didn’t even give my ears any trouble, and we were in Luang Prabang in no time.

The help desk at the airport in Luang Prabang wasn’t very helpful. They did manage to suggest a hotel on the river, the Mekong Lodge or something, but after an expensive taxi ride into town, we were told by a guy standing outside that it was completely booked. Luckily for us, however, they did just open a branch down the street. I suspected this was a trick and actually went into the lobby to confirm, and they were indeed booked. The new branch is also on the river, and we bargained the price of a nice room with a balcony overlooking the river down to US$65.

After putting our things away, we walked over to the tourist information center, where we were assisted by a Chinese-speaking woman with crooked teeth; Po Jiao is a member of the Dai minority and lives in a village just outside of town. We booked two tours with her, one to some waterfalls and another up the river to see some caves.

By then it was noon, so we had some chicken sandwiches at a nearby hotel/restaurant that was charging 10,000 kip for their wifi password; I declined. Then we walked around town a bit until returning to our hotel at 1:30 to catch the bus to the waterfall.

It was almost 2:00 before we gave up and went back to the tourist center to ask what was going on. Po Jiao made some calls and found that since our hotel was new the driver didn’t know about it. Eventually the van showed up, and we joined the two Canadian women who were also going to the falls. A small TV screen was showing a series of Lao music videos featuring a band, old footage of the war, and various dear leaders. I’m afraid I must have seemed a little rude as I divided my attention between her and the scenery, which included an elephant and many leafless trees.

There were bears at our destination. I hear there were also tigers, but I didn’t see any. We were lucky to get the two hours we had, as the driver seemed to think the delay was our fault, and originally only wanted to give us half an hour. The smallish black bears were lazing around a complex surrounded by wire fences. Two of them seemed to be playing poker; another couple were having rough sex on top of a playpen.

The waterfalls themselves were nice enough, with the limestone shelves giving the water a light blue cast, but the place was overrun with tourists, many swimming and diving. Actually, most of Luang Prabang is overrun with tourists. You see more tourists than locals in most parts of town, it seems. Chenble was showing me a photograph he claimed included the ghosts of people who had dived in the water before (they were just rock shadows) when a voice just behind us made both of us jump. “Is that a ghost shot?” It was a member of a group of Malaysians, excited at the thought of such a thing.

On the way back from the falls, the driver stopped at a poor village with a sign announcing its participation in some kind of tourism development plan. The gist of this plan, I gather, is that a dozen small girls will swamp tourists that are brought there, demanding that they buy woven bracelets and little bags. There was also an elephant.

Back in town, I walked down by the riverside to take pictures of the beached boats as night fell, muddying my sandals as I walked. Then we browsed the night market, where I bought a T-shirt with the Lao alphabet on it. Dinner was from one of the alley-side buffet deals, all the dishes cold and vegetarian. Each plateful of food was 8,000 kip; Chenble, who is a structural engineer, somehow managed to fit half the entire buffet on his little plate. We sat next to a Western girl who was practicing Japanese with a girl from Japan. While she didn’t seem to know much actual Japanese, she had the exaggerated cuteness down pat.

We walked to the end of the street, down by the river on the other side of the peninsula, and then up to the temple, where we came upon two young monks looking at a laptop on the wall, their young faces lit up by the white Yahoo! on the screen. They were both studying English, so we chatted for a while. It turns out that they’d discovered that they could snatch a free wifi signal from one of the cafes at that spot. We might see them again tomorrow, if we can get up early enough.

February 21, 2010

The Elephant’s breakfast buffet this morning featured delicious Fukien noodles, scrambled eggs, omelets, fruit, French bread and orange juice, which we ate under the baleful glare of a scary blonde kid with a huge forehead at the next table. The hotel’s beds and sheets were quite comfy, and I slept better than anywhere else I’ve done this trip, so getting up was a bit difficult. The morning began mistily, but the sun came out while we ate, and the day was hot by the time Prince Roy showed us to the boat rental place.

I sat in the front of the slim, flat-bottomed boat, furthest away from the buzzing motor, and we slipped up the river past the hotel, under the wooden bridges and empty swings and slides the backpackers would be lining up for later in the day when they awoke from their slumber. Rugs on wooden platforms and hammocks slung between trees on each bank beckoned, and I wondered what it would be like to just take a week or a month and just pass the days in such places, reading, or dreaming or just staring into space. Some of the places were named “The End”, and I wondered how many foreigners did indeed spend their last days here or in similar places.

Despite various wriggling that I assumed were accompanying Chenble’s attempts to take photos at strange angles, the ride was smooth until we hit rapids, the motor struggling to get us through as the boat’s bottom scraped against the rocks. The view of the karsts against the late-morning sky was wonderfully refreshing, especially in the cool breeze accompanied by the rushing water, which was seldom more than a few feet deep. Occasionally we’d pass Lao people fishing for something on the river bottom or washing clothes. A couple of the suspension bridges reminded me of Bitan and home.

The ride back was not quite as awesome, as the sun, hotter now, was in our faces. Prince Roy was waiting for us back at the Elephant, and after checking out we decided to take a walk on the other side, past the hippie enclaves and cow pastures, to a small karst with a flag on top. It was reputed to have a cave. A sign was posted at the foot of the path up extolling the views and displaying a price for admission of 10,000 kip. The Lao man manning the post had run out of water.

The “path” turned out to be a rock slide sprinkled with a few rough bamboo ladders. Prince Roy led the way up, and by the time I had scrambled up, he was out of view. I climbed until I ran out of mountain, but it turned out I was on the wrong peak, so I had to follow the sound of PR’s voice to the real peak, where he was sitting underneath the flag. The view of the surrounding fields and karsts was quite nice, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by a nearby Lao karaoke session. Chenble eventually made his way up as well, and PR, wanting to proclaim his mountaineering superiority, went over to sit on a slightly higher outcropping to survey his realm.

The climb back down was different and more difficult in ways, but still fun, especially the parts where I had to swing from low branches over small crevices. At one point I had to wait above a ladder for a couple of Brits who were ascending. “We didn’t expect any heavy traffic today,” one of the told me.

“Well, get ready for some more heavy traffic,” I replied, referring to Chenble, who was still on his way down.

Someone had thoughtfully set up a rug on a table at the foot of the hill for climbers to rest on before returning to the village. The herd of cows was running around the fields as we crossed, little packs of bulls following certain cows in heat while other cows looked on. I felt like I was back in high school.

After I soaked my feet in the river a bit, we headed over to the Australian bar for lunch. It was quite authentic, swarms of flies and all. The hamburgers were good despite the sweet buns and tough-as-nails bacon. On the way back to the car, we passed a bar that was not actually showing Friends episodes, but Simpsons episodes instead. I suppose that counts as an improvement.

We left Vang Vieng at around 2:30 p.m. The drive back was similar to the drive up, with the same lawless drivers, trucks overloaded with goods and people passing on bridges and blind curves, and herds of aimless cows. Though the houses seemed fairly neat and well-kempt, even the poorer-looking ones, the temples were in the best condition. We passed the bit of good Japanese pavement and the Japanese bridge, and a strange accident in which someone had hit a tree in their own front yard, somehow involving a “King of Bus” bus.

Coming back into Vientiane, the city looked more appealing than it had when we were leaving from the airport. Prince Roy dropped us off at a restaurant overlooking the Mekong River, Thailand on the other side, where we sat drinking juice and watching people frolicking on the sand spits below while he went to pick up Spicy Girl. We ordered after they arrived, and despite a few mixups from the kitchen, the food was all excellent and the atmosphere very relaxed. If you’re in Vientiane and you have the means, I highly recommend it.

After dinner, we stopped off in the city’s Backpacker Central area to walk around amongst the foreigners, occasionally spotting a Lao person, who almost inevitably offered up a tuk-tuk ride. The area’s full of little cafes and guesthouses, nice old buildings spared from the relentless bombing during the war.

I’m at Prince Roy’s and Spicy Girl’s castle now, where my Thinkpad is (you guessed it) refusing to accept the wifi signal. Tomorrow we’re flying to Luang Prabang. Hopefully we’ll be able to find a decent hotel there. I’m looking forward to seeing it; even PR hasn’t been there.

It’s amazing how fast Prince Roy‘s tour went, but we had a lot of good times over the past couple of years. Last night I met up with my former classmate as well as Mark and Wayne at the Red House bar on Shida Road for a final night of drinks and conversation. The rain pattered on the canvas awning above our heads, and the smell of the mosquito coil reminded me of our Tunghai days. We all agreed that after PR left, we’d lead healthier, if less interesting lives.

After the bar closed, we walked around the area in search of other hangouts, all of us (except possibly Wayne) reluctant to let the night end so soon, though it was well past midnight by the time we left. “Hey, friends, where are you going?” one guy yelled to us, in Spanish for some reason, as we walked past. We ended up sitting outside a place on Xinsheng South Road across from the park, where we had kebabs, sanbei chicken and veggies, chatting for a few more hours. The restaurant was also closing, so we walked down Xinsheng to Heping East Road, where Wayne turned west and home. Mark, PR and I walked the other way, all the way to PR’s empty house, where we bade him farewell and found cabs home in the rain.

As I watched the lights across the river flow by from the big wet expressway, I tried to imagine what it must feel like to pick up everything and leave Taiwan for a life in another country. It was difficult. In a way, it’s an exciting idea, but I’m so content with my life here as it is that it would freak me out more than a little bit. Eventually I settled on imagining leaving on an extended trip, with the idea of roaming the world for a while before eventually returning here. A bit more comfortable thought. By the time I got to bed the sky was already light.

The departure from our fair island of Prince Roy and Spicy Girl marks the end of an era, especially accompanied as it is by our new administration, the possibility of a new US administration on the way, the Olympics, three links, and a host of other developments. Things are afoot. Someone asked me the other day how many cycles of friends I’d gone through here. It’s a fair question, I suppose. Many foreign friends have come and gone. Some came back. Taiwanese friends have gone and come, as it were. In any case, none of us are the same person we were or will be; I heard once that all of our cells are replaced over a period of seven years, so that you’re literally not the person you once were. So things change, people change….alright, I’ll stop trying to be all Deep here and let you figure out what all of this means, if anything.

The Tokyo video is finally up, both on Youtube and the new Vimeo page I just set up out of a mixture of curiosity and frustration with Youtube. It’s reallllly long and probably less interesting to people who aren’t me, but I like it. I think it’s a good record of my trip in any case. Vimeo, it turns out, not only has a larger screen with better resolution, the sound is much better, embedding doesn’t break my layout, and uploading is easier as well. I think I’ll be sticking with that.

Today was Labor Day here, a public holiday for all us oppressed workers, etc. I haven’t gotten out of the house yet today, and spent the time I didn’t waste trying to upload the video by doing laundry and other household stuff. But Prince Roy just called and said he was going to Sababa with some co-workers for dinner, so I’m heading over there for some dinner.

LATER: Dinner was good as usual, although they got my order wrong. We procured one of the veranda tables to take advantage of the nice cool evening air. As it’s work tomorrow, they couldn’t stay out too late. On our way over to CKS Hall, a plump and friendly black dog followed us, stopping with us at each intersection, until it convinced PR to buy it a sandwich. He ate the meat but not the bun (the dog, not PR).

Tomorrow: back to work. I’m now out of my little room and into the big cubicle farm, but in that context it’s a very nice seat. I may have to get some larger earphones, however, as I’m not yet used to the volume of regular office chatter. This weekend PR, Daniel and I are planning a trip down to Taichung and Tunghai to visit our old stomping grounds from when we were students there a couple of decades ago. I will try to refrain from taking too many pictures.

Enjoy the video:

12 Days in Tokyo from poagao on Vimeo.

First of all, before I start blathering on about my weekend, watch this video. Now, I used to tell people that everyone should visit New York City at least once, but I’m beginning to think I should change my advice. That person being arrested? It’s you.

After Tai-chi practice on Saturday, I joined Daniel and Prince Roy for a nice lunch at the Yongkang Sababa. The weather was perfect for lounging and eating pitas on the veranda. We then went to check out the progress of our favorite teahouse, Wistaria. Unfortunately, not only was the old structure still closed for renovation, the opening was delayed until June. We walked up Xinsheng to its other location, in a quiet alley, and sat next to the front window, which looks out onto the small garden.

Unfortunately for us, peace and quiet was not to be had, due to a woman loudly “educating” a couple of foreigners at a table on the other side of the room. The foreigners were apparently still jetlagged from their trip. “THE TEA CEREMONY IS A CENTRAL PART OF OUR SPIRITUAL LIVES,” the woman orated. “IT IS SOMETHING WE PARTAKE OF EVERY DAY.” I fought the urge to shout, “ANCIENT CHINESE SECRET, HUH?” at her.

Despite the noise, the tea was very good. We got our favorite Iron Bodhisattva tea and some snacks and spent the next couple of hours chatting above the din. After night fell, we walked over to Chicago Pizza off Jianguo and took a couple of pizzas over to the Da-an Park amphitheater to eat as we watched workmen take down scaffolding from that night’s show. In the distance we could hear a constant drumming. I wondered how they could keep going without tiring out. After the pizza was gone, we walked over to take a look, and found a group of people doing Brazilian dance-fighting to a drumbeat.

The next day, Sunday, I decided to dust off the Crazy Bike, which had laid dormant in the bowels of my building all winter, and take a ride. I told myself it would be just a short ride, as I’d planned to get the Tokyo video done that day. The weather was just too nice, and it had been too long since I’d ridden. When I reached the confluence of the Xindian and Dahan Rivers, I turned west up the latter stream and crossed to the other side on the Xinhai Bridge. Then I began to wonder if they can extended the path. I told myself that I had come that far, and I might as well find out. The path ran between the train tracks and the river as I passed through Shulin, where I found that it had indeed been extended. I continued along the riverside, and found myself in downtown Yingge, across from the ceramics center. I’d set out at 1pm, and it was only 4pm, so I felt I could be back in Bitan by 7pm.

I was wrong. On the way back I began to get tired, and my knees began to ache. I stopped to chat with some drunken aborigines who having a party under a bridge, sharing a drink with them and plying them for hat-related information. I stopped on the bridge back to take pictures, and then at the site of the construction of a bridge across the meeting of the three rivers for still more pictures. At Gongguan I parked on the wooden walkway and laid on a bench to watch the stars for a bit.

It was well after 9pm by the time I got home, and after some spaghetti for dinner, all I wanted was a shower and bed. So much for productivity. Later I measured the distance I’d ridden with a map interface, which is probably not entirely accurate due to it’s straight-line distances, but it said I’d gone about 70 kilometers. It was a good ride, but I probably should have taken it a bit easier the first time out. Still, I now know that the path goes all the way to Yingge, so maybe next time I little exploring of that area would take the edge off the journey there and back.

The guy who ran the hostel knocked on my door at 8am with a bag of fried things and doujiang for breakfast. I was gathering my stuff together and stuffing it into my backpack, which fortunately can be expanded to accommodate the…wait a minute, I didn’t buy anything. Hmm….accommodate the instant noodles I was taking on the boat, then. Prince Roy was busy watching a black-and-white, blurry version of a baseball game in his room. The world outside was white with fog even thicker than the day before, and we heard the Taima ferry’s foghorn repeatedly as it tried to make its way into the area.

After settling our bills, we were driven down to the port, where a fairly large group of people, mostly soldiers, waited for the ferry, still making its presence known via foghorn. PR and I sat on the waterfront and watched it appear out of the fog and sidle up to the dock. Back inside, a short, bespectacled MP checked the soldiers’ papers as we lined up. MP’s are allowed to arrest up to three ranks above their own, so everyone from sergeant on down was at the mercy of the little private.

Once on board, we put our things away in our cabin, the very cabin we’d had on the trip out (this time sans interlopers), and went up top to watch the departure. I struck up a conversation with a soldier who turned out to be one of the few volunteers in the new experimental program. He told me that he makes NT$37,000 a month, and gets nine days’ leave in Taiwan every three months. He is in for five years and will be discharged at the rank of sergeant-major. Now, a year and a half in, he is a corporal. He was also born the year I arrived in Taiwan.

Fuao Port disappeared into the mist, and we slid along the surprisingly smooth seas with only a slight rocking. Perfect sleeping weather, so that’s what we did, getting up for a lunch of gooey microwaved curry rice in the restaurant. Then we went out and stood just below the bridge watching the ocean and wondering where all the garbage we saw on the water came from. PR thought there might be a wreck somewhere ahead.

The sun came out; we were making good time. Keelung came into view before 4pm, though it took us a while to weed our way through the harbor and dock. For a while, PR and I stood stupidly by the upper-deck exit, wondering when they were going to extend the gangway, before we realized that everyone was headed below to the car gate at the rear of the ship.

Keelung, and Taiwan, were pretty much as we’d left them, albeit about 15 degrees warmer. Summer came while we were away. Keelung, of course, is a depressing place to arrive, even from as undeveloped a place as Matsu, but my spirits were lifted somewhat by the atmosphere of the soldiers just starting their 9-day leave. We walked to the train station and caught a train back to Taipei. At each stop more and more students would crowd onto the train, and it struck me how different they seemed from the soldiers only a few years’ older.

An hour of cell-phone-related chatter later, PR and I parted ways in the MRT station, him to sort through the 478 photos he took, and me to sift through the 609 pictures I ended up with after deleting the obvious duds every night to save CF card space. Not that we were competing, but it will be interesting not only to read his version of the events I’ve described here, but to see the pictures he took as well.

And now, over 6,000 words later, we return to life as we know it. Just 15 degrees warmer.

I was woken up this morning not by the washing machine, but rather two loud blasts from the Taima ferry’s foghorn. Pulling back my curtains, I was met with a white wall of solid mist. “Someone stole my view,” I texted Prince Roy downstairs.

Over the next couple of hours, however, the fog gradually lifted to reveal a sunny, warm day. PR and I took a short walk down to the village to look at a particularly interesting little house we’d seen the night before. On the way, we stopped to chat with a woman who was watering the plants in her yard. She told us that nobody was selling land or houses in Matsu, for various reasons.

Back at the hostel, we rented a couple of scooters and set out to explore Nangan island. We rode the curving white road through the hills of the center of the island to the highest point, Mt. Yuntai, but although there was a helpful concrete map telling us where to look for other islands and mainland China, the view was shrouded in mist. A military situation center was located at the peak, decorated with black murals of Chiang Kai-shek in Dirty Harry poses. The KMT emblem part of the flag had fallen off the mural, and Chiang had bird droppings on his shoulder. Soldiers peeked out of the gunslits, the emblem painted on the ceiling of their little room.

We rode back down and on to Jinsha Village. At first it appeared much like a Chinese city, with a group of people sitting on the curb. It turned out, however, that the group were all tourists. We visited the local temple and helped a frog caught in the sun to a shady spot. Then we walked through the alleys and by a local hostel constructed with traditional materials. At one point we ran into a couple from Canada, who were staying there with their dog. They said their flight had been canceled and that there was no ferry on Monday, which was alarming news. We still held out hope that our flight, at 5:30, wouldn’t be canceled as the sun burned the fog away.

Along the waterfront was a bomb shelter decorated in the blue and white of the KMT, featuring small pieces of art inside. The old stone houses reached up the side of the mountain, and more were being built near the village’s mail road.

We rode on to Matsu Village, where The Matsu Temple was located, along the beach where Matsu’s body washed ashore. She is supposedly buried under a concrete slab in the temple, though some say it is just some of her clothes, or her father. I take it nobody’s thought of exhuming the remains to check. A pavillion next door features lovely chairs in the shape of upturned hands. Mine was wet. Monkey! I thought.

Some WWII-era military transport ships were beached along the shore, as well as a supply ship. PR and I walked along the edge of the bay, examining the various fortifications and their decreptitude, and I explored part of a tunnel that appeared to be abandoned, but still features two 80′s-era video games. Unfortunately, they weren’t plugged in.

Matsu Village was full of soldiers, the main street positively hopping in comparison with the other parts of the island we’d seen so far. It also features an ATM and a 7-Eleven. We had lunch at a local restaurant that smelled like barracks due to all the soldiers there; a bank of small fans were no match for their numbers. I had egg rice covered in barbecue sauce, which was better than it sounds. PR had soup with a side of soup.

It was around this point that PR discovered that, for some strange reason, his travel agent had booked our flights out of Beigan Island, instead of the island where we actually arrived and where we were staying. In a desperate bid to change this situation, we raced back across the island to the airport, breaking speed records and cameras along the way. Once PR ran into the curb and nearly crashed.

When we arrived at the airport, we were told that all the flights had been canceled. This was bad, as we both have to work tomorrow. What was worse, all the flights on Monday were booked solid, as well as standby. The ferry, however, was running, so we rode back to the port and booked two tickets for tomorrow morning back to Taiwan. It will only arrive at Keelung at 4pm, effectively ruining any chances of work that day, but it’s our only option at this point, other than just settling down here for good.

Our dilemma resolved, after a fashion, we continued our tour by riding to Siwei Village, at the northwest corner of the island. There we found temples with interesting carved figures, one apparently wearing skiing goggles, and another I thought looked uncannily like me, and elaborate chandeliers overlooking the sea.

One temple, the White Horse God Temple, marked the spot where the bodies of two mainland generals washed up on the shore. The local people buried them, and then a light would shine out at sea warning fishermen of inclement weather. At another village we visited later, Qingshui, another body had washed up on shore, yet another mainland general, and when the villagers buried it, they found the fishing quite good for the next few seasons. So they erected a temple on the spot. It seems that Matsu is quite The Place for washed-up generals.

The afternoon was wearing on when we reached Renai Village, which is located on a steep hill rising from a nice little bay. We parked at the top and walked down the main street to the harbor, where some residents had made great efforts to restore their buildings to their former glory. It was the first place I’d seen here that rivaled Fuxing Village, where we’re staying. We toured the local temple, the interior of which was ancient despite the exterior being touched up in 1984. The tables were scarred with decades, if not centuries, of daily temple use.

Next stop was the Stone Fortress, which meant riding through an army base gate and along the coast to a place where a stone outcropping had been hollowed out and made into an impregnable fortress. Inside was a long, dark hallway, lined with shelves for soldiers to sleep and machine gun holes, two toilets, water tanks, a sentry post and a room for the dog, which apparently not only had a rank, but was an officer. I’ll bet the guys who served there have stories to tell.

Westwards, the sun was settling into the haze, so after figuring that we liked Matsu Village best, we rode back there on the winding coast road, past a reservoir adorned with a cool wooden pavillion, though to the village, where we bought some snacks and sat in front of the temple watching the day come to a close. The supply ship was completely beached by this point, but apparently men live on it, as it was lit up. Soldiers finishing up their weekend leave milled around on the main street and at the bus station.

After dark, PR insisted on trying the nearby Pizza King, so we barged in on what was obviously a boistrous family meeting and ordered two small pizzas. When they came, approximately 27 seconds later, they looked pretty much like regular pizzas, but tasted almost nothing like any such thing. The bread, for one thing, was sweet and soft. The sauce was barbeque sauce, and although we managed to stop them from putting raisins on our pizzas, they did feature carrots and quite a lot of pepper. It was sort of like Teppanyaki in pizza form, and it actually wasn’t bad once you got over the fact that it looked like pizza.

When we left the restaurant, the streets were almost deserted; all the soldiers had gone back to their bases. The ride back across the island was nice and cool in the night. The harbor lights flashed as we descended and then climbed again on the way back to Fuxing Village to the hostel. After handing in the keys, however, I didn’t quite feel like turning in just yet, so PR and I went for one last tour of the village, including the temple by the bay, the broiling water a symphony of gurgles and crashes I would love to record and play back at home.

Tomorrow we have to get up by 8am or so to catch the ferry. We snagged another cabin this time, but PR called window bunk already. It will be interesting to see how the trip is experienced in real time, without sleeping through most of it.

I was awoken this morning by the clotheswashing machine churning away in the next room at around 6am. So, it being quite cold in my room, I turned on the heater to drown out the intermediate noise with constant noise. A while later, I was again woken by a phone call from the front desk. “Can you turn off your heater?” she asked. “The dripping water is keeping the guest downstairs awake.”

“By the guest downstairs, do you mean Prince Roy?” I asked.

“Yes, and he wants you to cut it out,” she said. So I turned it off. It was almost 7am by this point, so I gave up on sleep and just got dressed. Outside, the Taima ferry plowed through the waters on its way from Dongyin to the port here. It looked like the makings of a beautiful day outside, a little cloudy but dry. PR was watching the Yankees game on TV, but we had to catch the boat to Beigan for the day.

Despite waiting forever for the people in front of us to buy tickets down at the port, we just made the 9:00am boat, along with a dozen other passengers. The boat was about the size and shape of the USS Minnow, and the pilot drove it like a bus. PR had the window open and was told to shut it, a wise decision as it was sprayed with water once we got out into open ocean.

The port at Beigan seems to be in the middle of nowhere, and you have to take a taxi to the main village by the airport, or so we’d been informed. Actually there were scooter rental places right there, but we didn’t see them. We shared a taxi with a couple instead.

The main village of Tongxi isn’t much to look at. It’s basically two streets, once perpendicular to the other. I took pictures of a KMT emblem while PR rented a pair of scooters, and then we were off. We rode up steep, curving roads past military base after military base to the top of Bishan, where an observation platform was located right in front of yet another military base and a sign saying “No pictures.” Gunfire and shouts echoed clearly up from below, where soldiers were training. I asked the guard at the gate when the planes usually landed, and he said one was due in a few minutes, so we waited. Powerful strobe lights began to flash on the tops of all the nearby mountains, and we heard the sound of a small propellor plane approach, and then disappear. We saw no plane. The weather wasn’t bad, so I can’t believe they cancelled the landing because of that.

Disappointed, we got back on our scooters and rode down to the coast to look at a series of temples along the coast. Temples in Matsu look different from their counterparts in Taiwan, with more reds and yellows and whites involved. We saw one temple just for female gods, with a phoenix motif and two female lions out front. We looked for the Thunder God temple, which I pictures as a kind of superhero god, hopefully wearing a cape of some kind, but we didn’t find it. Nobody knew what we were talking about when we asked them.

We continued down the coast to the Chinbi village, which is inordinately cool. For one thing, it’s been preserved, and all new buildings have to be built like the old ones. The community of stone houses faces a small beach with a turtle-shaped island not far off shore, and is apparently home to visiting artists who live there to “create”. We parked our scooters and walked into the complex, noting the many old signs harking back decades, with slogans like “Retake the Mainland” and “Look Out for Commie Spies!” The place was filled with interesting little nooks and crannies, sunny verandas and shady courtyards. One interesting motif was the use of frogs in the design. We even found a room full of various frog-related statuary. It seems that long ago, the village was besieged by drought and disease, and after praying to Matsu, relief appeared in the form of rainfall, and frogs, so frogs here are kind of like cows in India, i.e. not on the menu.

At the local Matsu temple, another surprise awaited us. In addition to all the flowers and notes wishing Matsu a happy birthday, on the altar lay the latest Pizza Hut pizza with all the toppings, a bucket of KFC and a bottle of Pepsi. Matsu is living it up this year, it seems.

We had lunch at the Chinbi Cafe, sitting out on the patio while a stray cat begged loudly for scraps. I wondered if it had eaten any frogs. I met the people who had donated the fast food at the altar. They had originally planned to take the plane the day before, but it was canceled (probably the same flight Mark was supposed to be on), so they took the ferry over, carrying the delicacies with them at great inconvenience. Now that’s dedication.

The food at the Chinbi Cafe was delicious and the view unsurpassed as the sun came out, the blue sky showing through the clouds. I asked the owner what renting places there was like in the summer, and was told it was very difficult. “It’s full of tourists during the high season,” he said. After lunch we walked around a bit more, exploring the place before getting back on the scooters and continuing on our way.

We stopped at a few more temples, including an old Matsu temple painted in a striking shade of yellow on a large, nice beach. In front of it was a field covered with yellow flowers, and next door was a small military unit. The soldiers were out in the courtyard polishing or painting things, but otherwise there was nobody around. The crash of the waves on the beach and birdsong were the only sounds. It was extremely peaceful and would be a good place to meditate. Another temple down the road had scenes from “Journey to the West” carved on its elaborate facade and a flashy ceiling inside.

We rode down to the ferry port and back, stopping at a couple of statues of late President Chiang Kai-shek, one with a jaunty hat, and then back to the airport and across a sand spit to Hou-ao village. We then waited at an intersection-free stoplight counting down to zero as a soldier on guard gave his comrades across the street the finger from his post atop a small building. When the inexplicable light turned green, we rode up into the hills, past some military displays to an observation deck at the edge of a sea cliff. Not content to merely tempt fate by standing too close to the edge, I went to get closer pictures to a bunch of “Danger: Landmines” signs nearby while PR climbed across a small rocky bridge and up to an outcrop of stone high above the waves. There was also a military museum with, ironically and suitably depending on your point of view, an alternative serviceman sitting at the reception desk overlooking the old guns and other military paraphernalia on display. The mannequins were all tall, thin and white Caucasian models that looked extremely odd wearing the green slickers and face paint.

The afternoon was wearing on as we rode back down to Hou-ao Village to have a look around. The community is located just at the edge of the hillside, in front of the channel of water between it and the airport. We happened upon a row of plastic bags hung out to dry, as well as several Beijing 2008 Olympic mascot figures in a pile, on bases that read, “Courtesy of The People’s Government of Gulou District.” Curious. In fact, we had already noted that many of the offerings at the temples were in fact mainland Chinese goods. Another curiosity: an electricity bill stuck in the doorway of a building that looked as if it hadn’t seen any improvements since the Qing dynasty.

We rode back across the sand spit and under the airport runway to the scooter place to return our rides, stocked up on water at 7-Eleven, and walked along the street looking for a taxi. As we did so, we passed an old lady carrying fish noodle ingredients. She said hello, and PR noted that he had read about her in his guidebook.

Eventually we caught a tattered cab back to the port to catch the ferry. Unfortunately, we just missed the 4:30pm boat, and had to wait an hour for the last boat back to Nangan. In the meantime, we sat at a nearby temple and talked about what we had seen so far, as a fishing boat docking up confused the two young coast guard members entrusted with registering the vessel. The tide was out and the water level was about two stories lower than it had been when we arrived.

The ride back was as uneventful as the ride there. PR nodded off while I waited impatiently for a wave to slap a woman across the cabin who had left her window open. Unfortunately, no such thing happened, and I had to content myself with capturing blurry photos of the mountains of Nangan across the sea.

The sun was setting when we arrived back at Nangan port. We caught a cab back to our hostel; the cabbie thought it strange that we would choose a place with a view over somewhere “in the middle of everything.” Yes, I came to Matsu for its urban sophistication and cosmopolitan nature; what was I thinking?

We walked down the hill to Yi-ma’s Shop, but found it awash with people, including a couple of shrieking children who thought I was a pirate. We decided to head instead to the temple by the bay instead, where we sat and ate garlic peanuts and cookies while catching glimpses of the stars overhead through the clouds. One of the temple doors was open, and we took a look at the spookily empty interior. The “guards” painted on the side gates were women, which is unusual. The “guards” on the main gates were done in 3D and looked unnaturally real in the night, as if they could step out and throttle you at any moment.

By the time we got back to the restaurant a bit after 8pm, the crowds had left, and sat down to another delicious meal prepared by Mrs. Chen and her crew. PR got a huge glass of laojiu, but I declined. Just like yesterday, the atmosphere was most relaxing. As we ate, we heard Taichung Mayor Jason Hu pimping out his city on the radio to Chinese tourists, and then an official from Miaoli did the same. “It has begun,” PR said. Mrs. Chen gave us some nice fried peanuts for dessert, and we made our slow, stuffed way back up the hill to the hostel, exhausted from all the sun, wind, riding and food. It was a full day and an interesting one.

Tomorrow afternoon we will have to board a place back to Taipei and the relatively normal world. But before that we hope to explore this island of Nangan a little more via scooter.