5-11-14 9:00am
Sun (1)
We're sitting on the bed in the hotel in
Penghu's Makong Island. It is the main island in the Pescadores and attached by
bridge or land fill to another five or six forming an inverted 'c' from north
to south. Downtown here looks like any small Taiwan city but as you drive
north, as Leona did yesterday on a rented scooter, it gets more beautifully
natural. We spent the morning and afternoon riding the 37 kilometers along
route 203.
Our first stop was an enormous banyan
tree called Tongliang Great Banyan, spread out over the court of a temple
supported by columns to its expanding growth. We got back on the scooter first
stopping to get cactus juice and ices at the foot of the Penghu Great Bridge
which isn't great at all compared to any of the Florida key bridges or even the
Tappan Zee Bridge; it's basically a trestle low to the water. In the other
side, Whale Cave, so called because the water erosion left a hole in the
volcanic rock and visited the Xiaomen Geology Gallery, a nice museum of
all the volcanic indigenous rock of the Pescadores. We stopped there for
a lunch of cold blow fish, sea snails, and hot baby squid, noodle soup with baby
oysters, and seaweed egg omelets.
From there, we continued south on the
'c' of islands. The nicest part was the Erkan Ancient Residences, a few square
miles of preserved Qing Dynasty houses, large and small, many of them now shops
with traditional products, some of them still inhabited by the newest
generation of residents. I took a lot of photos there. Going further south, we
passed the Daguoye Columnar Basalt natural column of lava and ash from sixty
million years ago; it was pretty facing the lagoon inside the 'c' of the main
island chain. Further south, we saw the two forts that ruling classes from
before the Qing had been using to defend or take The Pescadores away from the
previous ruler, the last being the Japanese from China and the KMT from the
Communists. The East Fort was closed so I scaled a wall near the deserted
entrance and climbed up to take a peep. We then rode back directly to our hotel
in Makong, along ride for Leona whose hands were vibrating from the scooter
motion.
We went
back to the hotel to rest up a while and then went a mile or so away to have a
hot pot crab dinner at another hotel with a voucher we got from our package
deal. Leona took the scooter not too far away to the hotel where we had a
voucher for a crab hot pot dinner. We sat in the enormous dining room of the largest
hotel in Penghu until the uncompleted resort a few blocks away picks up speed
after the gambling referendum passes. After dinner we walked along Minsheng
Road to Relativity Park where a rock bands played as thousands assembled to see
the fireworks display in the harbor enclosed by Xiying Rainbow Bridge. The
fireworks were beautiful, from off the bridge and the seawall enclosing the
harbor. Afterwards we returned to the hotel following a cool parade of a
Taiwanese deity named Sun-T'ai-Zi, who was paraded up the street on a flatbed
truck with techno music blaring and fire blowing up through a portal. It was
the closest thing to a Marti Gras in Taiwan I have ever seen. Tired and happy
we walked back to the hotel stopping off to get ice cream before calling it a
night.
We have
another two days and a night here to enjoy before we fly back to Taiwan
tomorrow afternoon.
5-13-14 6:36am Tues. (2)
I didn’t write about Sunday or Monday in Penghu. A complete
vacation starts with seeing places you’ve never seen before and loving the
person (or people) you’re travelling with and meeting. This was a perfect
vacation.
Sunday morning, I walked with two vouchers to McDonalds a few
blocks from the hotel. Wearing my Hawaii red shorts, red t-shirt under a white
linen button down short sleeve shirt, flip-flops, sunglasses, and listening to
Jimmy Buffet on the iPod, I looked ready for tourist paradise. In the morning
and the night before, we’d made love. Leona stayed long in bed and I brought
the breakfast back into the room. We were heading south on the scooter; my
goal? Find a beach to swim at. We found it.
Shili Beach is a perfect beach, at least until a private
developer builds a eighty-unit three floor resort there. In these days of
Penghu before the next referendum on legalized gambling, it is still a place
for serious Taiwanese travelers not interested in vices and making money. The
beach, about the size of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, was crescent shaped.
There were no commercial buildings in sight save one snack stand in the pavilion
with dressing rooms and shady chairs; it was not the high season when umbrellas
and reclining beach chairs are brought onto the sand. The sunny 85 degree day
was perfect with less than a dozen people with family. To the right, there were
more people; workers defacing the beach? We didn’t know it then but they were
removing an illegal fence they were cordoning off on the sand. The TV news had
a report that evening, coincidentally. The water was perfect; crystal clear,
turquoise, not warm or cold, not wild or tame descending honorably deep. Leona
sat on the pavilion as I got my lust for swimming satisfied.
At Feng-gui Blowholes we relaxed at the rocky shore under a circular
cement bench shared by a sprawled out local man yawning loudly. We didn’t climb
down the black basalt rocks to see the hole though. We got back on the scooter
and continued to the tip of last island at Shetoushan, the bottom south gate corresponding
to the northerly Xiyu East and West Forts across 4,000 meters of water a ship
would have to pass through to get to Magong. We saw a French and Japanese memorial
there and the outlines of the first Dutch fort after they’d been thrown out of somewhere
else on their way to Taiwan with the Dutch Indies Company. Now it was the
American puppet KMT’s turn to hold the fort. Riding back, we stopped off at a
circular lighthouse-looking bed and breakfast and went back to the hotel to
rest and for me to shower off the salt water from Shili Beach.
In the evening, we then went for a walk downtown to the old area, buying
some gifts for us and the kids, sampling local foods and not-so Szechuan
restaurant before returning to the hotel to rest and watch TV. Monday would be
an early start as we spent our last day in Penghu.
Chinese breakfast was delivered to the hotel and I went down to get it and
coffee from 7-11. Our shuttle to the airport would be at 2:30pm so we only had
a morning and lunch left. We didn’t waste a minute relaxing and seeing what was
left to see on the main island. We headed north again on the scooter, under
overcast skies, and found the Penghu Aquarium, a right turn from the banyan
tree we had visited on Saturday which turned out not to be the Tongliang Great
Banyan tree after all. The overpriced Aquarium -200NT was nothing to break the
budget though. I got a beautiful poetry coffee table book with photos (300NT) of
the island old structures.
Despite the threatening weather, we didn’t turn back until we could see
how big the biggest banyan tree was from the imposter. It started raining as we
were heading there. I had faith that we would find shelter. Initially Leona
stopped the scooter under a roadside building overhang until four or five
selfish native Taiwanese females decided to stop their two or three scooters
and crowd us in. It was providence as we headed another five minutes away to
the nearby Tiongliang Great Banyan near a temple, beach, and tourist stands.
The skies opened up and it poured for an hour but we were covered and didn’t
get wet at all. We sat at the tourist area that Leona remembered from her trip
here five years ago with her Amanda and her brother’s family. I bought a
matching pair (500NT) of beautiful basalt chops there; one for Ariel and the
other for Alice. The lovely couple had written us wishing Leona a happy mothers’
day. We headed back after the rain let up and we donned disposable rain ponchos.
It was dry as we drove back to Magong.
After walking near the harbor we stopped in to a local seafood restaurant
and had the most expensive meal of our trip, $100us on fresh local fish, tiger
shrimp, fried sea conch, and steamed oysters. Delicious! The sky opened up
again as we ate and it poured and poured, not getting in the way of our plans
at all. We walked a few short blocks after the fine lunch back to our hotel
lobby where we waited forty-five minutes for the van back to the airport, right
on time. The weather had affected the flight schedule though and our flight
didn’t leave until after 5pm, an hour late. Back in Taichung, we took a taxi in
the rain and through the traffic. We got home by 7pm.
Ariel telephoned at 11:30pm to
chat as we were readying for bed. Nala was on the bed, too, and we just wanted
to sleep after a fulfilling three days and two nights away. Latte was typically
naughty, taking down the drapes over the bedroom bathroom threshold (I wish I
could have done it myself) and damaging nothing but leaving debris of play
things (like my Casio watch) and playing with a roach in the toilet bowl.
If we could go on a trip like our
weekend in Penghu once a month, I would be that much happier. I love going away
on trips. I have to push Leona to make plans because I don’t feel confidant
making plans in Mandarin. Our next trip is to Taipei, thanks to Cow who is having
a grand re-opening of his restaurant next weekend. Without his draw, I couldn’t
get Leona to go with me to Taipei. It is bittersweet for me but better than not
going at all. She’ll ‘waste’ money for that but not at my suggestion.
Back to the life I love in Taichung, my life being a
vacation now that I’m retired, but retirement doesn’t mean sitting around in a
living room watching TV. Even the creative writing I do I’d rather do outdoors
up the Han River; only the journal writing feels comfortable doing at home.
Even reading feels better without distractions outside up the river. Thank Gxd,
I feel okay, despite a torn blister between my toes from wearing the flip-flops
on Saturday. I’
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