Thank you and farewell the mountains, rivers and the great outdoors.  These are Taiwan’s backyard treasures and my pure delight.

Thank you and farewell to all Taiwan’s keen photographers and the Kaohsiung Flickr group. The monthly meetups and all the fantastic photo opportunities that Taiwan has to offer.

Thank you and farewell to all those fishermen, fish markets, seafood meals and fishing boats.

Thank you and farewell to the farmers and good people living on the Gaoping river plains.

Thankyou and farewell to the all the great people we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.

Thank you and farewell to Taiwan bloggers and Shan Ding Lu readers. I have thoroughly enjoyed photographing and blogging on the meanderings of living in Southern Taiwan. I have also thoroughly enjoyed reading many of the Taiwan blogs. There is some fantastic content provided by many and varied dedicated bloggers. My RSS feeds will remain a constant tie to you all. A special thanks to Fotozon and the Taiwan Picture of the day for publishing many of Shan Ding Lu’s The Weekly Photo.

Thank you and farewell Taiwan.

The next morning we visited the rooftop garden where two dishes of the previous evening’s meal were grown.

The rich soil, sub-tropical climate and ample water all make Taiwan a perfect garden. Peoples toil and passion for the soil means every little piece of this island nation sprouts in green.

Each village or district takes pride in their dominant crop. This can be seen by the large replicas of the produce you often see as you enter a village. Pineapple Gaoshu, Taro Keelung, Mango Meishan, Redbean Daliao.

Every good meal is finished with a plate of fruit. A lot of effort is spent in growing it.

Any idle land is quickly commandeered and converted to garden. Often in parks, on sidewalks and spare patches of dirt between paths, someone will have cordoned it off and converted it to greens.

In the park near our place almost all the spare patches of dirt have been converted to small vegetable gardens by some older women.

(As a side note, the sign on the roller door in the background says the house is for rent. These signs are going up at an alarming rate at the moment!)

And here between the elementary school path and the road. Whose land, whose vegetables?

A popular trend has been cultivating fallow fields in flowers and then promoting people to visit them when in bloom. Daliao has done this for a dozen or so fields each of the last two years.

When concrete and pavement makes growing directly in the soil impossible, people scrape dirt into something and grow things anyway.

Having grown up on a broad acre wheat farm it is amazing to see such incredibly productive land.

Though Taiwan is small and the population large, there is no doubt the land is productive enough and the people resourceful enough that there will always be plenty of green in the diet.

But as soon as you reach the foot of the mountain range you are in a very different place. The flat populated plains change to precipitous forested ranges. The mountains are sliced by deeply cut valleys created by typhoon fed rivers.

The brief two months of Southern Taiwan’s mild winter have now past. In a few weeks the tropical rains will start and the stifling humidity will have people searching for cool relief. These last two years we have found that relief in the many pools and waterfalls accessible along the mountain range. Here are some of our favorites and directions on how to find them.

Chingtang waterfall(欽堂瀑布). This is a gem of a spot. It is a short walk up an overgrown and rock fallen path off the Southern Cross Island highway at one of the last places you can reach the main river before the road rises above the river bed. It is not sign posted which makes it quiet and secluded. Of the 5 or so times we have stoppped we’ve always had the place to ourselves. Its great for a cool swim or a BBQ. Park on the side of the road opposite the huge rock scree. Use the Google map below to help find it.

The same waterfall immediately after a typhoon

Meiya waterfall (美雅) This is one of a number of waterfalls in the Maolin National Scenic area. Not ideal for swimming and the walk up to the waterfall itself requires some scrambling over rocks since the suspension bridge and path was washed away in a typhoon a couple of years ago. One of the bridge’s main pillars can be seen under the pile of rocks below.

On one of the two cold weekends a year it is worthwhile visiting the Duona hot springs (多納) deep inside the Maolin National Scenic Area. Though not glamorous, the half dozen concrete baths have varying temperatures and there is always a friendly crowd.

If the water is not too high, walk up river a little to find hot water seeping from the riverbed.

There are a couple of other waterfalls at Maolin like this one at Lovers Valley. Not so great for swimming though.

Dajin waterfall (大津瀑布) This is close to the Maolin National Scenic Area and a short climb up an incredibly wide and well made path. It is well signposted and quite popular.  China Post published a great article on Dajin waterfall last year.

Rainbow waterfall(彩虹瀑布) is an all day adventure to reach. Firstly you need to enter the Sandimen police check point which means you will require some ID and 10yuan along with a reason you wish to enter. This is probably the last roadside checkpoint police station that remains along the mountains. I wouldn’t be surprised if it too is closed down shortly.

Follow Pingtung county road 31 to the very end. Even through the narrow laned Dashe (大社) village. Be prepared to wait as the locals park and chat on the road and aren’t in any hurry to move along.

Follow the small narrow road to the point where you are comfortable you can still drive back then follow the track on foot until you reach the river bed. Follow the river bed until you find a waterfall. From the police station it is probably 40mins drive, 20 mins walk on the track then 30 mins walk up the river bed. Not ideal after rain as you need to wade across the river a few times. Great for seclusion, swimming or a BBQ. There are a number of other great waterfalls and trails inside the Sandimen area that are well worth visiting.

Liangshan waterfall (涼山瀑布) is actually a series of pools and waterfalls with a covered BBQ area and clean toilets. The main pool is mostly shallow and safe for kids. It is a great spot and very popular on the weekends. Make sure you walk the 20 minute path from the main swimming area to the large waterfall at the end. About halfway along the trail are a series of steps that lead down to a great little swimming hole.

Anping water hole (安平) This is our favorite local BBQ destination as it is the quickest and easiest to reach from Daliao and Kaohsiung. It has a great swimming area for kids with large flat shallow areas. It is reasonably popular but we always meet the nicest people there. One guy told me you can avoid paying the 50yuan parking fee by continuing along the road past the parking area and walking down a small path. I say pay the parking and enjoy the amenities. Well, those that remain after a typhoon in 2007!

Laiyi(來義) is another of our favorites. Follow the rough old road to the very end and pay the 50 yuan parking fee. Don’t stop at the beautiful pool immediately under the KTV slot machine station, unless you have a penchant for listening to woeful karaoke. Walk up river a little and stop by one of the many pools. We have occasionally seen river tracing groups here as the river is great for tracing.  China Post wrote on a waterfall immediately behind the closed police post in Laiyi though we have never visited it.

Nanhe river (南和) is yet another of our favorites. There is no waterfall and the river can be a bit rapid. But the point we visit is the joining of two rivers with a suspension bridge over the top. There are plenty of pools and places to BBQ.

Make use of the Google map to find your way. Be warned, the Pingtung county roads are windy and its very easy to get lost. It is worth noting that many of the places I describe above were found while getting lost trying to find something else!

View Larger Map

If you have any questions, suggestions or corrections please leave a comment.

Our immediate neighborhood is made up of ordinary working people. The type Australian politicians like to call “battlers”. They are also a wonderful mix of young and old. They are mostly native Taiwanese but a few KMT immigrants, Indonesian and Philippine maids and Vietnamese brides as well.

Taiwanese is the language of the streets. The community loudspeaker only broadcasts in Taiwanese, the young and middle-age communicate in Mandarin between themselves but the old and intergenerational language is Taiwanese. Most houses contain three generations, some four. Of the six houses surrounding us there are 4-2, 4-3, 6-2, 8-3, 6-3, 5-3 (people-generations) and us at 5-2.

The house next door sells vegetarian meals on a very low key basis.

Not far away the local breakfast store provides a variety of tasty and filling meals.

Every day a dozen or so vendors drive by selling fruit and vegetables, household items and sweet tofu snacks. There is even one that occasionally comes by collecting old scooters.

The temple at the end of the street is a key social point and the place for many local activities.

The street is a very social place. After school and in the evening there are always kids out riding bikes, people out chatting, playing badminton and generally whiling the time away.

There are a few Vietnamese wives and a lot of Indonesian maids. An Indonesian maid is now the primary form of elderly care.

Overall, the very noticeable thing is the good healthy mix of young and old

There are plenty more photos from around the neighborhood in The neighborhood album section.

Most of Kaohsiung has been built in the last 60 years. The first half of that period people were poor and the national identity characterised Taiwan as a temporary refuge before returning to the mainland. There was neither the money nor the pride to build beautiful houses.

The last 30 years Taiwan has increased its wealth but I contend it is yet to find a pleasing national style that combines concrete, steel and ceramics beyond simple functional boxes.

On a couple of recent outings I captured a number of interesting houses in Kaohsiung.

Initially the intention was to capture some of the old wooden houses that might have some Japanese architectural influence. There are a few wooden houses in Kaohsiung, they are old and quickly vanishing. I read they are difficult to insure.

If you look up past the overhead power lines and rust stains some other small gems can be found.

Like these few with a tinge of 1960′s art-deco influences

The deep red brick houses can be quite attractive. Most red bricks are porous so they don’t make practical exterior walls unless they are eaved or are double course.

There is still the odd traditional house to be found inside the city.

A three story house squeezed onto a slither of land.

An old dormitory house of Taiwan Power Company. The sign still rests above a chained closed door.

Here are a few examples of styling on facades.

But you really have to look hard to see past the plain old ugly.

There are plenty more pictures in the Kaohsiung Houses album section.

Time exposure looking west to the setting New Year moon. The twin urban glows of Pingtung and Kaohsiung shine up through the sea of clouds.

If you look due east from Kaohsiung past the suburban sprawl, Daliao, the Gaoping river and the Pingtung plains you should see the 3000m Dawu mountain range only 35 kilometres away.

Occasionally around sunrise and a few days after each typhoon the mountains are visible to everyone. Otherwise Dawu is obscured by the industrial smog, rural burns, tropical air and the very fine alluvial dust that 4 million odd people trample.

As soon as you start to climb above the population soup the mountains emerge.

After a long rough winding mountain road you reach the trail head at 1540m

It is a 4 hour hike from the trail head to the hut. The trail is well marked and a good climb.

The hut sleeps 60 with further camping grounds for dozens of tents. Because of the week long Chinese New Year holiday and the miserable northern Taiwan winter drizzle the trail was busy and the hut was full.

We slept on benches under the balcony which was fine until about 1:30 am when super-keen hikers started preparing to for an accent to the summit for sunrise. We started the final climb at 3:30am and reached the ridge for sunrise. It is a further hour or so along the ridge to the top of North Dawu peak.

There were a few patches of ice left over from the cold front two weeks earlier.

And lots of red cedars, pines and small patches of alpine bamboo.

There was a little wildlife too.

We met some wonderful people along the trail. Lots of young and older couples, hiking groups, a few family groups too. Even some Taiwan resident Canadians and Australian making a dry New Years get-away from the north.

Along with the view from the top, the highlight was the sunset viewed from just before Juniper lodge. The sea of clouds is famous in the southern mountains but not always reliable.

There really are two Taiwans. One is above 1000 metres and is clean, sparsely populated and beautiful. When you are lucky you can see for miles and miles above the sea of clouds. The other exists below 1000 metres and is crowded, polluted and when you are lucky you can sometimes see the other through the swamp of smog.

Looking due north along the Southern first Section trail to Guanshan and the Southern Cross island highway.

Practicalities

You can reach the trailhead through Taiwu on Pingtung county road 106. Get your mountain permit from the police station in Taiwu.  The friendly police checked our gear, map and basic plan and waved us on when translation of the two forms became too difficult.

The trail requires some fitness but is not technically difficult. It can be easily done in two days if you start day 2 early.  The hut is well set-up with water and “mountain dump” toilets.

Though you don’t need one for this hike, if you would like a good detailed hiking map of the mountain try Books from Taiwan.

Night time view across the small pocket amongst which we live.

View larger map

Fongshan Military Academy This covers a huge tract of land. Though reasonably benign, it is an important military training ground that is a continual source of small arms practice fire. And surely a target of one of the 1400 odd missiles China will use one day. Let’s hope they are accurate enough to miss our place

Mental asylum Not in itself a threat, but placed between the military academy and the land-fill it an indication of the quality land use of the area.
Daliao landfill Or should that be “land-full”. A large hill now exists where a valley once was. They are now filling a valley right next to the full one. This is uphill from our house and not more that 500 metres away.

Traditional grave sites These are a common sight all over Taiwan. Hills are auspiciously good locations to place a grave. Grave sites are auspiciously bad to live near. And we live near hills full of graves

Christian cemetries Approximately 5% of Taiwanese are Christians. We live just one kilometre from 100% of Kaohsiung Christian graves.

Kaohsiung airport This was once a very busy and noisy airport. Now with the high speed rail much of the old noisy regular domestic flights have gone. Daliao covers the take-off flight path for the airport.

Daliao industrial zone This is where chemicals are concocted, boats are made, sewage discharged, recyclables recycled and poisoned residents ignored.

*China Steel refineryThe largest is Taiwan. Located adjacent China Shipbuilding, Taiwan’s largest shipbuilder. The source of much of Kaohsiung’s air pollutants.

Missile silos The Sky Bow missile placement that has been pixelled out in Google Earth. If the military academy is not a Chinese missile magnet, this installation certainly is.

Petrochemical plantsThe source for all sorts of odours. Environmental groups have successfully restricted development of this zone recentley. It has (rightfully) been the source of much local protest over the years.

Linyuan Oil refinery This is part of the larger chemical and steel industrial area. When passing through Linyuan you can constantly whiff the hydrocarbons.

View from the top of LinYuan hill adjacent the missile silos. Looking across to the Gaoping river, petrochemical  and oil refinery plants

We started the day early with our first stop the police station at Lili (力里) to get our mountain permit. Mountain permits are a hangover from Japanese occupation and KMT military era when tight control over access to the mountains was maintained. They seem hardly relevant these days and if we were to walk the trail from the Eastern side they are not required.

Thanks to a military radar post at the top of the mountain it is possible to drive a 20 km track to the trail-head at 1420 metres. This means you do the 16km trail on an almost continuous downward slope.

The trail is well marked and well maintained. In fact it is a popular mountain biking trail and with so many cyclists in Taiwan even remote trails like this manage to get a few adventures. This party of 5 was well equipped and had arranged a lift to the top so they could cycle over three hours to the Eastern side. They even had a helmet mounted video camera to record their thrillful ride.

We had a hiking perfect day with blue sky, no wind and no rain. Not even a misty afternoon cloud to dampen the day.

The recommended hiking time is 6 hours. At 3 hours out and 5 kilometers down we realised hiking with small ones would mean we could be finishing in the dark. Not a wonderful prospect but we pushed on.

The kids were fantastic. We tried to slow them down at the start as they were prone to running ahead then running back before running ahead again. Of course this exuberance withered and we had to do a little carrying and encouraging by trail end.

Perhaps thanks to the traveling noise-crowd that we were, we saw little bird or wildlife. Not even many butterflies,  though we did find this ungainly spider.

There are a number of old police stations along the route though little remains other than piles of rocks to remind you of the time when Japanese police and their families lived in this remote place. The sign at one settlement says 30 Japanese police and their families were killed during an incident in 1924.

We reached the Gu-alun suspension bridge at the trail end just after dusk. 8 hours after our start. This could have been an ugly end as there was still 4 kms of river bed to walk and wade before the village where we could arrange a lift to the Dawu (大武) train station. We were very fortunate when a motorcyclists arrived and said he would send someone to come and pick us up. So we all waited by the river, watched for stars and chased fireflies. A superb ending to a glorious walk.

The fellow who picked us up was a real character. He drove us past his house so we could meet his family, then past some friends place all while his minivan stereo played loud New York rap. He dropped us at the Dawu train station in good time to catch the 8:05 train back to Kaohsiung. We were all so exhausted we slumped on the floor of the train while Catherine enthralled a curious group of travelers with our day’s story.

Practicalities

This is an easy hike but you need to arrange transport at least to the Western trail-head. Lili is about an hour’s drive from Kaohsiung. Drive East along Expressway 88 then South on Freeway 3 to the Nanzhou exit. Head South on highway 1 towards Kenting then turn left at Pingtung county road 132 toward Lili.

From Lili follow the road past the police station for about an hour to reach the trail-head.

The 6 hours recommended time would be ideal for average hikers. If you have small children, add a couple more hours.

Though we had perfect hiking weather, the mountain pass section receives over 5200 mm of rain a year so odds are you may encounter some showers.

View Larger Map

Some of our favorite street vendors are the pancake, deep fried hot-dogs and salty-crispy fried chicken. Fried chicken includes all bits of the chicken (excepts feathers- normally)

If that is not enough oil to get you going, try this glutinous rice meat dumpling dish. It is kept in a wok of warm oil until you order. It is then sliced and covered with soy sauce.

One of our favorites is the dumpling and pastry restaurants. The preparation and cooking is done at the front of the shop. Inside you help yourself to sauces and choose a couple of the small dishes to complement the lightly fried and steamed meal. Very tasty.

Here are some of the night market specialties;

eel and noodles

thin noodle soup

skewered fish balls, pig-blood rice and fish cakes all boiled in a light broth.

stir fried shrimps

a particular favorite at seaside venues,  BBQ squid on a stick, painted with a sweet chilli sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Of course seafood is a Taiwanese staple and a sumptuous rite.

A wonderfully popular local dish is hot-pot. A large pot of soup is placed on a fire in the centre of the table to which you add meat, mushrooms, vegetables and all-sorts. You select the broth flavor with many shops offering a split pot for two different broths. These are incredibly popular, especially in the cooler winter months.

The devastating end of a hot-pot meal.

Not long ago if you wanted to experience tastes from beyond Taiwan you were rather limited to the local interpretations of foreign dishes. The sizzling steak house and curried chicken dishes have been around so long that they have blended into local dishes. One of the great things to occur in the last twenty years is the inflow of foreigners along with some great foreign dishes.

A lot of Vietnamese spouses have opened local noodle stores. These are generally simple places serving a Taiwanese version of Vietnamese dishes (or Vietnamese version of local dishes). Our favorite shop in Daliao offers superb meat and salad baggett, chilli mint salad and knock-over strong coffee.

Kieren at Escape 41 in Caishan quality controls the pizzas to ensure they are West Australian authentic. He also has an outdoor setting most Australians would die for.

Just recently I discovered chicken kebabs at our local Fengshan night market. The raw onion, fresh lettuce and chilli mayonnaise sauce make it a very foreign flavor for the night market. Perhaps they stuck with the sweetened bun wrapping so they didn’t completely scare the local customers.

The very successful Tex-Mex, Smokey Joe’s, is a great dining experience.

There are a good number of Japanese restaurants in Kaohsiung too. Run by Taiwanese with a very liberal interpretation on Japanese cuisine.

And for those out-of-towners that can’t find something local that suits their tastes there is always the internationally omnipresent McDonalds.

To make up for having to attend on Saturday, school is out for Monday. I’m not sure what the working parents will do tomorrow.

The weather at this time of year is absolutely gorgeous. It is really the time of year to be enjoying the outdoors and yesterday was a perfect day for it. There was a band, miniature cauldron and flame and lots of parading.

They had running, relays, tug-of-war, 3 legged races and even an egg-and-spoon race.

There were lots of proud parents watching on.

An event like this can not go by without a fair full of food, game and trinket vendors.

Here is the paper fishing net fair game. A very flimsy sheet of paper is stretched across a plastic paddle. 1 paddle for 10 yuan, 6 for 50 yuan. You get to keep all the goldfish you can catch before the paper fails.

We are now a household of 8 new goldfish and two small turtles.

The kids still had their usual school provided meal so they returned to the classrooms during lunch time. They look pretty much like the classrooms I attended so many years ago on a very different continent.

Here is my daughter’s classroom.

And here is my son’s.

The rapid drop in birthrate is having a real impact on schools all over Taiwan. Elementary school covers years 1 to 6. Shan Ding has 6 year 6 classes by only 4 year 1 classes. Pretty much the demographics of Taiwan proper.

As so often happens, a few nervous young people shyly asked to take a photo of me and my daughter. Something I always oblige as I’m never without my own camera ready to reciprocate. Here are the shy English speakers of yesterday.

Though very different from the sports days I once attended, the essence of festivities and activities were still there.

Why they even had long standing at assembly listening to lofty speeches by the headmaster.