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The eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung have more than a fifth of Taiwan’s land area, yet contain a mere 2.4 percent of the country’s population. Express trains from Taipei reach Hualien in less than three hours. For an even quicker escape, board a Taitung-bound plane at Taipei’s Songshan Airport. The flight time is just one hour.
It’s no surprise that Highway 11, the intensely scenic coast road from Taitung to Hualien, draws a lot of tourists. However, the inland route through the East Rift Valley is even more alluring. This well-watered region, more than 150km from north to south, is squeezed between highlands. The Central Mountain Range hinders access to Taiwan’s more developed western half, while the Coastal Mountain Range shelters the valley from Pacific typhoons.
Much of Taiwan’s best farmland can be found in the East Rift Valley, which is also known as the Huatung Valley. Since Japan’s 1895-1945 colonial occupation of Taiwan, the township of Chishang has been synonymous with rice of the highest quality. As demand for organically grown food increases, more and more Rift Valley farmers are reviving traditional methods such as raising ducks in their rice fields. Not only do these fowl eat snails and other pests, but their feet also stir the soil and their excrement is good fertiliser. Paddies which have been spared industrial pesticides teem with frogs, spiders and tiny moths.
The valley is an excellent place to sample aboriginal cooking, which is based on millet rather than rice...
The full article can be seen in the online version of EVA Air's inflight magazine. Click here and scroll through the magazine. The photo shows an old wooden bungalow in Lintianshan, an East Rift Valley attraction I mention in the article, and which I've also added to my guidebook for the just-published second edition.
Trains aren't the cheapest way of getting around Taiwan, and often they’re not the quickest. The high-speed railway will get you from Taipei to Kaohsiung in as little as one hour 36 minutes, but at four times the price of a midweek bus ticket (journey time about five hours). Very few of the conventional expresses operated by Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA), a branch of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, cover that route more quickly than buses, even though the cost is double. That said, rail travel is an excellent way to explore Taiwan. The island’s trains are safe and ultra-reliable. They don't get stuck in traffic. And while they can't carry you through Taroko Gorge or to a beach in the Penghu Islands, they can deliver you to several worthwhile destinations.
If all goes to plan, by the end of this year the famous logging railroad between Chiayi City and Alishan will again be taking sightseers from 30m above sea level to an altitude of 2,216m via a spectacular 72km-long route which includes switchbacks, the spiral ascent of a mountain, and so many bridges and tunnels you’ll lose count. (The photo above shows one of the forest railway's diesal locomotives).
Hsinchu, Chiayi and Tainan HSR stations are several kilometers from the centers of those cities, whereas TRA services convey passengers to within walking distance of downtown attractions. Hsinchu TRA Station is just 300m from Yingxi Old East Gate, and 750m from Beimen Street, a thoroughfare packed to the gills with old buildings. If you live in Taipei and
have never seen Hsinchu’s historic side, do make the trip.
At Tainan TRA Station, pick up a map from the information center and commence your walking tour. Even if you stray no more than a kilometer from the station, it’s possible to take in the city’s incomparable Confucius Temple, Fort Provintia (built by the Dutch East India Company in 1653), the exquisite Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple and several other places of worship. In the same neighborhood you’ll find Japanese colonial-era landmarks...
To see the whole article, pick up a print copy of the June/July issue of Centered on Taipei, or go here and scroll down to page 24.
I've just received my advance copy of the second edition of Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide (link to Amazon here; an electronic version will be available very soon) and I'm very pleased with it. The inside photos are much better than those in the first edition (thanks to the efforts of photographers including Rich J. Matheson), the maps are clearer because hotel and restaurant names have been moved to listings boxes, more of the attractions are listed in Chinese script as well as by their English names, and the background sections on history and nature are tighter and sharper, as well as fully up to date.
Attractions appearing for the first time in this new edition include the National Museum of Taiwan History, Lanyang Museum, Lintianshan and Baibau Creek (both in Hualien County), Japanese-era landmarks in downtown Taichung, the Foguangshan-affiliated Buddha Memorial Centre, and what is perhaps the only museum in the world dedicated to the sex industry - Kinmen's Military Brothel Exhibition Hall.
Taiwan is often presented as a thoroughly Chinese society, and you’d be forgiven for thinking its people were homogenous. Long before the 17th century, when Chinese migrants began to settle on the island, Taiwan was home to at least 25 Austronesian ethnic groups. These aborigines, who currently number around 534,000, still speak more than a dozen languages. These tongues are very different to the Mandarin and Hokkien used by most Taiwanese citizens, and the fabulous linguistic diversity they display is one reason many scholars are now convinced Taiwan is where the Austronesian branch of humanity began.
Archaeological discoveries also support the theory that Austronesian people spread out from Taiwan to Polynesia, Hawaii, New Zealand and other places in the first millennium AD.
Taiwan's indigenous people are slightly darker and stockier than their Chinese compatriots. Their eyes are rounder, their noses more prominent. But generations of intermarriage have blurred the boundaries between Chinese and Austronesian. Many, possibly a majority, of the former have some indigenous blood.
Taiwan’s aborigines account for just over two per cent of Taiwan's 23 million people, but they're very well represented in the fields of pop music and professional sport. However, these glamorous worlds are far removed from the lives of most indigenes. On average, they earn less and have fewer years of schooling than Taiwanese of Chinese descent. Many leave their villages in Taiwan’s mountainous interior to take labouring jobs in the big cities...
The complete article can be read in the May edition of Sawasdee, the inflight magazine of Thai Airways, and is accompanied with photographs taken by Rich J. Matheson. The photo here, taken in Pingtung County's Wutai Township, is mine.
Taiwan is - no exaggeration - a paradise for lovers of seafood, with clams being a particular favorite. They appear in soups and stir-fries, and can also be grilled or pickled. Curious why Taiwan enjoys such an abundance of clams, and eager to sample some of the island’s best, Travel in Taiwan recently headed to the southern city of Tainan in search of answers.
Clams are found around the world, in freshwater as well as oceans. An Arctica islandica clam found in the sea off Iceland in 2006 turned out to be 507 years old, making it the oldest individual animal ever discovered whose age could be accurately ascertained. Clams, like trees, have annual growth bands, although the ones enjoyed in Taiwan’s restaurants are seldom more than two years old.
For as long as humans have been living on the island, clams have featured in Taiwanese cuisine. Clam shells have been discovered in middens around the island. Even now, at many points along the coast, some members of the older generation still gather and cook wild clams. But the vast majority of clams eaten in Taiwan nowadays are cultivated in coastal ponds along the southwestern coast. With over 100 hectares devoted to raising clams, Tainan’s Qigu District (台南市七股區) plays a major part in local shellfish production.
Outside Taiwan, Qigu is best known for Black-faced Spoonbills and other migratory birds which spend each winter here. The presence of so many birds is no coincidence. The mild conditions in which clams thrive also support shrimps, snails and small fish, staple foods for waterbirds.
Qigu’s clam-raising heartland is utterly flat. Compared to other parts of Taiwan the absence of buildings and greenery is striking. The region is criss-crossed by long straight roads and utilities poles; at least three quarters of the surface area is covered with water...
This article also appears in the May/June issue of Travel in Taiwan, and on the magazine's website.
Taiwan’s southwest
is a treasure house of traditional culture and rural scenery.
However, exploring beyond the major cities of Tainan and Chiayi is
not easy for those without their own vehicle. The Taiwan Tourist Shuttle Southwest Coast Route plugs this gap.
Stop I: Garlic
Sugar Factor
Both garlic and
sugar grow well in south Taiwan, but they are not usually blended.
The name of this factory actually derives from an unusual place name.
Suantou (literally “garlic”) is a tiny village on the Chianan
Plain (嘉南平原),
and the sugar factory here is one of Taiwan’s oldest, having began
operations in 1904.
Until the 1950s,
sugar was Taiwan’s no. 1 export, with about one-fifth of the
island’s farmland devoted to sugar cultivation. Since then the
industry has been in steady decline because Taiwan’s sugar is too
expensive to compete with cane grown in Brazil and elsewhere. Most of
Taiwan’s sugar factories are shuttered and a few have been
dismantled. Suantou’s has been idle for over a decade, yet remains
intact. As such, it is a magnet for those curious about Taiwan’s
industrial heritage.
It is also one of
just a handful of places in Taiwan where sugar trains still run. At
the industry’s zenith, diesel locomotives hauled wagons full of
cane from plantations to sugar factories, and passenger cars from
town to town. The network comprised about 900 km of 762-mm-gauge
track.
Arriving with time
to spare before the 10am train (there’s another at 3pm each day;
extra services are put on when needed), we sampled some of unusual
ice lollies sold here. The taro and pineapple flavors are popular,
but I recommend the sugarcane juice lolly - refreshing as well as
fitting.
After buying our
tickets (NT$100 for adults, discounts for students, children and
seniors) inside Suantou’s endearingly quaint passenger station (a
relic of the Japanese colonial era, which lasted from 1895 to 1945),
we boarded the train. The contrast with Taiwan’s high-speed railway
- which is visible just to the east - could not be greater. With an
average speed of 15 km/h, bench seats and open sides, it is a true
“slow travel” experience. The on-board guide provided a stream of
commentary in Chinese about local history, the sugar industry, flora
and fauna. The rodents which inhabit sugarcane fields, she told us,
grow big and healthy, and are quite the delicacy!
After trundling
through nearby fields - some are still used for growing cane - the
train returned to the factory [where the photo above was taken]. Wandering inside the main building, we
saw massive machines formerly used to crush cane, and vats where the
pulp was boiled. Engineers are sure to find the machinery
fascinating, and anyone whose eyes appreciate the subtleties of
shadow and light will be beguiled. There has been no effort to spruce
up the interior for visitors - commendable honesty.
The area lacks both
gradients and heavy traffic, so cycling is a popular pastime. Biking
from Suantou to Dongshi’s Fisherman’s Wharf (東石漁人碼頭)
takes two and a half hours, almost half of which is on a dedicated
bikeway. Bicycles can be rented for NT$100 to NT$250 per day from
a store just behind
Suantou’s old railway station. The Tourist Shuttle stops at
Fisherman’s Wharf before heading south to Budai.
Stop II: Budai
Ask ten people what
you ought to do when visiting this lively seaside town, and buying or
eating seafood is sure to dominate the answers given by nine of them.
Budai Seafood Market (布袋漁市),
where dozens of seafood vendors sell live crabs, bucketfulls of
shellfish, cuts of grouper and other ultra-fresh delights, is also a
splendid place to enjoy lunch. Little English is spoken in the 40-odd
eateries which surround the vendors, but photo menus do a good job of
overcoming any language barrier...
The full article (in all, four stops are described) can be read in the May/June issue of Travel in Taiwan, or on the magazine's website.
In
my (physical) mailbox yesterday: A letter from Kaohsiung City
Government, notifying me that I've been reappointed a commissioner of
the Bilingual Living Environment Commission of Kaohsiung City for the
year of 2014. I've been a member of this committee since 2011. It's
an honor and I feel flattered they value my opinions. Oddly, I was
never asked if I wanted to join the committee – I was appointed,
and sent a letter, and that was that! Also, this year isn't the first
in which the reappointment notice has come long after January 1...
The
commission meets every few months and it's work includes reviewing translations of places names
(including tourist attractions) and the names of local
government agencies. One place we haven't talked about is the Chen Jhong-he Memorial Hall, pictured here.
