It all began with a train ride. It was about as comfortable as a being the third party to a conversation between Elton John and Bill O'Reilly on the topic of gay marriage. Our tickets were for standing room only, which meant we had to find the most meager patches of space to sit down during our five hour trip through the night. We ended up sleeping sitting up, laying awkwardly next to bathroom doors, trash bins and basically anywhere else where other standing-room-only riders weren't already camped out. Ben, our Taiwanese guide and friend, was gracious enough to lend Caleb and I some sleeping pills that don't knock you out, but rather ensure that you stay asleep. These proved invaluable as we eventually bedded down in a small space between cars that came with a cacophony of howling wind, the screaming of high speed metal to metal contact and the general bustle of people moving around. All was forgiven the moment we reached our destination however, as Ben immediately ran us up to the top of an abandoned diamond mine slag pile behind his house which afforded us our first eye-full of the views we were to enjoy for the rest of the weekend.
Perched atop this hillside, we drank in our new home-- a wide river valley crisscrossed with the geometric shapes of rice paddies between starkly bold mountain ranges. In the center of this natural and man made artistry lies the small town of Fuli. Our arrival couldn't have been planned better, as the sun was just beginning to reach over the Eastern mountain tops and fill the valley with a golden glow of early morning sunshine. We stood in awe as Ben pointed out mountain after mountain, of which he knew all the names. The mountain tops were often not visible as their peaks were guarded by determined clouds which hung effortlessly and in place for the entirety of our trip, unmoved by wind or disinterest.
We climbed back down the slag pile and hopped into the old Toyota Tercel which was to be our chariot for the trip. Ben drove the car like a champion Le Mons circuit driver, and despite passing on double yellows in pouring rain, driving straight for opposite traffic on roads which were only wide enough for a single car and on more than one occasion turning to talk to people in the backseat without letting off the accelerator, I never felt ill at ease with his command of the vehicle and of the roads we were driving. He has been navigating these roads in one form of vehicle or another since he was seven years old after all, and it showed. When asked how anyone got around without any road signs, as even main thoroughfares by the towns standard were without any name, he casually replied that people navigated by the mountains which surround the town. If you're heading towards the swimming hole, you point the front of your car towards (insert name) mountain, if you want to go home, well you just turn it around again and head back towards (insert name) mountain. Simple as that.
We pulled into the courtyard of the Lin family home and took stock of the incredible amounts of machinery that were in various stages of decay. A car with a smashed out front windshield, a few Taiwanese favorite Blue Trucks, a large and unwieldy looking tractor and, of course, our Tercel. He brought us inside to a spacious and humble home with beautiful rock floors of various colors and shades. Our room was cluttered with odds and ends but it had two beds which could accommodate the three of us, with a separate room for Ben, and we were happy with that.
Ben had promised to show us the natural wonders of Fuli and we were itching to get out and explore the beauty that surrounded us. Our first stop was a crystal clear watering hole which he has been coming to for relief from the relentless tropic sun since he was a small child. The pond consists of three tiers of cement wall flanking individual ponds which serve to pool the flow of
water coming from a source deep in the jungle covered mountains. The water was the purest I'd seen in a long time and he assured us that we could drink from it if we wanted. We climbed a tattered knotted rope to the top of the second cement wall, as the trail leads you atop the lowest wall, which flanked one half of the pond. At the top, which was about ten to twelve feet above the surface, you could stand and reflect upon the beauty of the surroundings before taking a refreshing plunge.We took turns getting to the top and soon made our way to the highest of the cement barriers which had no clear way of being conquered. We stared at it and it's eight inch wide holes, of which there were seven, where the water flowed forth to eventually fill the ponds below. Being guys, we had a competition to see who could throw a rock into one of the holes. This lead to seeing who could be the first to throw a rock into each of the holes, which lasted for about half an hour before we started laughing at the fact that only a bunch of guys would find this exciting. It was at this point that Ben turned to us and thanked us for coming out and enjoying this place
with him, which he has been treasuring since his childhood. We thanked him for the invitation to come enjoy the place and realized that it meant as much to him to have us there, as it meant to us to be there. There's something special about showing people around a place that you know better than anywhere else, especially when they enjoy it as much as you do.Heading back to the car, we felt refreshed and rejuvenated by the healing waters. Ben drove us across the valley to the opposite side where there is a famous viewing area atop one of the neighboring mountains. On our way, we passed endless patches of rice paddies which kept us spellbound with their uniform rows of barely sprouted rice plants. At one point, the beauty was too great and we forced him to stop the car so we could get out and take in the sight of glistening paddies reaching all the way to the base of a fantastically dramatic mountain range with the sun just peaking over the top, illuminating the valley. It was a moment that we coined as a "Hang on a Minute" moment, which is to say, give me five minutes, I'm taking this in. It was one of those sights where the longer you stared at it, the more you felt like you had to continue doing so at the peril of missing something. It was
impossible to get your fill.We hopped into the Tercel once more to reach our next destination. As it turns out, none of us knew the power that the inside of a Toyota Tercel possesses. They are in fact Human Recharging Stations much like iPod docks many of us are aware of. We came to this realization when we noticed that the moment we entered the car, everyone but the driver instantly fell asleep, heads lolling to and fro with the centrifigal force of winding mountain roads. It didn't matter who was at the helm or where you were sitting in the car, the moment your ass hit the seat your lights went out until it pulled to a stop at the next destination. It was uncanny how well it worked.
The gazebos at the top of the mountain provided 360 degree views of the valley and mountain range respectively. All around the wooden outposts were fields of yellow-orange flowers which, when still sealed in their buds, are eaten by many Taiwanese natives. Their allure was too great for us to handle and we asked Ben for a moment to romp around in the fields for a little while, snapping countless photos of the amazing tropical flowers with their incredibly saturated colors.
Ben asked if we were ready for some real adventure and we answered with a resounding "Yes!" He took us to a trail head leading along a river that was strewn with gigantic boulders. We jumped down into the water and began to scramble along the tops, sides, and beneath the massive wreckage of what was once mountains. Caleb and I consider ourselves pretty
knowledgeable and adept river tracers, but Ben really flourished with his home field advantage, sprightly and nimble on the searing hot boulders despite being barefoot.We climbed our way up the river until we reached an amazing pool of water, less clear than the last, but deeper and with a higher rock to jump from. In the distance we could catch a glimpse of a thin stream of water pouring over a huge fall. It made for an otherworldly backdrop to the already lush and gorgeous scenery of the natural swimming pool. We took endless turns jumping from the rock and managed some skillful underwater photography with Caleb's waterproof camera.
Eventually the lure of the falls became too much and we journeyed on to find it's base. The amazing height of the falls, when viewed from the bottom, made ones neck ache as you craned your lump of a head back to take in the full view. We swam under the torrent and let the water beat down on our sun burnt shoulders.
During the course of our bouldering, I'd over extended myself and ripped a hole in the crotch of my swimming shorts. When it happened I yelled out to the others: "Aww guys, I just ripped the crotch of my shorts, watch out because you might see my balls." Well, that was about an hour from the point in which we'd reached the base of the falls and was completely forgotten by me and the others, who couldn't remember my ever making the proclamation in the first place. Ben wanted to take a group photo but we couldn't figure out how to set the timer on Cale
b's camera. This meant staging one of those "facebook-official" friend photos where one person holds the camera out at arms length and everyone squeezes into where they think the frame must be to get a big toothy smile in there. Well, in the midst of positioning this shot, Mark got a pretty full view of my undercarriage, and damn did he think it was funny. Like many people who've seen my package after a dip in a cool mountain stream, he could not stop laughing, which made for one of the greatest photos I've ever been a part of as we all have mid-laugh smiles and Mark can be found on the edge of the frame slapping his knee while choking back tears of laughter. It was one of the highlights of our trip and I kept a better eye on how my legs were positioned after that.By this point we'd been awake for seven hours and had very little to eat or sleep. Ben thought we should go back to his house to have his grandma make us lunch and we couldn't have been more in agreement. Ben drove while we recharged in the Human Charging Station and we woke up
magically back in the courtyard outside his grandparents home. Inside his grandmother could be found in the kitchen preparing fried rice with egg, noodle soup with chicken and greens, and a vegetable that Ben couldn't translate with chunks of red chilies. All of which were either grown or raised right there in the valley, by the Lin family. "Tastes like grandma" remarked Ben, and we shoveled the food down to the point where grandma Lin had to make a second batch of fried rice for us.By this point we'd tried to meet with Ben's uncle twice without success. Driving to his home meant traversing washed out roads and bumpy gravel paths alongside tiered rice paddies being tended to by workers paid by Ben's family to care for the rice. We reached the top of a small offshoot valley where Ben's uncle lived in a modest hand-built home which was decorated, outside and in, with various car parts, sheet metal and propane tanks, all of which were being stored with some intention for later use. Ben showed us around the farm and took us down to the chicken coop, which turned out to be about six times larger than his uncle's home and loosely contained somewhere in the ballpark of a thousand black chickens. They weren't kept in cages like a factory farm nightmare in America, but rather hustled about in droves. They parted like the red sea before Moses as we walked into their home. Mark and I had to stifle an incredible urge to burst out with a yell and wave our arms to scare them en masse, but Ben informed us very earnestly that they easily die of fright and that his uncle would be out over five hundred Taiwanese dollars for every dead chicken. He then showed us his technique for calling the chickens to him, which involved steadily rapping his keys on the ground, which for some reason caused them to flock to him in cautious curiosity.
After checking out the chickens for a while, we headed back up to his uncle's place and took in the amazing view from his front door. It looked like what a fabled cocaine lord would see each
morning as he walked out the front door of his South American villa to survey his vast tracts of land; workers toiling away in the coca fields below as he strokes his taught belly in the rising sunlight. It was another "Hang on a Minute" situation and despite coming back to the view repeatedly during the course of our trip, it was still hard to tear our eyes away before we left the last time.It was still only about two o'clock in the afternoon and we had a lot of daylight ahead of us, so we decided to take the tunnel through the eastern mountain range and see the coast. It was a long and winding drive through the mountains and we passed out and woke up many times before finally catching our first sight of the Pacific laid out in all it's azure splendor. We coasted down from the mountains to the water's edge and Caleb and I took a salty dip among the sea urchins and colorful coral as Ben sat in the car and Mark sat on the rocky shore. Despite driving for roughly forty-five minutes, we stayed at the ocean for about half an hour before alighting once more to get back to the valley.
Ben wanted to show us the entrance to Yulan National Park, where Caleb had recently been to hike the highest peak in Taiwan, so we set off in the direction of Yulan mountain. We pulled up to the entrance to the park, looked at the sign for about five seconds and then turned around. At this point Caleb asked Ben if he could drive, having been deprived of the privilege for his entire stay in Taiwan, and Ben acquiesced quickly. Caleb hopped into the drivers seat beside me and put the car in gear just as a torrential downpour began. No sooner had Caleb taken control of the vehicle did Ben pass out in the backseat, where he finally received the reviving powers of the Tercel. We were in the wake of a large tour bus for most of the ride down the mountain but eventually it pulled over and we had a straight shot out to the plains of Yuli. At this point Caleb had no idea where he was going, the rain was coming down in sheets and the windshield was fogging up considerably. We roused Ben and asked him where to go, to which he asked for his large reed hat. He donned the distinctly Taiwanese head wear and stood out in the rain for a few moments, studying the mountains before getting into the drivers seat once more with a simple: "Okay, I know where we are now."
He drove us back to his house where we changed into dry clothes. Ben showed Mark and I how to drive the tractor, which was a manual transmission and entirely more fun than any piece of farming equipment should be, and we took turns driving in a small circle on a patch of grass and dirt down the street from his house. Then we drove the beast back to his place to hop into the figure head for Taiwan's vehicle landscape: The Blue Truck. They are made by CMC, have tires the size of shopping cart wheels, a cab which seats two uncomfortably and a bed that is made of loose wooden boards. You cannot spit on the streets in Taiwan without hitting two of these trucks. The same person drives every single one, he has a mouth full of beetle nut and a passenger who's bare foot hangs out the side window to catch the breeze. They are beautiful, and I've always wanted to drive one. I couldn't contain my excitement when Ben said that Mark and I could take it for a spin, but we were quickly brought back to Earth when none of us could figure out how to get it into reverse. It was manual, like the tractor, but unlike any other manual on the planet there were no numbers on the gear shift. You had to wildly twist, yank, and pull the stick around until you hit something that felt like a gear and then feather the gas while letting off the clutch and seeing if you rolled forward or back. I tried about ten different gear positions before Ben finally called me out of the truck to reverse it himself. Then it was his turn to try endless permutations of bop it, twist it, and pull it, before finally, and with a huge smile, rolling backwards and facing the truck towards the road for us. Mark and I jumped in like two teenagers who'd just been handed the keys to their Dad's sports car and lurched out of the driveway and onto the narrow road. We told Ben we were going to go around the block, but we soon realized that we couldn't turn around anywhere that required us to use reverse, so we ended up driving around until we could find a large enough paved area to make a sweeping 180 degree turn. We spotted a place across a bridge, that was only wide enough for a single car, and I made the turn without issue. At this point I jumped out and switched positions with Mark, who was to drive the truck back to the house. No sooner had he pulled out into the road and onto the narrow bridge, than he stalled the truck. We panicked, as no one could get around us and there was a car coming from behind. He made a noise like a small child who's suddenly realized they were following someone who wasn't their mother in the mall, and had no idea where she was in the endless racks of blouses in the Women's Department. He frantically yanked on the keys and the blue truck roared to life once more as he hit the gas and lunged forward in first gear for almost the entire length of the bridge. We were laughing the way you do when you've just done something that you were sure wouldn't work, and came back to the house ready to hand over the controls to a more competent driver.
Since Blue Trucks, as I will call them, are only able to seat two in the cab, Mark and I had to stand in the back while Ben drove with Caleb riding shotgun. This turned out to be an amazing ride for us as it felt like riding on a giant scooter, except that you had no control over how fast it was going, or what direction it was headed. We reveled in the freedom of the open road and waved at the aghast faces of the locals who caught sight of us. Their mouths hung slack in disbelief, not because there were people standing in the back of a truck, but rather that there were white people standing in the back of a truck--in their small and remote farming town. We rode with the wind in our hair all the way back to Ben's uncle's house, who we were finally able to find at home.
Ben had been telling us endless stories about his uncle, who we quickly realized held a heroic status in his mind. There was the hunting stories, the craftsmanship stories, and even the odd ladies man stories, so suffice to say we were pretty well primed by the time we finally got to meet the legend. I can't speak for the others, but I found Uncle Lin to be one of the most affable people I've ever met, despite the language barrier, and he treated us like long lost relatives. It began with a lovely sit down tea on his porch with the Cocaine Lord view in the distance as we chatted in the little Chinese we could piece together. Caleb and Mark have both been seeing a language teacher in Taipei and their practice was put to good use, as Ben's uncle was clearly impressed at their abilities.
As we drank our tea we could hear the sound of rain drops splashing on distant vegetation, and within a few minutes the cloud had reached us. It was an amazing feeling to hear the rain coming before it actually hits you, and we went silent for a moment, listening to the coming storm. It pelted down pretty hard and we moved inside to continue our tea and cigarettes. The conversation had turned to hunting and Ben mentioned that his uncle's rifle had been taken away by the police, as only aboriginals are allowed to own fire arms in Taiwan. Not content to be without a gun, he fashioned one himself out of materials around his home and ample gobs of metal from a soldering iron. It was equipped with a flashlight and lazer sight which he showed us by pointing to a an empty can on the porch which was visible through the open front door. He also showed us the converted bullets he used, which were fit into half inch washers so that they stayed snugly in the bore before being fired. He cocked it open like a shotgun, the hilt tilting downward at a nearly ninety degree angle, to show us how to place the bullet in the barrel before snapping it shut again. Then, looking down at his handiwork, he handed it to me and asked, through Ben, if I'd like to try it. There was a crucial half-second where the mental image of a homemade gun blowing up in my face scars me for life as liquid metal sears through my flesh and bones to lodge inside my skull. I thought about all the ways it could go wrong, about the bullet splitting into a hundred lethal pieces within inches of my face, of the barrel splitting open like a banana peel as you see in old cartoons, I thought about all these things and more in that half second of time which felt like an eternity. Then I looked directly in his eyes and said: "Yeah, sure."
I pointed the gun out the front door, trying to line the lazer pointer up on the can, but I couldn't see the red pinpoint of light no matter how hard I tried to steady myself. After a few moments I gave up the notion of actually hitting the can and pulled back the hammer of the heavy Frankenstein cannibalized killing machine and drew in my breadth as I pulled the trigger. A miss, by who knows how much, but the feeling of firing a deadly weapon always leaves you breathless. I made a joke to Ben about hoping the stray bullet doesn't hit one of the workers down below out in the fields, which was conceived in my mind as an offhand remark and then, once said aloud, made me kind of sick to my stomach. He relayed the message in Chinese to his uncle who laughed heartily and offered cigarettes around the table. Another killing device, this time, I politely declined.
His uncle mentioned that he could could cook one of the chickens for us in a Taiwanese method that involves boiling and then roasting over a fire. We had actually tried this type of chicken before on a trip during Chinese New Year (Use Ctrl + F to search "That first taste") and were eager to taste it again. Before we could eat though, we had to go down to the coop where the adult chickens are kept and pick out our dinner. It was still pouring rain as Caleb and I jumped into Uncle Lin's Blue Truck, which was larger than Ben's and sat three. We drove down the gravel and dirt path to the base of the tiered paddies where he jumped out and walked over to the birds. Within seconds he was walking towards us in the glow of the headlights with a huge black feathered chicken in one hand a rusty cage in the other. He tossed the bird in the cage and put it in the bed of the truck before getting back into the car and beaming at us, telling us in broken English, "So good chicken!"
Mark and Ben, we would find out later, were in charge of watermelon duty. They were to scour Ben's uncle's friend's field to pick out watermelon for our meal. In doing so, they got their Blue Truck stuck in the mud, and what with the problem of finding reverse, they quickly found themselves in a tough situation. Mark had to get out and push as Ben hit the gas with rain pouring down on them as the sky filled with flashes of lighting and rumbling thunder, both of which Mark is no fan of.
During this time of turmoil, Caleb and I were sitting in a small storefront owned by the Lin family, chatting with some workers who were friends of the family and being treated to endless food and drink. It began with a simple bowl of horse nuts, any drink from the fridge that we liked-which was amply stocked with everything from coca-cola to iced coffee to Taiwan beer, and led to bananas, lychees, and fried rice. We were becoming full from all the snacking and our chicken was only just being plucked. We had no idea what was holding Ben and Mark up, and assumed that some crossed wire had them sitting back at grandma's place while we sat here with his uncle. We played with the dogs and a small puppy, chatting and snacking for about forty five minutes before a soaked and bedraggled Mark came shuffling in through the front door, followed by a smiling Ben. "Oh my God..." Were Mark's first words as he slumped down in a plastic chair and asked if he could have the rest of my Mr. Brown iced coffee. "Sure" I said, pointing to the fridge, "you can have anything you like, and there's beer in there too." To which Ben added "Yeah, you guys can have anything you want, what's mine is yours you know? Just take anything." Mark tipped the can back and finished it before recounting their adventure with the storm.
Just as he finished with "It was terrible." Ben's uncle came in from the back with a golden brown chicken on an aluminum tray which he set down with pride before us, along with a big pot of steaming fried rice. Ben passed out the bowls and we dug in. Uncle Lin used a pair of scissors to hack away manageable chunks of chicken, which we eagerly snapped up with our chopsticks, and placed on top of our bowls of rice. The chicken, which had been hanging by it's feet in his uncle's hands flapping it's wings vigorously less than an hour previously, could not have tasted any better. Ben began telling us how the rice from this valley was the best tasting rice in Taiwan, that there was a standing order that as soon as it was harvested from the fields, it was to be shipped straight to Japan where it was a prized commodity. The chickens too were famous for their quality and when sold in stores across Taiwan they went for easily 1000NT a bird. (Roughly $30 American) We dug in all the more and licked the oil from our glistening fingers as we struggled to devour the last chunks of delicious meat. When we questioned Ben on where to dispose of our bones and various chunks of refuse, he replied casually. "Just toss it on the floor, that's for the dogs." We did, and the dogs ate as well as we did that night. The little puppy's stomach inflating to twice it's original size making it's figure to resemble a lopsided balloon with a cute floppy-eared head stuck to the front.
We thanked his uncle profusely for the hospitality and drained the last of our beers before leaving with Ben to hit some late-night hot springs. He had been telling us about these hot springs for most of the way down from Taipei and we were eager to relax after our gigantic meal. Unfortunately, the hotel which owns the springs was closed, but they left the door open so we just went in anyway. We kept most of the lights off and soaked in the pools for free for about fifteen minutes before we heard a tentative "Hello? Hellooo?" from outside. We quickly decided that the white people should be the ones to talk to the man outside and Caleb and I jumped out to greet the staff. He informed us that the hotel closed at ten, and that it was now a quarter after. We apologized and explained that we'd heard this was a really great hot spring, and asked if we could pay to stay a little longer. He agreed and told us to turn off the lights when we were finished. We couldn't believe our luck and ended up paying 200NT ($6) to enjoy some very comfortable hot springs.
Relaxed, boiled, fed and tired, we headed home for the last time and finally got the sleep that we needed.
At nine o'clock Sunday morning, Ben poked his head into our room to tell us that he was going to the swimming hole that we went to originally to shower and invited us along. None of us could move and could hardly muster the energy to even verbally reply. He was fine with that, and left us to sleep. Two hours later he came in again, "Come on you guys, you've been sleeping too long, it's time to do some sight seeing and have some breakfast!" This time, we agreed and groggily got out of bed to be greeted by the tropical sun.
First things first, we got some breakfast at 7-11 and then went to see Ben's uncle to have some of the watermelon that Mark and Ben had stolen the night before. It was absolutely amazing watermelon, and when cut in half, it was larger in diameter than my head. We each had a few huge chunks and piled our rinds on the table in front of us. When we asked what to do with them, Ben answered "Oh just chuck it into the jungle, anywhere it's green, just throw it there." We laughed and winged our comically large rinds into the bushes, thus replenishing the soil for some more fantastic watermelon. The cannibals. We decided to come back for lunch to have some wild boar that his uncle had hunted in the surrounding mountains. But first, we needed to work up an appetite.
We all agreed that a dip in the water was in order and Ben took us to his outdoor shower once more. It was just as agreeable as the first time, only this time there were a few locals there as
well. It was fun to see how the families relaxed on their Sunday afternoons and we had a great time splashing around in the cool water with the kids. We even borrowed some goggles (frogs eyes literally translated from Chinese) and got a glimpse of the world under the water which was was so clear that you could see from one end of the pool to the other with no trouble at all.One o'clock came around quicker than we'd hoped and we begrudgingly packed up to leave the comfort of the pool. Driving back to the storefront where we'd eaten our chicken meal the night before, we contemplated the finer points of Ben, Mark, and Caleb's music composition as they were set to play a gig in a few weeks. We pulled up to the store and sat down in our plastic chairs once more, feeling like we belonged there as much as anybody else, and were treated to some more beers as we gazed out over the valley.
Boar meat is good. Very good. So good in fact that you can take a chunk in your fingers, stick it into the big communal bowl of rice to glob together a ball of rice and meat before putting it in your mouth with a kind of zombie-like trance as the oil and fat take over your brain. We sat hunched over with little conversation as we repeated this simple process over and over until there was simply no meat and no rice left. The skin is about half a centimeter thick, yellow and slightly transparent, and very very chewy. Mark was particularly fond of it, and gnawed at a six inch chunk for some time, which Ben's uncle was quite impressed with. "My uncle says you have strong teeth," relayed Ben. Mark replied that he was simply trying to store up before winter set on again, so that when he went home to England he could get off the plane and say 'good thing I had that boar skin, or I'd be cold right now.' We sat for a while and enjoyed the warm breeze before heading up the hill to Uncle Lin's place for the last of only half of our gigantic watermelon. We also drank some more strong green tea on his porch, taking in the scenery one last time. I picked up my tea and for a moment, stood at the precipice of the porch, staring out
over the land and imagining that this was in fact my home, that this was my land in front of me and that I was master and commander of all this territory. It was a nice dream, and I let it seep into my brain to become a permanent memory that I will cherish until I'm old.With some final goodbyes and handshakes, we left Uncle Lin's for good, having to go back to grandma's to pack up our belongings and catch the train. When we got to grandma's house, we found out that she'd washed our clothes and hung them out to dry, which was very sweet, and she also gave us two 1.8kg bags of the famous Fuli rice. We were honored and thanked her profusely. Her hands were leathery with age but gentle and soft with love.
As we pulled up to the train station, Ben turned to us in the backseat and said:
"You have two homes in Taiwan now. One in Taipei, and one in Fuli."
