On Christmas Eve we flew to Taiwan from Christchurch, arriving at 11.30pm to Taipei Taoyuan International Airport - where we spent the night before shuttling with our tandem bikes to a hotel in central Taipei at 7am on Christmas morning. I first became interested in Taiwan when I watched a documentary some years ago where Oscar Kightley traced his DNA roots back across the Pacific through Samoa and Vanuatu, to Taiwan. You can watch the documentary here: Made in Taiwan . As well as interesting me from the perspective of indigenous peoples (see below) Taiwan is geographically fascinating due to its duality between traditional and sophisticated ways of life. Taiwan is a mountainous island. The island has the largest number and density of high mountains in the world. There are 286 mountain summits over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) above sea level on the island, with Yushan being the tallest mountain in both Taiwan and East Asia. Taiwan was also the site of the February 2018 6.4 magnitude Hualien earthquake. Unbelievably, this was the first time I travelled in Asia so it was a unique learning experience in all respects and a very fascinating tail-end of my Highgate Fellowship. We spent four days in Taipei and were surprised not to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people (2.6 million in Taipei and 23 million in Taiwan - a country just a little larger than Otago). Taipei has superb public transport and this enables a relative absence of cars and complete order in moving vast quantities of people everywhere. The National Palace, the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Shilin Night Market, Beitou Hot Spring Museum, Huashan 1914 Creative Park and the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines were all highlights. So how do you leave the relative comfort of an inner city hotel and jump on your bike to head out of Taipei and around the island of Taiwan? Surprisingly - just the same as the nervous anticipation when you leave the comfort of your own home here to embark on any adventure. With the help of non-english-speaking Eddie at the hotel, Google, a paper map, two policeman at the end of the road and two locals on a scooter (along with lots of thumbs up and ‘Welcome to Taiwan’ shouted from passing vehicles and scooters), we made it to the huge Taipei Bridge and exited onto a cycleway that lead many kilometres to the south-west end of the city. The cycleway was embellished by huge murals that stretched for miles - just a foretaste of the incredible artworks, sculptures, buildings and structures that we were to encounter across the island. Our route stretched down the very industrialised and urbanised West Coast, through the busy city of Hsinchu and down past the fishing nets and windmills on the No 1 Cycleway. I was pleasantly surprised not to encounter the pollution and smog I had anticipated (the wind may have helped with this). We encountered our first Bhuddist Temples and marvelled at the incense, the colour, the devotion, the detail of the ceilings and shrines, and the stories within. We saw the first of many rice padis and followed the one traffic rule you need in Taiwan - don’t hit anything in front of you! (perhaps ironic in light of my recent events!) Footpaths and carparks are clogged with scooters in cities and you have a complete right of way on a bicycle, passing double-parked cars, mobility scooters, dogs, street stalls and other unexpected obstacles in the scooter lanes which are shared. Traffic was kind and giving and many scooter riders and/or passengers (which sometimes included dogs and children) attempted communication or gave thumbs up or took our photo while stopped at red lights. Everywhere - on and off the road - we heard ‘Jia you’ which is a term of encouragement and kind of means ‘Keep going’. Even on our last days people still called out ‘Welcome to Taiwan’ as they passed on their scooters or called from the street. The 7-11s (a bit like our Night ‘n’ Days) became our lifeline to get out of wind or heat, eat something, go to the loo and just rest. Even there recycling was mandatory - and included almost everything, including takeaway coffee cups. There are very few plastic bags and no smoking allowed in parks. We saw solar bridges, thousands of electric vehicles, green spaces and dedicated cycleways everywhere we went. A highlight was the Sun Moon Lake, a steep 800m ride up to a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and home to the Ita Thao aboriginal tribe. The Xiangshan Visitor Centre is the most incredible modern building I have seen, built specifically to frame the lake beyond. The lake itself is enveloped by a fabulous spacious cycleway that cantilevers and almost floats above the lake. Unfortunately this came to an abrupt end where it was closed due to a killer hornet nest! The Wenwu Temple perched high at the end of the lake was another highlight. We attended an Ita Thao cultural performance which was vibrant, colourful and told important stories despite the language barrier. Taichung and Kaoshuing on the West Coast were two of our favourite cities. Modern, crammed with cycleways, beautiful parks, sculptures and green buildings in all directions, these cities are visions of the future where sustainability and aesthetics are prioritised in urban design. Apart from a vertical drop rollercoaster and missing an Uber ride home in the dark on New Year’s Eve, the highlight of Taichung was the incredible Rainbow Village created by former soldier, Huang Yung-Fu, who began painting houses in his settlement, now known as Rainbow Village, to save them from demolition. Over the years his colourful artwork, which includes birds, animals and people, has spread over the remaining houses in the village. In Kaoshuing the beautiful Kaoshuing Stadium was shaped like a dragon with a full roof of solar panels and by night Love River in Kaoshuing transformed into a river of lights, beautifully lit sculptures, river boats and buskers. We biked as far south as Checheng before crossing to the East via the 42km climb to the 500m Shouka Pass. Emerging to the glistening turquoise Pacific was wonderful - though travelling through the gobsmacking roadworks and engineering feats of the new East Coast highway required some skill to negotiate the one lane construction zones. There were also Taiwanese military exercises involving bombs and fighter planes adjacent to the road as we departed the west, evidence of growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait between China and Taiwan. The East Rift Valley was a highlight. We stood on the boundary between the Philippine Sea and the Eurasian tectonic plates, were invited to refreshments in a luxury resort, went to the famous Mr Brown Avenue - a “green road of paradise”, visited a tea plantation, crossed the Tropic of Cancer and emerged again at the coast at Hualien. Unlike Christchurch there is zero evidence of last year’s devastating earthquake there - testament to the huge construction industry in Taiwan and the wealth of the nation. The absolute pinnacle of the trip was our cycle up the Taroko Gorge on Lucy’s 17th birthday. It is a 19km marble canyon carved by the Liwu River, as stupendous as Yosemite or other geological marvels around the world. At the head of the gorge we walked on the Baiyang Waterfall Trail and saw Formosan monkeys grazing in the trees alongside the trail. Cycleways, surf towns, cycle tunnels, hills and yet more stops at 7-11s led us back into the cycleways of Taipei and we finished our trip with a trip to the Taipei 101 skyscraper - the tallest and largest green building in the world. We travelled up 89 floors in 37 seconds. The building design echoes Bhuddist pagodas and bamboo and contains a 728 tonne steel pendulum that spans two floors and combats seismic movement and winds from tropical storms. In conclusion, Taiwan was beautiful, fascinating and thought-provoking. Rich in religion, culture, history, architecture, art, engineering, wildlife and scenery and having experienced rapid and recent economic development, Taiwan leads us up and into the age of the modern and beautiful. Because it has emerged so recently economically, its design and planning has been in line with the rise of sustainability, making it green, clean and gorgeous. Despite the language barrier and not knowing what we were ordering or eating half of the time, the people were warm, helpful and encouraging, with a great sense of humour. Its future is uncertain politically but one likes to think it can remain as it is - free, beautiful, sustainable and democratic.
You can read further about the whole journey here: http://onewheeleach.blogspot.com/ Many thanks to the school and the Board of Trustees for giving me such rich learning opportunities over the past year. It has been a year of very positive growth and development for me - despite the rollercoaster journey! ~Bridget Davidson
1 Comment
Kathryn Dick
12/4/2019 12:29:49 pm
What an amazing adventure. You never fail to inspire us, Bridget. Love your work!
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