Traveling is a brutality.
It forces you to trust strangers
and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.
You are constantly off balance.
Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky,
all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
My apologies for the delay in this post. I had most of it written but somehow it got lost in the ether. It can be disheartening to have to rewrite something that took some thought. I have now figured out a better way of navigating WordPress.
So, on a train I went, heading for some good ol’ beach camping. Three hours northeast. Shame I didn’t check the weather forecast.
It all started so perfectly. I spent my first night at a real campground, they advise you to set up your tent on a small raised platform. That way, if it rains you don’t have to worry about sleeping in a swamp. Except for a small summer camp of youngsters, I was the only one in the whole 37 hectares. The first day/night was great. Every couple of hours, a train of kids walked by just loving the chance to practice saying “Hello” and “How are you.”
I went down to the beach for some real relaxation, but the locals kept on looking at me warily; some of them were trying to tell me things I could not decipher. Eventually, I came to understand that bad weather was rolling in and I probably shouldn’t be camping. There was some grey sky approaching, so I battened down the hatches and found a good spot with tree cover on three out of four sides. Then, I salvaged some extra rope and tied down everything I could. I even used rocks so I didn’t have to worry about a tent chase. People still seemed to think I shouldn’t be outside, but I am Canadian, and we camp in the winter!
I equated this to my time in South America when people would hide from warm rain downpours, Tristan and I would march happily down the center of the street with water up to our ankles. Why are people always so apprehensive?
At first it wasn’t so bad, but it wasn’t that enjoyable either. As Mr Gump once said:
“We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain.
Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.
Shoot, it even rained at night… “
Even with all my prep, I was getting wet in the tent. It seemed like the wind was blowing the rain along the ground and then up in between the tent and my fly. I did make one friend though.
The weather didn’t ease up, enough was enough. A man I had talked to earlier found a younger guy to come and explain the situation. He told me no one should be outside at all. I acceded to his advice and packed up my gear as fast as I could. I donned my helmet (special thanks to Lisa S from Swedan for the life-saving gift) and the nice young lad offered me a ride back to the office at the campsite where I was met with a few other concerned individuals. I was rushed to a collection of little A-frame structures, given some bottled water, instant noodles, and told to stay inside. the weather should ease up tomorrow evening.
Typhoons are a magnificent display of the power of nature. The downfall of rain made streams and rivers appear everywhere, the thunder roared while the flashes of lightning illuminated branches flying through the air and trees tumbling to the ground. I think the storm was centered right above my little A-frame; there were only seconds between thunderclaps. Perhaps there was an earthquake, or can thunder be that strong? It didn’t ease up for a couple of days, at least that nice young guy came back with more water and noodles. Days bled into night, it was always dark. This was my life:
,
Unfortunately, I did not bring enough books, only two small novels. Plus half of Verne’s 20,000 Leagues… is just scientific names listing all of the plants and fishies Prof. Aronnax gets to witness on his voyage with Capt Nemo… skim/skip. So I got to voyage into the depths of my own mind and spend way too much time contemplating life, love, and the nature of my current predicament. The weather was so bad no trains or busses came through the town. Was I safe there? How long was this typhoon going to last? Who were these people who so quickly ushered me into this little cabin? Did they have an ulterior motive? How much was their kindness going to cost me?
After a few days and a few nights, the weather started to break. It still wasn’t nice but I could see some blue sky and maybe even a little sunshine. Time to flee the cage and spread my wings. I tallied up a rough estimate of how much food and bottled water I was provided with, added some for disaster accommodation, and doubled it. With the keys to the A-frame and a wad of bills I left in search of life.
I found a couple of people crawling out from under their own protective rocks, and then I noticed the nice young gentleman who had kept me alive with provisions. I handed him the key and the pile of cash. He rejected the latter. I tried to find someone who wanted to take my money for their kindness, but everyone responded “its ok.” I got a feeling like the generous people of Taiwan look after each other in times of trouble and they took pity on me. I will find a way to show my gratitude.
Typhoons are indeed a force to be reckoned with, they are unpredictable and violent. Nothing I’ve experienced on the west coast compares (another reason Vancouver Island is awesome).
A typhoon is a tropical cyclone formed by six factors:
- Warm temperature on the surface of the ocean.
- Atmospheric instability.
- High humidity in lower levels.
- The spin of the earth causes a swirl(like the flushing of a toilet), and a low-pressure centre develops.
- Pre-existing low level disturbance.
- Low vertical wind shear.
Taiwan had received the wettest typhoon on record. The storm I endured was named Typhoon Matmo, it was not bad in comparison to others but in Taiwan, it claimed one life, injured five, damaged cars and buildings, and caused tens of millions of dollars of agricultural losses. A TransAsia plane caught in the typhoon crashed and 48 out of the 58 passengers died.
A friend later told me a story of a particularly destructive typhoon. A small town in a valley was waiting out an average typhoon. It was passing by the coast and everyone believed that they would be waking up to blue skies in the morrow. Then, they heard some rocks falling down the mountain. As the typhoon was traveling down the coast, it got to the spot where the nearby river entered the ocean. Instead of passing by, the typhoon was sucked up the riverway. The intense typhoon-weather-power and heavy precipitation caused the river bed to expand so much that it burst its bank, causing water and half of the mountain to fall into the valley. Now there is a memorial to that village that once was.
I am not going to camp when typhoons are near anymore.
No cameras were allowed inside the museum, so these photos are not my own, but there were many great exhibits. I enjoyed looking at the paintings done over centuries, some of the landscapes were my favorites.
And of course, no hunk of pork would be complete without a piece of jade crafted to look like a cabbage.
I liked the technique of digging a hole in the sand to make a beach recliner. It made you sandy, and walking through the crowd was hard without tripping over people. But it was a comfortable way to rest your feet after dancing in the sun. We stayed late into the night. The show ended with some fireworks and everyone crammed onto the last train back to the city. Did I mention that it was all free?
I went back to the festival the next day, but a typhoon was passing through to the north and it was very windy and rainy, so I didn’t stick around to party in the mud. I went back to the beach after the festival was over and enjoyed swimming and sun without to much crowds.
I still had my home base in Taipei, the longest I have ever spent in a capital city. It is just so clean and full of friendly people that I couldn’t leave. It also has a very convenient public transport system, so I could do day trips all over northern Taiwan. My next stop was the 
Wander Not Lost 