A full lap of Taiwan in March 2017 - Page 9

First, a breakfast update. I was very happy with non western breakfast. Tomorrow is something different again.

This is the bus stop at Pingxi, very conveniently it is right next to the trail. There is also a family mart convenience store for drinks.

I took a quick photo of the streets before setting off, knowing I would have time to explore the city when I came back down.

The very start of the trail is actually marked by a waterfall.

To get to the start of the 3 mountain trail area you walk up a very green valley, which is filled with plastic water pipes like all of Taiwan.

The valley becomes slippery moss covered steps, possibly the most dangerous part of the journey.

There are lots of mini shrines all around the place here. I could occasionally hear gongs ringing from the nearby temples, sending out the call to start burning more rubbish.

This spot signals the base area of the 3 trails, there were other people around, so if I did plummet off a cliff someone might inform the authorities.

2 of the 3 sets of rock stairs appear in this photo, now the fun begins.

Here is the third set of stairs. Now I had to choose which one first.

Is that really the way to the top? This looks a bit more dangerous than I was expecting.

I paused my ascent to zoom in and photograph the passing train.

Luckily the above photo (2 up) was not the way to the top, walking around the bottom of the rock revealed a much safer path.

The view from the top of the stairs up another of the peaks made me excited.

And there is peak number 3. So much fun to be had.

Looking back towards Pingxi, which is really just a small village. It seems to exist just for weekend tourists who want to eat a sausage on a stick.

I went back to the bottom along a different path, now it was time for the longest set of stairs, which started mossy.

From the top, I zoomed in on peak number one which I was just up. There are 2 other guys up there now.

And here is the remaining third peak. Time to head down and up again.

A good spot for one of these.

I climbed into a small grotto to show some more religious things that are all over the place here.

They even have little statues at the top, this is the top of peak 3. All peaks now conquered!

The ridge to the left was the long set of steps up peak 2, I came down that other set of steps in the side which was slightly perilous.

Lots of mountains. I wonder if you can climb them all? There is very little info on the 3 peaks park available online, just a couple of random blog posts. Maybe all of Taiwan is just ladders and steps up mountains. That would be great.

It was not very far, but it was very hard work. I was feeling sweaty. The other people were taking it really slowly, 5 steps then rest, 5 steps then rest. I never rest!
Clean shaven today, the white stuff is sunscreen running off my face. I hate sunscreen. Someone invent a once a year injection to replace sunscreen.

Now I just had to get back down. You can only do it by going down backwards. Maintain 3 points of contact at all times.

This cat followed me for quite some distance back towards the town. He lives in the temple.
A guy with a dog came in the other direction, dog and cat passed without even acknowledging each other.

Here is the historic Pingxi railway station. It looks like an ordinary station, but its historic, signs tell me so.

The main tourist activity here is lantern making. I think you stick a candle in them and they float into the sky? Then they crash into the forest and set it on fire.

Final photo, a view of the old street shopping area. Quiet on a week day, I suspect its very busy on weekends. The train line passes straight over the top, I missed the photo of the train going over because my camera memory card chose the worst possible time to advise me it was full! That never happened before.

This is the local falun gong theatre. Not a lot of customers this evening. Not even one.

Over the road from the Falun Gong protest, we have an unidentifiable protest and or charity collection going, they have selected a spot in front of a brilliant blinding light so no one can see them at all.

And then just down the road, is the Taiwanese parliament, the police are just starting to set up road blocks.
When I was last in Taiwan, the student sunflower protest movement had occupied the parliament. Really, they barricaded themselves inside the place. Eventually school holidays were over and they all left (just like the Hong Kong protests) because good grades are more important than your cause.
I kind of think the whole 'Taiwan is the first place in Asia to allow gay marriage' thing is to stop the students from trying to overthrow the government again.

This is the nearby Museum of Taiwan. I had no idea it was there. It is not the very famous palace museum, its something different entirely.

Enjoy a photo of traffic. So many buses. All running to the worlds most confusing timetables. Most city bus stops have signs telling you when the bus is coming, so at leat you can wander off and do something else for that length of time, but out in the mountains, no idea. Could be 1 minute or 3 hours.

VEGETABLES, $3.

This years hoverboard, a scooter with pedals, and no seat. The sign says - no seat, no problem. I dont see how that could work.

My shoe is too big.

Taipei has a shoe street, nothing but shoe stores. This is part of it, they close early.

A bit more Ximending corner.

A massive crowd has assembled on this corner, and many of them are holding cakes. The group at the front are posing for a photo showing off their cake. Is it national cake appreciation day?

And yes, by popular demand, here is my hotel wall, with paintings of baby leopards. They are hand painted, I can see the pencil marks under the paint.
I recently learnt Taiwan had leopards, but they are now thought to be extinct. I think I saw one on my long lonely walk in Puli.

My room is full of little paintings, all featuring the baby leopards, and sometimes baby aborigines.
Hotels like this are common in Taiwan, I recall on my last trip I stayed somewhere where every room had a different baby art theme in Taichung. The art is always cute like this, cause lets face it, its done to appeal to women not men.

Todays breakfast, quite good again, featuring turnip cake. But tomorrows Chinese option is congee, so I will be back to a hot dog and chips. I might try and sneak out to a cafe without getting ushered into the breakfast room.

Sanxia city, where the hell is my bus stop?

There is a very busy local market, but I cant find the bus stop,

Luckily I found the bus stop, and got off at the right spot. Here is the shop selling white gloves, water, boiled eggs, and little tomatoes.

Immediately, ropes, up a cliff. Excellent.

You go near vertical for a few hundred metres, thats the road below.

More good ropes.

And still more ropes. Where the rope had frayed you can see there is actually wire inside.

A bit of a view back to Sanxia, and some powerlines.

More ropes and other people. They take it very slowly and are rugged up in winter jackets. Its near 30 degrees!

This is the top of the first part of the trail, theres another way down from here, but then its only about 1/4 of the way to the top, the real fun is just beginning!

Lots more ropes and cliffs to fall off, and people I need to get past. They were all very chatty today, I think there was at least one group of people all from the same company doing a bonding day.

The view back towards Taipei.

And the polluted view up the valley, towards Taoyuan where there airport is. If I had of bought my suitcase up the mountain I could of just kept going.

The formerly dangerous ridge walk is about to start. Its not dangerous anymore because a rope has been installed the whole way. I was kind of grateful.

This goes on for hundreds of metres, it was fantastic.

Selfie number one.

A bit more rope assisted ridge walk.

As you go over each mini peak there are more ropes to climb or scramble down. I guess if you let go of the rope you would hurt yourself badly, but I decided to not do that, and therefore I dont think it was particularly dangerous.

There are a couple of more challenging cliff faces, at one of them there was a young guy with two teenage girls, and the girls were falling, and laughing about it. Eventually I helped hoist them up to the rope, then climbed past them, them pulled the rope up, then repeated that with the other one.
They giggled the whole time.

The very last bit is ladders. I dont know why, I found these to be more dangerous than the ropes. The ladders were hanging from metal stakes you might get impaled on drilled into the rocks.

The view from the top, high pollution. It is not a hike about getting to a high altitude, its a hike where you enjoy pulling yourself up and lowering yourself down, for hours.

Good enough day to warrant a second selfie. I was sweating a lot.

The summit area is nothing special, but others were holding up signs they had printed. I assume this spot is on a list of 10 places every hiker must conquer, and you wont believe what happened next!

There is a much longer way down, and its highly encouraged to go that way so you dont double back and make people wait to climb up all the ropes, so I went that way. It was a far less technical path.

These cables are to haul construction equipment up to make the bases for the big power poles. So perhaps thats how they make the temples in the mountains? The top and bottom station of the construction cable car thing looked very temporary.

Nearly back down now.

I was looking for my bus to go past. Problem is I had no idea when it might come. Still I felt the need to go as fast as I could to reduce the chance of missing a phantom bus. All to no avail.

The long walk back to Sanxia featured this guy fishing in amongst the huge factories.

Factories included Foxconn. Their offices looked very modern, I dont think anything was being manufactured here, there were no suicide nets.

Once I got back onto the subway, I realised how filthy I was, and covered in scratches. A sure sign that a great day was had.

I was so dirty that no one sat near me on the subway.

And then as I arrived back at my hotel, parade time again! It seems all the streets are blocked for competing parades, heres one with a hello kitty speaker system car blasting out the latest pop hits as grandmas beat drums and offer prayers.

There are also hundreds of these giants wandering around in the middle of the road. I have no idea why but its causing traffic chaos. At least they arent burning anything.

This is the hardware shop street. All the stores are wedged under an elevated highway. It literally goes for miles.

Heres some advertising bollards, all advertising colored pencils. I liked the colors of the colored pencils so I added a photo to my website to make it more colorful.

As I walked around this evening I started to notice giant hair dressing salons such as this one. There are lots of multi level ones similar to this. By law in Taiwan you must get your scooter and head serviced weekly.

I ate here on my first trip to Taiwan, it is called puppy risotto, now they have the actual puppy from their logo! I think the logo came first and they found a puppy to match?

About to be my soup.

My soup! I think it was the best yet. Amazing quality beef. This place also provided all the kinds of chilli, including the pickled eggplant side dish with lots of chilli. I like chilli.

Western breakfast, I will not miss you.

I did a mornings work before I left.

Then I still had time for a mass ribbon dance. I have been here on leaving day before, and I think the same old guy was giving the same kung fu class at this time 3 years ago.

A girl and her pet squirrel. These things are all over the park, they do not appear to be afraid of humans, however this human (me) is afraid of squirrels.

Final temple, in the peace park.

This is the Taiwanese parliament, the executive yuan as its called (I think). When I last visited you could not get this close to it, as I previously mentioned streets were closed for many blocks as students were living inside it refusing to let the soldiers in.

On the train now, and here comes the rain.

I had no idea these guys existed in Taiwan. They are in Korea and mainland China too.

The Taoyuan airport is huge, but too small. The check in area is completely overwhelmed. They have every single xray machine and customs desk open but there are still lines. I think there is a further expansion plan but they only just finished the last expansion.

THE FINAL BOWL OF BEEF NOODLE SOUP!

And this is where I am sitting right now, guarding the buffet in the silver kris lounge.

I couldnt resist a bit more cake and some cookies.