Seven and a half years ago, almost to the day, I arrived in Taiwan with a rucksack, a pack of CDs, a job with a little-known computer company and not a clue about what the future might hold.
I came for a year of experience in Asia, to see if I could cut it as a proper designer, and with a vague notion of getting paid for an extended period of backpacking.
I could not have predicted the depth and breadth of the experience, the amount I learnt about both the world and myself, the formation of such lasting, granite-strong friendships, and that I would form such a strong bond with this little island in the Pacific Ocean.
It is all of this and more that has given me the opportunity to be where I am right now; somewhere above Okinawa, a beautiful girl by my side, a job offer from one of the most exciting organisations in the world, and the goal to make a new home in a place that I thought only existed in the movies. Every time I think about all of this, I shake my head in disbelief and let out a little English-sounding murmur. Beautiful madness.
I’ll miss you, Taiwan. The worn-in familiarity of an old pair of jeans, the warmth and openness of the people, the love for food that is woven into the culture, scenery to make you weep, and enough crazy little details to make me laugh every single day. My secret little gem; a speck in the Pacific Ocean I came to call ‘home’.
How to pack your life into boxes, in 12 easy steps:
1. Identify the most important things in your life and loosely throw them into the living room2. Invite a team of highly-trained strangers into your life, with inappropriately large amounts of packing material.3. Stand there helpless as they start work. Nod and say yes to whatever questions they pose to you.4. Marvel at the amazing lengths they go to, to pack every single thing you own (since you have a huge 20ft container it doesn't what you take anyway)5. Go outside to get away from the insanity. Consider taking up smoking.6. Stare lovingly at your prized possessions, before the inevitable happens.7. Marvel (and shake your head repeatedly) at the volume of stuff you seem to have accumulated.8. Wander around as you pathetically fail help them do their job.9. Choose around now in the process to look for very important visa documentation, that has accidentally packed away.10. Stand outside looking at the truck, as would a small child watching a construction site.NOTE: The final things that should be packed, and the first to be shipped, should be your computing equipment. Stop your iTunes sync halfway through completion to make sure you have no complete albums for the trip ahead.11. Wave goodbye to your stuff, as it might be the last time you see it.12. Inform your friends it is now too late to return borrowed items.
I have had some of the best days of my 20s up in the hills around Taipei – the days spent up there rooted in my memory. That’s why I was so delighted that, after six years of pestering, Ken finally decided to come up to Taipei for a round of mountain biking. Sadly, I managed to miss my alarm call leaving the rest of the guys stranded at Starbucks without us, but Ken and I managed none-the-less to string together a great day of riding and catching up before my departure.
Looking out from Starbucks at the rainMaking some adjustments to the Heckler brakesA new office chair post will probably change the riding dynamic; ie: less chatting!Need to do more of this in future.The rock drop section is never a cake-walk, but heading into this cameras blazing, knowing it was going to be my last attempt in a long time, combined with fuzzy status of medical insurance, definitely sapped my fluidity.The addition of steps on the intermediate section is not my favourite modification to the trail'Honestly, this is the way!'
I am itching to see what the trails are going to be like in San Francisco, and beyond …
This is the big one: 248km, 5,072m of climbing, peaking at a mighty 3275m. Taichung to Hualien by bike, with my friend and colleague Tony.
Bisecting the ridge of mountains that run down the centre of the island, the most direct route leaves Taichung and follows Route 14 up to Puli, through Renai, and switches onto the old Route 8 before reaching the peak and dropping down into Toroko on the way to the coast.
Step one was therefore to get the bikes down to Taichung on the HSR. There is an good guide to travelling with bikes on the train network here at Taiwan in Cycles. I have travelled with both road and mountain bikes on the HSR, but only in a large, padded bag. This time, we had heavy-weight rubbish bags supplied by Alljack Models. We planned on recycling them, carrying them with us to use on the return trip (more on that later).
Tony at the HSR station
Spicy, greasy food and one too many beers was not the finest foundation to getting a good night of sleep, so I awoke the next day feeling pretty depleted when we met Joel and Diego. They offered to show us some more interesting back roads out of the back of Taichung, avoiding the overcrowded route 14 up to Puli; screw the most direct route.
Day 1 – Taichung to Lushan, via Guosing
The morning light pouring through the trees and the beautiful scenery was an effective pain-killer substitute. Tony and I were treated to some strenuous climbing and sinuous descending before the guys peeled off back for base. Therefore, by the time we got to the lunch stop at the beginning of the climb up to Renai, we had already done a serious 75km ride, and still had 40km of climbing to our accommodation in Lushan.
With my Garmin GPS merrily chirping each time we passed a km marker, and with an eye on the altitude, we slowly winched ourselves up the hill to Renai. It is pretty well graded, and we were lucky with a pleasant temperature and mild tail wind, but still, crawling up through the 1000m altitude barrier seemed to take an age. A stop at a kindly fruit seller was sorely needed to recharge our batteries and push trough the final 12 km.
Call it lack of research or planning, but I had accommodation booked in Lushan that was about 150m further down the valley. I had to tolerate the harassed stare of Tony, as I cheerfully pointed out where we were staying: it meant a steep descent that we knew we had to climb again the following morning.
A relaxed evening of eating dinner (twice), and hot springs, meant I slept much better, and was in much better shape the next morning (be aware that the Family Mart is not 24hr, so buy breakfast the night before). For reference, we stayed at the Minglu Hotel, and they were fine with us having bikes in the room.
Tony on the road out of Taichung, the sun rising in front of us.Joel, Diego and Tony point the way up through the first of the day's climbingStopping to admire the local graphics designTake a look in the mirrorMy pack list included flip flops and trash bags. Tony's included an entire Apple store.Alternative modes of transportTeam photo – thanks to Diego and Joel – awesome riding chaps!Wide-screen ridingTony makes a new friendYummy pears!
Day 2 – Lushan to Xincheng
The opening climb dispatched (and insults swatted away), we again reached Renai and the start of the climb proper. Keeping a decent cadence, we passed increasingly unlikely hotels and resorts, themed to resemble Swiss chalets, German villages, and imagined English mountain-top castles. The GPS chirping less frequently than I would have liked, we slowly winched our way up the hill, stopping at the 7-11s that we passed to keep the fluids topped up and energy maintained. There were plenty of other cyclists on the road – many that we bumped into multiple times on the climb – but we were humbled when we chatted to two guys on folding bikes (sporting speakers and huge luggage panniers) that said they woke at 2am to ride up from Taichung to the peak in one day. Respect.
Altitude definitely begins to become a factor when you hit 1500-2000m, and it became increasingly difficult to keep the momentum up steep sections and keep from hyperventilating. But still the kilometres passed by (bleep!), and the good weather and increasingly beautiful views kept the motivation boiling. But things were beginning to get difficult, and it was clear we were beginning to dig deeper and deeper to keep the cranks turning; I lost count of the number of times I looked down to check I really was in my lowest gear.
Leaving behind the last of the tourist honey pots, the tree cover receded, the road narrowed and the conversation dropped. We had reached cycling purgatory, and the last minutes of climbing were among the hardest physical ordeals I have ever been through. Cadence had dropped to a level where it was a challenge to even stay upright. Finally, we broke through the throng of cars and people, less than gracefully dismounted, and climbed the steps up to the 3275m sign; we had done it. Chirp indeed!
One Tony’s riding buddies in Austin is in charge of a battalion of army attack helicopters. His reaction to our climb was as follows:
You likely experienced hypemic hypoxia above 10K’ as do pilots. The lack of partial pressure of O2 degrades your motor skills and vision. We’re only aloud to fly above 10K’ for 30 minutes, then back below. Stay safe.
Stopping for some quick snaps on the bridge out of LushanUp in the cloudsTony smiling, though not sure why, as he was complaining like a big baby for most of the opening km 🙂The morning sunlight was lovely – starting at 6:30am or soThe Old England Hotel in RenaiDay 2 climbing classed as 'adequate'Passing through the tree line, and the road narrowsThe soul-destroying final kilometres up to the summit … that line carved in the side of the mountain was to be our prison on wheels3118m … no wait shouldn't that be 3275m?Ever more people joined our victory photo, until we ended up with about 20 people in the photo; some of which I am not even sure cycled upView from the other side, looking over to the restaurant on the right
And so onto the descent – how does 100km sound, through some of the most stunning scenery in Asia?
Suitably fuelled with hot food and tea at the mountain-top restaurant, we pointed our bikes downwards. The euphoric high of reaching the top probably meant I lacked some self control, and I had to remind myself to slow down to avoid disappearing over a cliff edge into oblivion. With the GPS merrily chirping away, we descended back through the tree line, the train station a solid 100km away. The descent is actually less steep than the climb, and for that reason it seemed to take an age to drop back down through each successive 100m attitude mark.
Stopping occasionally to allow my hands to unfold (my ring fingers welded themselves shut), and recompose ourselves, we hugged cliffs, shot over bridges, squirted our through endless switchbacks, cyclo-crossed our way over landslides, and bounced over pot holes caused by rocks smashing into the road. Seasons shifted and temperatures dropped as we dropped through misty clouds, and we had to hold on for grim life as we went through blind, completely unlit tunnels, with the only light bouncing off the reflectors on the walls to show the way. Hint: whatever you do, bring lights.
We passed over original Eiffel bridges, imported from Vietnam after the communists took power, circled past thousand year trees and slowly the km markers began to show we were coming within shooting distance of Tianxiang – the town at the mouth of Toroko Gorge. I had tickets booked on the 17:30 train (I thought this would be generous), but with light just beginning to fade it was clear time was limited; we were to be descending for a full four and half hours.
I was positive that Tianxiang was a town at some altitude, but it turns out it is at a lowly 600m, a mere 30km from the mouth of the river feeding into the Pacific Ocean. Tony and I upped the pace, surging through the marble rock formations and past the throngs of day-trippers staring up the vertical canyon walls. I had actually imagined that we would stop to take it all in, but like horses running quicker as they approach the stables, we found the energy reserves to steam through it with nary a backwards glance. Streamlining buses, we shot through the last of the tunnels and emerged onto the flood plain and rolled into Xincheng train station: we had done it.
Stopping to move food from my bag to my pockets (Clif Shot Blocks are perfect, by the way)Crossing a real Eiffel bridge on the descentYep – meant for Vietnam, apparentlyEndless switchback heaven. Make sure to employ the mirrors on the turns though – some traffic always seemed to come the other way at the least opportune momentBridge crossingThe weather shifted quickly on the way down – much like our Nenggao mission we had a downpour mid-afternoon. Be prepared.
We had soundly missed our original train at 17:30, so I went to buy tickets for the 18:00 train (luckily they still had seats). We went to buy some beer and nosh, and then walked up to the gate with out tickets … our bikes were not allowed on! Arguing didn’t help, so we went to talk to the ticket seller; he suggested we take the ‘bike train’ (didn’t he see my bike helmet earlier?). We were delighted to see that they had actually laid on dedicated carriages for bicycles, with their own seating. Never has an Asahi tasted so good.
Carriage detailsHow insanely great is this?!All's well that ends well
Cloudgate (雲門舞集) are an institution in Taiwan; and one of its most treasured cultural exports. Combining traditional Asian and Chinese motifs, they combine them in extraordinary ways, mixing digital media, human-scale calligraphy, old folk tales and contemporary dance. It’s always a challenge to get seats for their performances in Taiwan, since they are so often on the road abroad, but they have an annual open-air performance; this year at least in the grounds of Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, and in the shadow of the National Theatre.
Seats were first-come-first-serve, so Yuyin and I wandered over a couple of hours early, camping mat in hand and laid out a pretty good plot for our friends that were planning on joining later. Taipei for once served up a rather splendid sunset, and we enjoyed hanging out in an unusual environment with kids running around and old people bisecting the audience loaded with shopping bags on their way home – hilarious.
With the clock counting down, Abe, Lin and Steve arrived packing fizzy wines, cheeses, hams and a plethora of treats; if we were going to do this, we were going to do this in style! We were certainly the only ones I saw drinking out of about 10,000 people, quaffing out of champagne glasses and getting increasingly giddy as the evening progressed.
The dance? I give the troupe full respect for not holding back, and not pandering to the lowest common denominator; the accompanying audio and performance were challenging, and at moments poignant and beautiful. The strength, stamina and control on display were extraordinary – and that for us just sitting still on a camping mat for two hours.
Sitting in the shadow of Chiang Kai Shek Memorial HallYuyin at work!The girl with the sun in her hairSugar wouldn't melt in her mouthEnjoying an afternoon in the sun
Abe arrives with a basket of styleTeam CULTURE!The warmup was hilarious – 10,000 people doing stretches; try this in the UK and you would get beer cans full of piss thrown at the stage – only half joking.CaptivatedLooking down at the amphitheatre down belowSteve inspects the door … need one of these in my next place
Video
Check out this video here which introduces the performance we saw:
Nenggao has been the ‘nemesis’ ride for the group for the last two years, attempts thwarted by typhoons and bad weather on two attempts: last year we even made it about a third of the way in before we had to turn around and high-tail it.
One of the highest trails in Taiwan, it climbs from about 1900m to 2950m, into the clouds. The trail itself, while well maintained for Taiwan, is beset by landslides. The bits that are not about to fall into oblivion, however, are very nicely graded, which is nice when you are climbing at high altitude and your lungs are trying to escape via your mouth.
Anxious e-mails were traded in the week leading up to the ride. Heavy rains were hitting Taipei in the afternoons, and we were not comfortable with the idea of being caught-out on the hill. Mark, Martin, Peter and I decided to go for it, planning to wake up at 5am and get to the top before the clouds were set to come in. Waking up at 5am, we were greeted with clear skies and cool air; it was now or never!
Reaching the police station at about 6:00am, we discovered they were not yet open for business, displaying only a sign that mountain permits were not being issued, and that vehicles and bicycles were not allowed to enter the trail. Ignoring the warnings, we ascended up to the trail head (a challenge by itself in a 2WD bus), prepped the bikes, loaded packs with food and water and began the long drag up, Martin clearly smoking EPO cigarettes and showing us a clean pair of heels.
The climb is about three and a half hours, broken with some scary sections of major landslide and rockfall. Legs were not quite calibrated with lungs and heart; they were able to put in far higher effort than the cardiovascular system, which would conk out unless you kept the effort at a moderate level. The cool air, clear skies and occasional views across the mountains kept the motivation up, though.
Reaching the top at about 10:30, we high-fived and whooped when we saw an almost flawless vista down to the smaller hills above Hualien down below. Clouds were forming quickly, however, so we ate lunch, and were engulfed in cloud within half an hour. Perfect timing. Negotiating the slipperiest segments of landslide in the dry, we were treated to 13km of sublime single-track descending; fast, slippery and technical. Minutes went by in a trance of speed and kicked-up mud. This is why we are mountain bikers.
5:20am, and clear skies!The sign says "all is really safe and you have nothing to worry about AT ALL – go and enjoy yourselves!" cough coughRiding one of the suspension bridgesMajor landslide, which stopped us in our tracks last time (that and the fact that we arrived about 6 hours earlier than last year)Kickin' itThis was to be our descent …Second of the major rockfalls. The junior workmen told us it would be fine to ride on; the site foreman told us to turn back. We smiled and carried on, but we knew we had to be back before it started to rain.One bridge out, and one bridge half-finished, slippery and dangerous.… but the skies were still holding for us!Double triple waterfall, and we are at the hut; a further 20 minutes of riding until we got to the saddle overlooking the Hualien plain, and lunch / brunch.We did it!Celebratory photographsOur timing was bang-on perfect; clouds engulfed us for the return through the landslide area.… no more photos on the descent as we were having far too much fun, and wanted to get off the hill in the dry. My filthy bike is testament to the quality of the ride.Austin Powers parking. Mark accompanies us as we ride down the hill back to the village to get washed-up."Can we borrow your hosepipe?" … 20 minutes later, mud covering the street and bags of used food packaging handed over, I think we were stretching our welcome!
Practicalities
We were all reasonably fit and riding bikes that were pretty well suited to hours of climbing in the saddle. I would not really recommend taking anything heavier than an ‘all mountain’ rig, since you will need to be happy carrying it in some sketchy situations. We were lucky and had no mechanicals or injuries, but had packed a spare tyre and multiple tubes and other spares. I almost had my rear dérailleur ripped off by a piece of bamboo and had a spare drop-out packed; we left the spare dérailleur in the van since someone turning around and heading back to the van would be able to coast with few problems.
Pack a range of clothes, nutrition, sun tan lotion (we are at almost 3000m remember) and whatever spares you are happy to carry. Start early, and enjoy!
I have been pretty quiet on here recently, but I have some good excuses; a new road bike, an iPad 2 and a PS3 has meant virtually no time writing or sorting photos. Hopefully, things will return to some semblance of balance (though probably not).
First and foremost, is a heart-breakingly beautiful new road bike that is so far beyond my abilities to exploit it is silly. It’s a Cervélo Soloist carbon frame finished in a custom Cantabrian hue, littered with filthy bits of SRAM Red and Zipp wheels so gloriously spendy I feel guilty just thinking about them. It neatly eliminates both performance excuses and likely upgrade paths for the coming years, and I absolutely love it.
A carbon virgin, I was expecting an unforgiving, jarring ride, but instead it provides a pleasantly beech cricket bat snap and crack, and while not exactly sofa-like in ride cosseting waftiness, I do not come back from rides pummelled and abused. I am, though, still getting used to the strange plasticky sounds that emanate when you miss a gear or hit something in the road: imagine watching a toddler abuse some cheap electronic product and you get the picture; you know it isn’t going to break but you can’t help but grimace.
What it does do, however, is bloody shift. I ride a pretty swift fixed-gear bike here in Taipei, and riding the same roads at full tilt on this is like night and day; rise up out of the saddle and you demolish traffic light count-downs with a satisfying ‘whooosh!’ as the air molecules try their best to react to a set of Zipps on spin cycle. The higher gearing than a mountain bike leaves you fewer places to retreat to when you are sweating and puffing on a climb, but the stiffness and Fedex efficiency when you start dancing in the saddle is extremely entertaining.
Plans are afoot for several summer trips, but for now, let me show you some photos of the wee beastie, and some Garmin data from a couple of our rides; my next toy for sure.
First ride out to the fruit stand on route 106 (photo taken with my iPhone and filtered to death in Instagram)Pausing for a rest and grabbing some vitamins.I notice I am hardly taking any photos on these rides; trying my best to keep up, combined with few opportunities for rest stops.At the top of the Pinglin climb and looking a little harassed! The bike is pretty though, eh!DomestiqueTony, in one of his regular attempts to violate me. I guess it is the lycra.A bromance flourishes! Abe and I made it out to Shihding today, but will leave the climb for next time!
Cycling computer has come on a long way in the last ten years. Garmin is leading the charge to map, geo-tag and socialise riding, and their services look like just the ticket to explore some of the more obscure routes around Taipei. The first one is the ride up to the Pinglin budda (where I look like I am going to fall over above). The second one is our ride to the coast – before lunch!
Our friend Dave, who is an engineer at Microsoft in Seattle, paid us a visit last week. Reports had been circulating that he had assembled his own Sous Vide; a device that enables highly-accurate temperature control for cooking, in the manner of Heston Blumenthal.
By first vacuuming the food into sealed bags, then immersing it a water bath, it is possible to cook meats and other food stuffs in a way that prevents over-cooking, and because you can cook over more sustained periods of time, it can extract better results from cheaper cuts of meat.
Buying ready-made, commercial Sous-Vides is still very expensive, so Dave lead the way in bringing a temperature controller and the major components over from the USA. All that was left was to fashion an enclosure, and assemble it all together. After heading to the tool district, we found a cornucopia of electronics component shops, and had immense fun selecting the most clicky, over-the-top switches and widgets for the control box.
Results? Melt-in-mouth good, but without disintegrating. I wonder, in fact, if some of the more famous steak houses cook their steaks in this way; we had a relatively good value cut, but it would be interesting to see the results with even better meat.
Next project are eggs; apparently it’s possible to cook poached eggs in the shell that, once opened, are more like custard.
The control box.Bringing the water up to temperature.Dropping the vacuum-packed meat into the water.Bubbling away …PlonkCutting open the packs of meat, and suddenly filling the kitchen with rather a nice smell!You still need to finish it off in a pan to attain the colour, and to add a touch of caramelised burnt flavour to the meat. The Lodge cast-iron pan that I idiotically hand-carried back from the USA (6kg!) does the job perfectly; better than non-stick.Served with pureed cauliflower and jus of bell pepper. Yum!
I had deep reservations with the Taipei Flora Expo, even before getting the tickets.
China gets the Olympics; Taiwan gets the Deaflympics and World Games. Shanghai gets the World Expo; Taipei makes a ‘Flora Expo’ for itself. I don’t see anything more than a cynical distraction from real issues, and a vote-grabbing exercise; ‘lipstick on a pig’. Rather than actually fixing the environmental, architectural and pollution problems of Taipei, just put on a 400 million US$ flower show. And then tell the people in Taiwan it’s an ‘international’ event.
Despite the claims of corruption and environmental destruction, vast queues have regularly formed both inside and outside the event for the last few months. So, instead of just sitting in my apartment all cynical, I popped along with Yuyin to check it out.
Welcome, one and all!
The exterior of the Future Pavilion
… the outside, formed from recycled plastics, is likely to stick around after the event.
Yuyin, and the best colour of leather ever.
The Taiwan Pavilion (joking, joking!) … although wouldn’t it be cool if it was; I think the government takes itself too seriously for that to ever happen.
Roof detail of the Taiwan pavilion. Made from basket-like materials, for some reason.
Some level of coherence in the public building structures …
… reflected in the details of the drainage. Rather nice, I thought.
Different varieties of plants on display.
I think I actually want to make a clock, after seeing these fake clocks made from security mirrors
I think it’s great that Taiwan is making an effort to become progressive, innovative and ‘green’, but I think there are more authentic, effective ways than this. Let’s hope there is at least some legacy.
