A Long Weekend In The mountains Part 1

I left Dakeng, mid afternoon, on a scooter accompanied by two other bikes and a small car. Our destination, an unpronounceable national park in the mountains to the east. The three hour ride almost ended five minutes in as I was waving at my friend Wes while driving 60 km\h towards the red light of a busy intersection.

Soon we were winding our way through mountains and valleys of Taiwans interior. Everything not of man is green here, unlike the dusty north roads of Laos or the flat, fugly middle parts of Thailand through which you must pass on the way to it's various paradises. Here all the little roads are paved, the cut banks reinforced and the ditches concrete to keep it all so. There are lines on the road but more importantly, people pay attention to them. They even put mirrors on the sharper corners to prevent accidents (thank you). Winding up, down and around on my little scooter I quickly knew that this was the most beautiful place I had ever been. The green is amazing but not as amazing as the the amount of different trees and plants that it represents. From palms to bambo all the way through to varieties that must be related to the poplar and then straight up evergreens. With the little drive ways, cute colourful roadside houses and valley towns it seemed to me that I must be driving through a Miyazaki animation only I didn't notice any airships or wizards.

We stopped at a betel nut stand to pick up the last of our supplies and have a beer. The owner seemed friendly enough so one of the expats in our convoy (also named Josh) offered him some Redman chew telling him it is western betel nut. We talked amongst ourselves for a moment before noticing that the betel nut guy wasn't looking so well. Josh Too had neglected to inform our new friend to spit out the juice.

Up in the park we got moved into our third floor room. Made for eight people it had two bathrooms and large raised hardwood sleeping platform set up with thin cushions, pillows and blankets. As Wes and his wife Anne did their best to organize their things tidally in corners, I was content to let my backpack puke it's all into the middle of the sleeping platform to find my camera and pipe.

After a good amount of beer we set out to look for bugs (Wes' job). The first we came upon was a beetle, Wes explained, who's defense mechanism was to mix together two reacting chemicals and eject them at a temperature around 105 C. Wes demonstrated the fascinating nature of the insect by grabbing not one but two of them and cursing a lot as he put them into a vile whilst his fingers burnt. We searched a while longer and decided that the rest of the night would be better served visiting and settled down at a rock table on the edge of the woods.