Road Trip

I have been remiss in posting to the blog whilst I have Taiwaned. While the pace of life and adventure has slowed it has not stopped or dulled. I have no excuse. I have spent a lot of time stalking Facebook while listening to my wedded friends argue in their gated, five level, vaulted ceiling, $600 cnd a month condo.

On top of a lot lot of happy and dark/depressing stories I have yet to tell about Thailand and Laos, there is an incomplete story about the trip to the unpronounceable mountain park on the books.

Also, in an attempt to go bugging (looking for bugs) with a South African girl in the midget mountains near to "home", my excellent sense of navigation led to us exploring, heavily drinking, drugging and contemplating in a local abandoned amusement park, complete with a tea cup ride, carousel, giant hatched dinosaur eggs and a shady, or boards completely missing suspension bridge, all of an elevation much lower then the very stunted mountains visible from everywhere. Can not forget the peeing for distance contest (which I lost... to the girl.) It is amazing how fast nature reclaims anything abandoned and man made and that it doesn't negate the fact that I lost a peeing for distance contest to a girl even though it was a distance over pavement, down a slope, completely dependent on bladder volume type affair.

I also went indoor shrimp fishing and got Shanghaied into a Ford Focus by a Taiwanese family to another town and a private karaoke room. Subsequently, being me I rocked their worlds with the power of old country songs, left and got waved in by another group of friendly locals to an open bar. My long term, recently wedded,  newly fathered, PHD questing and suddenly/aggravatingly responsible friend somehow overcame my chorus of fag and quitter commets (apologies to my gay and hopefully understanding of my rural Alberta upbringings/I was trying to coerce a drunken friend of the same disposition to not suck.) Anyway he left me in the middle of a suburb of a major city, armed with a local vocabulary of hello, pork breakfast sandwich, thank you, and bottoms up. Friendly locals providing free booze led to my using two of those four phrases.

The first taxi was less then helpful in getting home. The police at the station didn't even know the name of the town I was trying for. Luckily the second taxi found me well to Dakeng circle which, is within walking distance from the secure community which I was frequenting.  How I got from the circle to the condo or burnt my tongue, I can not explain.

So long story only slightly summarized, I am heading out on a five to eight day, circumnavigation of Taiwan (unexpected scooter death omitted from estimated travel itinerary.) I will head south from Taichung down the center, mountainy parts of Taiwan for two nights (ok so not really a circumnavigation,) stoping to tent camp and search for bugs with my entomologist friend. Upon treating with his wife on the southernish tip of the country I will leave my friend because of his lame school, financial and family obligations. I will scooter, by my lonesome, up the unfamiliar and lesser occupied eastern coastline before trying to make it back across similar but different aforementioned central mountainy parts of the island to my friends inviting if not dysfunctional home. The Spot GPS tracker will be on, batterie and my memory of changing batterie permitted.

We leave 12:30 pm Taiwan time weather and wife being factors beyond our control. If I learn something on this trip there will be another blog or many to follow. If I don't or get caught in a rock slide or slide my scooter under oncoming traffic... only digital silence.