Mad Dogs and Englishmen

OK so I'm back on line, thanks to the Kaohsiung Hotel Garden City. OK firstloy apologies for the spelling, I am typing on a Chinese keyboard. What's been happening so far then. I'll take it thing by thing I reckon as I've been all over the place.

Taipei:

One of the major sites in Taiwan is the National Palace Museum, and it's huge. it's where all the best bits from the emporer's collection ended up when the Nationalists fled the mainland in 1949. Actually it's a bit more complicated than that as the whole collection has been moved round China and Taiwan to save it from the Japanese and then save it from the Communists. It's didn't get this permanent home until the 80's (which makes sense when you think that CKS and all thought Taiwan was just a temporary stop on the way back to power).

It's a massive collection, full of Ming and Tang porcelain, bronze age bronzes, neolithic tools (which I have to note are much more advanced than European ones of the same antiquity) paintings, illuminated manuscripts and a surprizing amount of precious stones carved into the shape of vegetables. Chinese cabbage from jade being one of the places most famous and valuable pieces. Why the chinese emporers were so obsessed with food is beyond me but the carvings are spectacularly realistic. To be honest unless you love porcelain and chinese art it's a bit dull, but impressive all the same, and apparently really pisses off the goverment in Beijing as they got lesft with all the crappy stuff for their museum, and then managed to destroy quite a bit of it during the cultural revolution. I did come to a couple of revelations while I was there though. firstly it seems that religion has at least one use and that is providing the incentive to create beautiful art and literature. The other is that all this porcelain is in a way responsible for the rise of European Empires, as all the Dutch and English really wanted a nice teapot and it was easier to come here an nick a bit of the country to make them than work out how to do it at home.

The Museum was also full of huge tour groups from Japan and the PRC which was a bit of a nightmare, even though the museum guards had little signs to hold up saying "Silence" and "No
Photo" they were fighting a loosing battle. I eventually retired to the tea house and had a pot of oolong tea in the tiniest cup I've ever seen, I thought it was the place to put the tea leave till I saw the bloke next to me drinking out of it.

One last thing I learned ad that is the colour of the original Ming dynasty porcelain is EXACTLY the same shade of green as government issue tea cups in the UK.

The Tour:

On Friday I started my tour from Taiwan to the South. It all started well with me and a couple from New Zealand (which is required by international law) and a girl from India all on the minibus. I tehn discovered that it was just me doing 4 days and the rest only 2, I'd be sent on ahead by train, more of which later.

Tours and tourism here are obviously still in thier infancy and they try to cram in so much in a short space of time. For example our first stop was Sun Moon Lake, which is a short 3 hour drive from Taipei. That was sarcasm as it took ages because of the traffic. Driving here is a complete nightmare. If I may expound one more sterotype: there are 15 million drivers here and they are all asian. However no matter how many scooters seem to speed in front of you I've yet to see an accident. I think everyone is driving too slow to collide.

The drive was interesting though I couldn't work out why there were so many power stations. It took me about an hour to realise they are all factories! I dont think I've ever seen one before. Or at least not since the eighties. Weird that they still make stuff here. There are also loads of elevated freeways, roads, rail lines and lots of tunnels. Which I would have thought was not ideal in a place famous for it's typhoons and earthquakes. It does make it look a bit Logan's Run though which is pretty cool.

We finally got to the lake and it was buzzing with people. Apparently it's a must see on the tourist trail here. To be honest it's quite pretty but nothing to worry Switzerland or Norway. There were also loads of people because it was the Full Moon Festival and they were setting up a music stage witrh the biggest speakers I've ever seen. Hear it on the moon I would imagine. Everyone eats moon cakes too which i can reprt are like giang fig biscuits.

There are loads of temples to look at around the lake and by the end of the day my fellow travellers and I were suffering a bit of Temple fatigue. Ther was an interesting Pagoda built here though by Mr Chiang Kai Shek himself in memory of his mother. Well actually he built it with tax payers money and they weren't allowed to come here as it was a closed compound for him and his fellowe politicians but you get the idea. Now it's a democracy so that's ok. There are also loads of indeginous Taiwanese here, and they were singing and dancing down by the lake. It never ceases to amaze me that the Maori, Native Americans and noe Native Taiwanes all have the same sort of dances, similar traditional music and these guys even had moko on thier faces. All I can say is it's a bloody long way from Taiwan to NZ in a canoe so they must have been amazingly good sailors. I'm not making that up by the way, they really do have common ancestery with the Pacific peoples.

So eventually i get pu on the train and it's a bit of a nightmare, 4 hours and no leg room and I think I could have walked faster. Also the air con was busted. If you ever come to Taiwan, which you should, pay more and catch the high spped train, which I what I intend to do to get back from Kaohsiung. It takes 90 minutes instead of 5 hours! I am still in Kaohsiung in the south and it's verry interesing. But my god it's hot and humid. About 99% at the moment and 33 degrees C. This part of the trip has been slightly influenced by the fact that is not one, but two typhoons off the coast at the moment and today you could tell as it piddled down the entire day. So much so that most of my sight seeing was done from the back seat of the car. There is a significant chace I'll get stuck here for a day or two, and the locals are noticabley on edge as it's only 6 weeks a go that the last cyclone washed havf the county away. In fact you could see th damage today with huge sections of the freeway washed away on the way back to town and sand bags still in place. Obviously the government is taking no chances this time with police and army units everywhere.

I've made this post sound like a bit of a whinge but I'm really enjoying it here, the people are lovely (and in the south noticable more gorgeous looking than in Taipei for some reason) the food is good and cheap the cities are interesting and it's quite nice to be somewhere where you are still welcomed as a visitor instead of seen as a quick buck.

OK i need to go as there is a queue for this computer. I'll update when I get back to Taipei or look out for me on the weather channel.