A mid-week trip (Chinese New Year holiday is just revving up....one week down, four to go) to Taipei County got a little turned on its head for us this time around. Originally we intended to stay in RuiFang, catch an early train to Pingxi and go hiking for the day among the spires and ropes in the forest. However, after leaving home around 6pm and arriving in Ruifang around 9pm we were greeted at the only hotel in town with a "sorry...no...". They were closed for the holiday and we were immediately homeless.
We cranked out as many ideas as we could muster - Ruifang is not exactly a bustling place, nor is it really near any other bustling places - that would give us a place to sleep and allow us to get into the mountains the next morning. Dry on all accounts, except for the last: Keelung to the north.
Another train, more waiting and then .... Keelung! Hotels! People! Alive!
Full. Full. Full.
One last try, one last place....and they had rooms. But we were far enough away from where we intended to go that we decided to opt out of hiking and visit the Gold Ecological Park. A memoire of Taiwans gold mining past, it was supposedly a nice place to visit. It was raining, it was cold....we checked out the brochures.....not happening. On a nice day, with bird opportunities and perhaps butterfly observation possible, ok. But not on a day like this.
Back on the train....back to Ruifang....into the mountians....
We ended up where we intended to go, it just took us a little longer to get there.
Pingxi is well known by hikers as a haven of spires to climb with formidable stairs and vertigo inducing views and climbs, but also as a mecca for lantern releases. The simplified version of this is - you buy a lantern (they are HUGE) write a wish, light it, watch it fly off up to heaven where your wishes and prayers will be answered. Obviously that doesnt happen, for no best wishes can possibly counteract the physics of reality. Namely gravity.
All within the forest surrounding Pingxi are countless....we literally lost count....piles of aged, burnt, ugly wishes and prayers of yesterday. It is abysmally depressing to see the air filled (seriously filled) with lanterns and families joyously lighting them and watching them fly away....and countering that with the wretched garbage dump that has become of the forest around Pingxi. Beautiful place to hike, nagging reminder that superstitions and faiths not only ruin minds, but pollute forests..and rivers. Pingxi is proof. Ongoing proof....
