LE SHUI TRIBE, DA TONG TOWNSHIP, YILAN COUNTY, TAIWAN

2016-04-26, 14:35, JASON

BUDGET, STAY: 舅婆'S RELATIVE'S HOUSE

‍

I've been waiting a while to put this up only to really gather my thoughts on the whole trip. This was probably one of the most unique places I've ever been to, not sure if it's because it's part of my family or my roots to Taiwan, but still, I will treasure this one. As a sign of respect, certain pictures of the tribe or their animals aren't able to be posted online, so if you want to see those I'll have to share with you personally. We spent a total of two days in Yilan.

My 舅婆 is 原住民, translated to, "Original Living People." That is to say, she's aboriginal Taiwanese and her family ancestry can be traced through her tribe. I've never known her well. Met her once in Kansas City, Kansas side where most of her kids live. Another time was in Kaohsiung when I celebrated my dad's 60th birthday. And, yet another January of this year when I went back to Kaohsiung to see my family. These meetings were abrupt, sparsely spaced across 6 years, and I never really knew her. The last time in January when in Kaohsiung, she asked me if I wanted to go to her hometown, which was a passing thought. But, when my mom was here and I figure I'd extend my trip out a bit, I figured, "why not?" And, I'm glad I did.

Thorin came in on a Wednesday morning flight. The Scoot redeye. We're used to that kind of traveling. I tell him to meet me at the Taipei Main Station, which is a conglomerate of the Taipei Train Station, Taipei Metro (MTR), as well as the Taipei Bus Station. As such, it's a bit difficult to congregate and meet at one spot, but we eventually find each other. My 舅婆 (hereon: Jio Po) does not recognize me at first, but after she sees me, we go buy tickets to the nearest township in 宜蘭 (hereon: Yilan) County, which is 羅東 (hereon: Luodong). The bus ride is smooth. Through the green mountains you're able to see a more quiet side to Taiwan life. There's an amazing tunnel that lasts for 5+ minutes that shoots you through the range into Yilan county. Finally, we arrive. 

We stand there, waiting for my Jiopo's various family members to arrive to pick us up. They take about another hour, with my Jiopo just calling them periodically to yell at them. It's pretty funny, harmless, actually. They eventually pull up in a 4-wheeler and I see a few gangsta looking people in there. Guys with dyed blonde hair, playing loud music. I look and suddenly get a first impression. We get in, it's all a bit awkward. Not sure about the language barrier on Thorin or my part, but that's OK. The first few minutes actually are a bit awkward, so I just look out the window. Luodong, the township, is mostly low-rise buildings and your standard Taiwan city/suburban town. There's not much there except a lot of good street food, and a bunch of 711s. The guys ask us if we want anything to eat. We said yes. And, after they saw we could eat, that was the beginning of the end in terms of the amount of food we would eat. Our first stop was to a small stall that prepared stinky tofu (臭豆腐) and shaved ice. I thought these would be small portions since it was about 2 dollars. When we ordered the stinky tofu, we got about 6 pieces. OK. Manageable. But, when the ice came, it was like huge bowls of tiny pearl bobas, with sugar, and finely shaved ice. Seriously, you could have shared one with three people. But no, one each. That's the procedure. Later on, they ask if we want to ask condensed milk. You know our mottos: try it once. WHOO. DAIRY RUSH. 

Afterwards, they wanted to take us to Yilan Green Expo, in which there is a festival that goes on for two months, and they would rotate out different tribal exhibits throughout. It seems Taiwan is investing in some aboriginal culture (not a topic I really discussed since not sure how sensitive, but next time I'd ask). Turns out, this time it was the Atayal tribe, and my family members that were doing the presentation, so they were showing us around. When you first get in, there are some small booths with people selling stuff. One of the girls running the stall is the sister of our guides, and she's doing an exposition on rice preparation. We greet her, and then continue walking up the trail. 

As you walk along, you follow a river, with the park on your right. There are still a lot of twiggy structures and sitting areas built up, and we take a few pictures there as well. One of the guys tells me about how the river used to be open for people to swim in, but, since a couple of times the river has taken a few lives, they had to put stronger restrictions. Something about the depth of the water; the strength of the current. Anyway, from afar it looks beautiful too, I can only imagine it's nice to dip in it. Throughout this trip, we got a lot of local stories from the guys (the tour guides, but I'll just call them interchangeable family members, guys, etc.), and so I'll try to write them down here for memories' sake. The river was one of them.

So, as it goes, you cross a little bridge that has pumpkins growing on vines around it, and then you are in the other part of the park, and we continue walking. At this point, we are inching near the mountains, and we are about to get our first sight of Atayal aboriginal life. 

When we first get up to the mountain, the first thing you notice is how fresh the air is. It's a cloudy day, but everything is still so fresh. There are a few stick structures of animals (that's really belittling it, it's actually a wonderful sculpture) found in the mountain region, so we snap up some pics. We come across a small hut where a lady is barbecuing some mountain boar sausage, and they tell us they put mountain peppers into it. They ask if we want some, but being full from earlier, we politely decline. Of course, they are kind enough then to just take us into the restaurant and give us each a set meal (套餐) that includes pumpkins, rice, spiky onion (刺蔥), as well as other fresh mountain vegetables. You can just taste how fresh the food is. They also hook us up with some rice wine that they made from organic rice. After, we walk a bit around the premises and look at some of the various props they have around: mochi making 'mortar and pestle' things, various other cultural tidbits.

Moving alon the trail, we get to a reconstruction of an aboriginal house. The houses look like they'd be quite short roofed, but actually they dig a bit into the ground and it's very spacious inside. When we get in, an aboriginal guy tells us the history and use of all of the tools they use for hunting. There was a spear that belonged to his grandfather that had the hair of some people he killed out in the field. Other various things were baskets used for picking grains, various cooking tools, as well as other weapons. It was really cool because the guy in there was explaining all aspects of the house to us. My Jiopo grew up in one of these traditional houses, and she felt a certain longing for home. I didn't show any of the pictures of the inside since I'm not sure if I'm supposed to.

Keeping on, there are small cultural exhibits along the way as well as aboriginal artwork and totems scattered throughout. The scenery just gets more beautiful, being sandwiched by the green mountains and following along the river. Somewhere along the way, we see this small bicycle-powered machine with like 12 kids biking and making it move. It was hilarious. It's like one of those bike-bars where you have to pedal for it to move, while you get drunk, except this one is child labor powered. When the truck got stalled, all the kids would jump off and push it and crack up. Too cute! 

There was some small ponds and plots of field nearby so you could see some of the agricultural practice. As we passed that, one of the guys said he helped construct the next house, which was essentially a small tea house where they were brewing plum tea. There were a few aunties sat in there and telling us to go in to try some of their tea. Since they were all one tribe, the people we were there with already knew them. A lot of the trip was actually hopping from one place to another having them explain to us how they were related or how they knew each other. The ultimate family reunion experience. Everyone was so generous, nice, and welcoming to us as strangers, which made the day really enjoyable. They were open to us trying one some of their clothes and posing with some of their weapons, so they put us in some traditional outfits and told us to pose in front of the house before inviting us in. of the locals, they told us to write a few lines on these bamboo shoots (a popular building material, food source, and all around great plant) to hang up on the outside of the house. It's pretty cool when you hang them up and they clang against each other when the wind blows. 

So, overall the expo was a lot of fun. We spent a couple of hours there soaking up the culture and trying a lot of different things. It's rare that we usually get locals to show us around, so are thankful for this part of the trip, even if it is only the beginning. At the end, I sat down near the goat petting zoo area and chatted with a guy who sold goat-milk based coffee. Also a super nice guy, and down for a chat. Right across from his stall was where we started: with our tour guides' sister's stall about rice. So, we all reconvened there and then took off to the next place -- into the small street to buy some food for the night. Afterwards, they wanted to take us into the mountains, into their actual tribe area. 

The main street before heading into the mountains is like any other street. It's like one of those one-road towns, where you just drive in, pull over and stop by into a shop, and keep on driving. There are also, as it goes in Asia, many small food stands along the way. We, of course, stop by for a shop that has been selling some sorbet-ish style dessert for over 80 years. I get a peanut flavor and Thorin gets the classic Red Bean. It wasn't shaved ice style, rather, it's sorbet style ice texture with some toppings on top. By this point, we had already eaten a lot so were feeling quite full, but you know, gotta try all that food once. Plus, we were going to head into a barbecue for the night. Never a shortage of food for tribal folk. Anyway, we make our pit stops and then drive out of the town finally and head into the mountains. 

On the way up is stunning. You leave the main town and slowly climb the mountain, just admiring the dried riverbed bisecting the mountain. They drive along and follow the riverbed, winding around it a couple of times. I'm not sure if it was a riverbed or what, as it seemed mostly dry, but they said sometimes it fills up with water after typhoon season. Along the way, there is a cool suspension bridge that they want us to check out, so we drive into another one of the tribes and look at their suspension bridge that connects across the dried up riverbed. After that, they take us to a small inland lake (pond, lake?) nested in the mountains. It's actually a camping site, so it's a bit more of a recreational area, but they only brought us there to check it out briefly. Again, impressive nature. 

When we finally get into the deep mountains and to their tribe, we again are greeted by everyone. We say our hellos and introductions as everyone welcomes us. Actually, it seems like a lot of tourists pass by this tribe since they had pictures with other tourists, as well as videos on YouTube showing them dancing with the foreigners that come in, showing them their customs. So, I think the people have done well for themselves here. The people were telling us that they've seen everyone from Europeans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, etc. pass by so, despite its inaccessibility, it has seen a small amount of tourism. Still, they have preserved a strong aboriginal culture, which is great to see.

We stayed at my JioPo's aunt's house. She spoke very little and did not say much Mandarin, only their tribal language, but was nice enough to let us stay in her house. The houses now in the mountains with the tribes are modern, since it's hooked up with electricity, TV, etc. Actually, I did not take many pictures around the tribe, don't know why. Must've been too overwhelmed in the moment. The pictures we did take of the people there though capture some of the buildings.

Dinner was absolutely amazing. What started out as just about 3 or 4 plates of food turned into 10 or so by the end. One of the aunties nearby also decided to cook a few dishes to bring down to the party. There was a variety of foods: mountain boar, mountain goat, fresh picked vegetables, a great meat broth, sticky rice (that you dip in sugarcane powder), a steamed fish caught that day, bamboo shoots, all topped off with some rice wine. All throughout dinner, various people in the tribe would stopover and come say hello, introduce themselves to us, stay for a few bites to eat, and then be off again. It was hard to keep track of everyone by the end. There was such a communal sense to dinner though, and getting to taste some of that fresh food was amazing. The dishes just kept pouring out, and everyone was super merry. Probably one of the most memorable meals I have ever had the pleasure of having. Thorin would agree. 

After eating, we felt super stuffed since we piled dinner on top of all the food from the day. We also had some whisky to drink after the rice wine. Then, the guys asked us if we want to go out deeper into the mountains to go shoot some guns and try to catch some animals. Normally we're not too into playing with guns and the like, but it was once-in-a-lifetime so we agreed. We just hopped on the back of their motorcycles and went drove into the mountains.

The journey probably was half of the fun. Each of us had flashlights attached to our heads with high-range lights so that we could see in the dark, looking out for muntjacs and mountain boars. It's a bit difficult to actually catch any of the animals at night, but what happens is that their eyes reflect the light that we cast onto them from the flashlights, so you can see the occasional sparkle in the mountaintop. The terrain was a bit bumpy, with the occasional biking through a small stream or river. Every once in a while, we would dismount and just look around to see if we could spot any animals. It was, again, such a unique experience for us. We keep going for about 30 minutes until there's a dead end, then we dismount and they set up a bottle for some long-distance shooting range practice.

The aboriginal folk make their own guns (organic, like their food) and they let us use one of these guns for some target practice against enemy number one: a water bottle. What they do is load the gun with a bullet, blow the bullet down the casing of the gun, and pack it with a bit of gunpowder. There is a small laser that directs to where you are shooting, and you just pull the trigger. I have to say, it's a pretty exhilarating experience, listening to the shot of the gun echo in the mountains. Thorin knocks the bottle down on the first shot like a pro. I miss wildly of course. Unfortunately, since it was at night time with nothing but moonlight illuminating the mountains, it was difficult to take pictures, and my camera had run out of batteries by then. So, there are neither pictures nor video to document this journey, but it was again probably one of the most unique I have ever had. I think something about having a nice, full dinner, surrounded by your people and your friends, being out in the wilderness is fulfilling. I would definitely want to go back to go on an actual hunting trip with them.

That concludes the activities for day one. It felt like a super long day but well worth it. We were able to really delve into another culture, and it was such a beautiful thing. So, after the mountains, they dropped us off at our place of stay, and we knocked out. 

The next day, we rose early at 6:30 in order to go on a mini hike with my Jiopo. She said that the scenery is beautiful in the morning, and that we would be able to go down into the fields and see some of the sights there. Turns out, we were a bit late to rise given the night before, and, we didn't ever make it to the fields. What happened instead was that we walked to the edge of the tribe that was just over a cliff overlooking the fields, and we "appreciated the fields from afar." The reason for this is because although we initially had the intention to go, one of the tribe members wanted to make us some of her fried egg pancake for us to eat. So, on the way down, we popped by her house and she began cooking breakfast for us. A handy rule for traveling: if people offer you their food and their drink, you eat it, and don't turn them down. Try everything once, right? They were generous enough to offer us some of their food so we, again, chatted to the auntie, met her family and various other people that stopped by in the morning. After breakfast, we walked just down the slope to take a look at the elementary school in the area. It was a super small school, no bigger than a few classrooms. It was like going to one of those small rural village schools -- a pretty unique experience. Weirdly enough, since it's such a small community, they're pretty open about strangers walking around campus and taking a look, so that's what we did. Always good to see there's some solid education going on even in remote parts of the world. After that, we then met up with our chaperones to continue another day of sightseeing. And, if you're wondering, the egg pancake was super good, and super filling!

The second day was not as big of a day out as the first day. Most of the sightseeing we did was via a car and they took us to some various other tourist spots for the day. You could spend a whole month or two here and not see it all, since there's a lot of tiny treasures to discover.

The first thing they wanted us to go see was Taiping Mountains (太平山), which apparently is super cool to hike and walk around. On the way up, we pass by many different relics of Japanese rule and historical sculptures and machines leftover from industrial-era Datong (area in Yilan county). From what our friends told us, Datong used to be a big wood-shipping area, and so a lot of the lumber industry was based here, since they could easily harvest wood up in the mountains. As such, there are machinery remnants scattered throughout the drive up. You are able to pull over and check out and snap some pictures with them. They're super industrial and really impressive -- all imported either from Europe or built by the Japanese. There are also some coal-engine powered trains that are left up as an exhibit, brought in by the Japanese when they occupied Taiwan, in order to ship both lumber and later, passengers.

Also, driving up, our friends gave us wonderful accounts of small local tidbits of the mountains. We stopped by a tree that was really old, that they remember being very small when they were growing up. We also stopped and looked at some of the mountaintops that had received some snowfall -- apparently not an uncommon thing to see in the winter months up at this elevation. Seriously, this place is so vast you can spend so much time just hiking and discovering nature. Unfortunately, we were only able to make it up to the tourist center as some of the trails had closed off, and some people weren't feeling up for a hike, but still the journey was extremely pleasant, and looking out the window at the gorges and steep green mountains was fulfilling. You can't really describe the effect nature has, in that way. It was like :-o the whole time. 

Even on the way down, you can see the Taiping Shan visitor center and the place is so picturesque 

As we head down, the fog so quickly picks up and we're surrounded by it. But, once you get lower, it dissipates again. A very quick-changing climate around here.

Another great thing about these towns in the mountains is that there are a lot of old train stations that are no longer in use since the wood industry moved out of the area, and modern roads took over. I don't know if it's the government or what, but they have preserved them to just be vacant stations that you can take pictures in front of now, so we did some of that. Some of them are tiny museums.

What we also did was go check out my Jiopo's old work place. She was around when they were planning on building roads through the mountains, and worked for a company that helped contract work to get the job done. It was cool to see that bit of personal touch to the area since she grew up here. If anything, the fact that these folks had so many personal stories to tell to us made the experience way more enjoyable than just coming here on tourism. 

Continuing down the road, we went to Chiang Kai Shek's summer home based in the area. Apparently, it was his favorite place to stay outside of Taipei city. It overlooks these three mountains and it's scenic. Going through, they've memorialized his life and have turned it into a small museum, with a garden in front. You could walk around and hike through the back, but as we were short on time we decided to just keep on going. We took our pictures with Mr. George Washington of modern ROC and kept going. 

In another part of the mountains (seriously, at this point we had no idea where we were since they were kind enough to drive us), we went to the biggest aboriginal Taiwanese people museum in the area. Inside, they had preserved a lot of the cultural practices and traditions of tribal folk in Taiwan. This covered everything from the way they ate, where they ate, where they slept, what they hunted with, hunting methods, etc. for the past hundreds of years on the island. And, they made an effort to distinguish between all different kinds of aboriginal tribes as well as their distributions in Taiwan. There is such a rich history here that I've never learned of. Upon walking in, they dressed us up in some tribal wear and made us pose in their artificial setup of a tribal living room, and we were able to get a few pictures. 

A quick backstory. Since we got into Luodong the day before and started our tour, my Jiopo had been non-stop talking about this green onion pancake (蔥油餅) that was very good in Luodong, and that we had to try. Yesterday, we weren't able to get it because we had just eaten too much and were not nearby to get them. So, this time around, when we rolled by the city again, she kept saying that we had to stop by to get them. It was almost like this mythical food that we had to eat otherwise we would seriously miss out, so when we finally made it to the stand again, it was almost a bit of 'finding the holy grail' feeling. We get there, order a few, and try it. It's amazing. It's a bit different since they wrap the entire 蔥油餅 so it's more like a bun filled with green onion. But, it's amazingly crispy on the outside with some deep-fried dough, and a fresh inside filled with green onion. YAS. 

The reason we didn't want to eat too much was because we were going to go over to an area that you could cook your own food. But, get this, you don't just cook it picnic or barbecue style, you actually get to cook it in the thermal waters! There are a bunch of small pools of water that have boiling water in it, and what you can do is buy your own eggs, corn, and other vegetables to soak yourself. Even better, all you have to do is buy one of the small wooden baskets to do the cooking, and while you wait, you can dip your feet in the hot spring pools that are over there. It's all surreal. You're surrounded by this gorgeous scenery, hanging out with aboriginal folk, cooking food and enjoying lunch together. An old auntie from another tribe greets us, buys Thorin and me a beer, and proceeds to cheers to us nonstop for like 15 minutes (I think she was drunk, holla) saying how she's aboriginal and very proud, and how she's glad to have us there, and how people that make it up the mountain are also family. It's a communal feeling that I'll never forget. They ended up cooking eggs, yams, this wonderful chicken-based broth-in-a-bag, as well as corn for us to eat. Overall, such good food. Fresh as usual, like most things in the mountains. 

Not only is this area known for the naturally occurring hot springs, but it is also known for some naturally occurring cold springs. Kind of a weird concept at first, because surely every pool becomes a cold spring, but this one had sulfur boiling out of it still, except that it was naturally a cool pool of self-sustaining water. These are a bit off the beaten path, so our friends showed us to two tiny ones just nearby. In the summer when Taiwan gets hotter all around, and humid, many people gather around these pools to just soak their feet and chat. They're rather inconspicuous: you wouldn't notice that you were nearby one unless you really went around to look, and, even if you did, you would never think to go into them since it almost just looks like a random pool of water someone put there. But, surely enough, there were some people dipping their feet and trying it out. 

By this point, we were headed towards Luodong and wanting to check out the fish market along the docks. The plan was to go there prior to sundown, check out the market, maybe buy some sashimi to snack on, and then go to Luodong night market to get some food. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the fish market, most of it had closed already, so we really only walked through a bunch of fishy water, with the occasional seller touting off the last of his stock. Apparently, some of the rarer fish in the area can go for up to hundreds of dollars, but we didn't get to see any of those. Then, after that, as it was getting dark, we decided to go check out another suspension bridge -- this time more modern -- that offered some great views. I'm not sure exactly what bridge it was or where it led to, but you were able to see out into the harbor and check out Luodong at night. The bridge itself wasn't too crowded at all, as Luodong is more of a sleepy city. So, we naturally got out and took some romantic Jack-and-Kate style pictures. 

The night market was great. Actually, I find most night markets in Taiwan to be pretty consistent across the board, with the bigger ones like Shilin harder to manage since there's just so much to see. But, we ate all of the good, local stuff. Thorin was harpin' on about how much he loved pumpkins the whole trip -- a famous food here in the area, as it grows nicely in the mountains. But, in fact, the only reason he was was because he knew how to say pumpkin in Chinese and he was just carrying on the joke throughout the weekend. I'm not sure if our friends understood that, so when we were walking and they came across pumpkin milk selling for about 1.5 USD (50 NTD, 2 SGD), they were like, "DUDE! PUMPKIN MILK! YOU HAVE TO TRY IT!" To which the joke became overkill. So, Thorin sucked it up, bought the pumpkin milkshake thingy, and had it. Actually though, real talk ,it was some of the best pumpkin milk I've ever had. Not that I've had pumpkin milk ever, what I mean to say is that it's not as weird as it sounds. It tasted like a thick soymilk. No pictures of it, unfortunately, but at least Thorin finally got his share of pumpkin. Anyway, the market was good, as we all had a bunch of (more) food as well as some local specialties. Overall, enjoyable.

Going back, we stopped by another abandoned train station and took some pictures at night. Actually, they get quite eerie at night since it embodies that whole 'abandoned train station' environment, but it was cool to see these historical relics. 

Heading back to the tribe from Luodong, the drive took about 40 or so minutes. We picked up again some rice wine from their sister (who made it organically) and went back to the bottle for the night! Their mom graciously began cooking us *more* food and so we had another drinking night alongside dinner after going to the night market. Probably never would have drunk or eaten so much in my life. Going from Singapore with smaller portions to the mountains where they eat hefty portions was a bit difficult at first to adjust, but I think by the second day we were getting good at it. We just drank, chatted, and did some yoga with my Jiopo while the night passed by. After getting to know them a bit more throughout the past two days, everyone was a lot more open and joking, and by the end we were all really good friends. It was a bit of a shame that we only stayed for two days, and that we had to go early the next day, but I am so incredibly happy that we had this experience. If you thought that Han Taiwanese folk were nice, the aboriginals take it that next step further, and really make you feel at home and one of the group. It's been one of the most special experiences in our lives, that's for sure. A big shoutout to everyone that made the trip possible. Yalong, Xiaoci, Xiaowei, Alen, Jiopo, and everyone else that made the experience wonderful. 

‍