Toilet story

WARNING! GROSS CONTENT! DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH OR ARE CURRENTLY EATING LUNCH!

I just had to share this toilet story. But before I do, I just want it to be known that I am no priss when it comes to public toilets. Since my first post wondering what those strange hoses were beside the Malaysian toilets, I have come a long way and I like to think that I can squat with the best of them. Over the last six months I have made use of many wild and wonderful public loos. In Cambodia I went to one out the back of a makeshift restaurant in front of a temple where I had to chase three monkeys out before I could go. In Taiwan I went to one in the bush somewhere where there was a stray dog in the stall eating the used toilet paper. I've laughed at English tourists who've taken one look at a squat loo in a 7/11 in Thailand and scarpered saying they "didn't know how to use it" (come on, it even had toilet paper!). I've been to loos that you flush with a bucket, loos you flush by turning a handle, and loos that don't flush at all. I've been to loos where the stench was so wretched that you could smell them out from 100 metres away. I've even been to loos where the stalls have no doors. All the time, my motto has been "It's better than nothing!" (it's my worst fear to be caught busting without a public loo in sight).

It happened like this. We were at the train station (why do these stories always have something to do with the train) waiting for our train (due to our extreme stinginess it didn't take long until we were back on a standing hard seat ticket despite our hideous first experience). I thought I should probably go to the loo before getting on the train because I probably wouldn't be able to budge once we got on.

I went around the corner to the public loo in the train station. There were heaps of women in there lining up for the loo. It was really dark in there and the stench was terrible. Still, when you've gotta go....

I could see that some of the stall doors were open. "Why isn't anyone using those loos?" I wondered. I looked closer. Then I realised that there were people using them, they just weren't bothering to shut the doors! They didn't seem to mind that the 6 deep crowd outside could see them doing their business. There were people literally 1 metre away looking right at them.

The girl using the loo right in front of me finished doing her business and stood up to zip up her pants. This is where the really weird thing happened. The lady who was next in line for that loo didn't even wait for her to finish her to get out of the stall! She went to stand behind her in the loo stall while the first lady's feet were still on the footpads and she was still zipping up her fly! Talk about pushy!

When the first lady was elbowed out of the stall the line moved closer. I peered through the gloom between the legs of the second lady who was now squatting on the toilet. What was that in the toilet bowl? Eeeeeeeeeew! I could see that the whole bowl was filled with Number 2s! It was nearly coming over the top of the bowl onto the foot pads. Obviously everyone was in two much of a hurry to bother with the flush!

This was just too much for me. After all, I guessed I wasn't THAT busting. Maybe the train wouldn't be that full this time.

I went back to my place in the line waiting for the train.

Goings on in Qingdao, China

We spent a nice day yesterday wandering the port city of Qingdao.  We went to check out some of the historical buildings around town including some old churches.

 

Late afternoon we decided to go for a walk out on the pier at No. 6 Bathing Beach right near the centre of town.  There were heaps of people there walking out to some kind of temple or pagoda at the end.  Along the pier there were heaps of vendors setting up their mats spread with seashells and other trinkets to sell to all the tourists.

 

We walked along the pier but decided not to go to the temple because it cost money (it seems that everything costs money in China - even the churches charged admission).  Still, we spent an interesting few minutes watching all the vendors scramble to hide their goods when the cops did a random sweep of the pier. Most of the vendors just gathered up their mats with all their goods inside and stuffed them into a bag before quietly disappearing amongst the crowd.  The seashell vendors couldn't do that however.  Mostly they just dropped their huge bags of shells down under the pier and hid them amongst the concrete piles.  It was quite obvious where the seashells all went but the cops didn't seem to be looking too hard because they only nabbed one guy.

 

On the way back to shore we went past a couple of vendors (as soon as the cops turned their backs the mats all came back out) selling these funny little toys.  They were soft balls about as big as a golf ball with a face on them.  They had two gangly legs about two inches long hanging down.  They all seemed to be jumping around all over the mats by magic.  The vendors' hands weren't anywhere near them.  After we past about three vendors selling these toys we still couldn't work out how they were moving - was it batteries?.. or maybe magnets?  Some of the vendors also seemed to be able to control the toys, telling them when to dance and when to stop.

 

After a while Paul could stand the suspense no longer.  He went up to a vendor and said (in Mandarin) "How many batteries does that take?".

"It doesn't take batteries" said the vendor.  "You have to train it".

"How long can it dance for?" Paul asked.

"If you train it properly it can go for a year" the vendor said.

"What about after a year?" Paul said.

"Look, if you really wanted it to, it could go for about three years" the vendor said.  "If you buy one I can show you how it's done".

Suitably impressed, Paul started haggling over the price.  He got the vendor down to 3 yuan.

The vendor handed over the toy. "Just read the instructions inside" he said.

Paul ripped open the packet and took out the instructions.

"What?" he said.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"It's on a string!" he said.  "He was pulling the string!  I've been conned!".

"Ha ha" I said.  "Don't worry, it was worth 3 yuan for the laugh".

Paul felt stupid for the rest of the night. 

I'm back...

BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL

Sorry that I haven't blogged for ages. Hadbeen having too much fun in Taiwan. I seriously put on like 3 kg in less than 4 weeks. My mum determined that she was going to feed me as much as she could while I was in Taiwan as I was apparently too skinny.

Yes, it is true that I lost around 6kg in 5 months. But that's mainly because I wasn't sit on my ass all day long and then have huge steak and tonnes of chips for dinner anymore. Probably walking in the heat for at least 10km a day also helped.

We were really lucky that we missed out on the damage caused by the typhoon in Taiwan. According to Mum and Dad, some places that we visited in Alishan were washed away and some roads up to Yushan was also washed out. Apparently half of Kaohsiung county was flooded, luckily my parents' house in Kaohsiung city wasn't damaged at all except for some minor leaks.

Charles came and visited for 4 days from Australia. It was great to see a familiar place again and to hang out. He got to see how Taiwanese people interact with each other in their daily lives and got to experience the cultural side of things first hand.

We went to Kenting together as Naomi wanted to learn how to make pineapple cakes and hang out with ayi from next door. We went there the day before the typhoon hit. On the way there Charlie was very determined to get a scooter of his own as apparently it was not manly to sit down the back of a scooter. So we shopped around a little for scooters after we got there but unfortunately for Charles, no bike shop wanted to lease scooters to a foreign guy with no Taiwanese or international license. I have these licenses on me either but I managed to bluff my way through and told them that my license was at home.

They said too many foreigners crashed and burned in the past. They even said tourists from HK were the worst as apparently many of them didn't know how to ride bicycles. Mr Egocentric Charles was not impressed at all but decided it was not worthwhile to sit in a cafe all day while I went roaming around places in Kenting. In the end we visited quite a few sights, even the most southern tip of Taiwan. Some of these sites were very beautiful as they were on the coast. We saw heaps of prehistoric coral rocks up in the mountains. It was very difficult to imagine that all those areas were under the water once upon a time.

As it was the day before the typhoon hit, the wind was super strong as were the waves. It was hard to ride in the wind. We were told that 9 people were swept away from where we went to see the waves a few days later. I think Charles enjoyed the sights. He even got to ride the scooter around the carpark. I think the wind must've been too big that day as he nearly crashed into the parked cars.

Beijing, China

I hope the first impression is not a good prediction for the rest of our trip in China. Naomi described China pretty well. It was not what we were expecting at all. I was kind of expecting it to be like Hong Kong or Macau a little, but they are nothing alike.

The social behaviour is poor compared to all the countries that we've visited. I have never seen a taxi-driver urinating from the passenger seat out on to the ground via the inside of the car door in front of the train station before. It was definitely an eye-opener.

I know that China has 1.45 billion people. But I never really appreciated how many it was until I go to Beijing and there were just people EVERYWHERE. Every subway, every bus, every little small thing is full of people. We had to get out of Beijing ASAP before we developed people-phobia.

Beside the historical sites in Beijing, the city itself had not much character. The government seems to firmly believed in the "if you don't see it, it's not there" policy. I saw heaps of pretty 3 metre high cardboard walls all over Beijing. I took a peek inside once and found that all the traditional brick/stone houses were being pulled apart and demolished. We stayed inside this 300 year old hutong that was actually quite a nice experience - but roadwork had just begun. I hope they don't destroy this hutong too.

Oh, what's the go with the government blocking Facebook? It's almost impossible to get in contact with the outside world without Facebook :)

Beijing experience so far: NO signs were in English. Very difficult to get around. Maps in the train station had no English translation at all. Hazy all day long. Historical sights were great though.

We just finished Jinan and are heading over to Qingdao right now. Jinan was ok. We visited this spring park (40RMB). It was pretty even in the rain. We stayed in this hotel "Longqiantan Hotel". It was cheap, elegant and excellent in services. They picked us up from the train station and dropped us off today in the rain. It was only 130RMB for a room including b'fast. We were very impressed by it.

Hopefully Qingdao will be a nice old town.

Train ride from hell

We just got off the train ride to equal our bus ride from hell.  We decided that we had to get out of Beijing.  We finally got our Mongolian visa (which set us back a ridiculous $90 each) and our train ticket to Mongolia.  Although we still hadn't seen the Great Wall or half of the Forbidden City we decided that we would be back to Beijing and we could do them later.  Beijing was just too hot and too crowded and we wanted to get out and see something else.

 

We decided to visit Jinan which is about 500km south of Beijing on the way to Qingdao.  We were staying only a few metro stops away from the Beijing Main Station so we went there to buy a train ticket.  The crowd at the station was unbelievable.  We had to queue twice for the ticket - about half an hour each time.  When we finally got to the ticket window they told us that there were no sitting tickets left to Jinan for the next day but they were still selling standing tickets in hard seat class.  The standing tickets were 73 yuan (about AU$13).

 

The bus stop was a bit hard to get to what with our bags and the heat so we opted for a standing ticket on the train in the hope that eventually enough people would get off so that we could have a seat or else we could try to upgrade our ticket once we were on the train.

 

The train left at 11.30am.  We got down to the platform about 11.20am thinking that we were right on time.  Well, we obviously should have turned up much, much earlier as the carriage that we were supposed to be in was already crammed full.  All the seats were full and there were heaps of people and their luggage crammed into the aisles and even in the spaces between each carriage where the toilets etc are.  There wasn't even enough space for us to get through the door with our backpacks.

 

Eventually the attendants' yelling forced everyone to squish in tighter and we managed to squeeze in enough for the door to close.  We were wedged in so tight that you couldn't even turn around.  You couldn't even really change the position of your feet because the people were wedged in so tight.  We were at the very end of the carriage in the doorway - we managed to put our backpacks down against the wall and we were wedged against them.  We asked the carriage attendant whether we could upgrade to a soft seat or even a sleeper carriage but she said absolutely nothing was available.

 

That's how we travelled until the first stop about 2 hours later.  Because we were at the end of the carriage, whenever someone wanted to go to the toilet or get some hot water from the hot water tap, they had to come through our section.  This was pretty hard as it was chock-a-block.  They had to push people out of the way and climb over people's luggage.  Paul and I both laughed when we saw that the train attendants were trying to push food and drink carts through the train.  They were pretty slim carts but there was still no way they were getting through.  But the attendants were very persistent.  People ended up having to lift their baggage over their heads to get it out of the way.  Every time that anyone came through we were squashed against the walls and the people around us.

 

There was air conditioning in the carriage but because we were right at the end it didn't really reach us and we were sweltering.  It probably wasn't strong enough to keep all those people cool anyway.  To make matters worse, we seemed to be in the part of the carriage where people were allowed to smoke.  People kept lighting up and gassing us - we couldn't do anything to get away.  They just dropped their ash and cigarette butts on the floor.  People were also spitting on the floor - just lovely when they're just one metre away.

 

Whenever we got to a station, the people trying to get on the train would start barging onto the train before the people trying to get off were able to.  The attendants had to physically hold them back.  A couple of times people just barged in anyway and the people already on the train started yelling at them and shoving them, telling them to get back.  Somehow, at the first few stations even more people seemed to pack on the train - I'm not sure where they went as we couldn't see further than the backs of the people around us.

 

Eventually, about 4 hours into the trip, the crowd started to thin out.  A lot of people got out at one particular station, although not enough for us to actually get a seat.  When the crowd trying to get on the train at that station saw that there were spare seats they barged harder than ever. Because I was in the aisle I was battered by their baggage and my feet were crushed as they rushed past.   Because there was a bit more space, more people came to smoke at the end of the carriage.  I was starting to feel sick from the smoke.  There was nowhere for it to go because it was a closed carriage.  I could see into the seating part of the carriage now.  There were some people crouched in the aisle eating instant noodles and other food.  One guy was eating chicken feet.  He was spitting the bones out onto the floor, right where people were walking.  Some other old guys were sitting in the aisle, smoking and spitting on the floor.  Some people came to the end of the carriage trying to find the rubbish bin - when they couldn't find it they just chucked their food scraps and rubbish on the floor, near where we were standing.  I was trying to be zen about it all but it was pretty foul.

 

By the end of the almost 6 hour trip we were so thirsty and exhausted.  But at least some of the people had gotten off the train and we could at least turn around and shift position (we started to be thankful for small things).  We could move more into the aisle away from the doors and get some more air con.  Still, it's probably the last time we take a standing ticket on the train during summer, even if the bus stop is far away... 

Given the run around in Beijing

Aaaargh!  Sometimes getting visas overseas can be such an annoying process.  We need to get a Mongolian visa so that we can start planning our trip to Mongolia.  Our first full day we arrived in Beijing we rang the Mongolian embassy to try to work out when they accept visa applications (for most embassies it is only a few hours in the morning).  Sure enough, they told us they accepted applications between 9 - 11.00am.  So today we got up earlyish and headed off to the embassy. 

 

We took the subway and we had to walk to the station from our hostel, then change trains halfway.  When we got to the right station we couldn't work out which street was which.  As usual, there were hardly any street signs.  We finally worked out which was the right street, only to be told by a traffic controller that the street was closed further up and we wouldn't be able to get through.  This meant that we had to walk right around the gigantic US embassy instead. 

 

We finally rocked up at the embassy at about 10.30am (Paul insists it was 10.10 but it wasn't).  We went to the back of the line - there were only about 10 people waiting. We stood in the line and filled out our forms while we were waiting thinking that it shouldn't take long for the line to move.  Unfortunately, all the people at the front of the line seemed to be travel agents trying to process multiple applications for their tour groups - they took ages!  In the time it took us to fill out our forms, some other people also tried to barge in front of us in the line.  Despite this, we were pretty confident that the embassy wouldn't turn us away if it struck 11.00am and we still hadn't reached the front of the queue.  After all, we had been sweltering in the line for ages! 

 

It was almost 11.00am and we were near the front of the line.  I was squashed right up against two sweaty old guys trying to elbow this lady out of the way and shove our passports into the slot in the counter.  After all, if you don't act pushy in Asia you'll never get anything done.  We learnt this the hard way in Vietnam.  The lady was trying to tell me that she should have been in front of us because when she arrived we were still filling out our forms while she had hers all ready.  Paul was trying to tell her that we were already in the line when she arrived, whether or not we had finished filling out our forms, so she should just step away from the counter.  The last guy in front of me moved and I quickly shoved the lady out the way and tried to jam our passports into the slot.  "We're closing" said the lady behind the glass.

 

Doh!!!  "But we've been here since 10.30!"  I wheedled.  "Are you sure that you can't quickly process our applications - they're only three of us?" (an Irish guy had turned up after us and started chatting). 

"No!  It's 11.00am.  We close at 11.00am" she said. 

Paul pushed in at this point.  "We've been here since 10.10am" he said.

"Did I ask you what time you got here? No!" she said.  "The application window closes at 11.00.  Come back tomorrow - earlier".  She twisted the knob on the blinds and they snapped shut.

 

A Russian guy behind us rushed up to the window and banged on it.  I didn't think she would open the blinds but she did.  "What?" she said. 

"I need to be in Ulaanbaatar tomorrow.  People are expecting me" he said. 

"What do you want me to do about it?" she said. 

"You need to give me a visa - today!" he said. 

"Visa applications close at 11.00am" she said. 

"Well, I want to speak to a Mongolian diplomat then" he said.

"There's no one else here at the moment" she said.

"Well, I want to speak to a Mongolian then" he said.  "You're Chinese, you're not Mongolian - get me a Mongolian".

"I am Mongolian" she said.

"No, you're not!  I want to speak to your boss" the Russian said.

"He's not here right now" she said.

"Well, here's my phone" he said.  "Call your foreign ministry because they're expecting me tomorrow.  I spoke to them before and they told me I can get visa today".

"I'm not authorised to make phone calls" she said.  "If there was an urgent visa request I would have already received a phone call".  With that, the blinds snapped shut again.

"YOU S**T!" the Russian shouted, banging on the glass.

"I don't think she's going to process his visa application when he comes back tomorrow" the Irish guy commented.

 

With that we admited defeat and stomped off vowing to be back in line at 8.30am tomorrow. 

 

Since the day was half wasted, we couldn't go to see the Forbidden City like we wanted because we thought we wouldn't have enough time.  Instead we headed out to the Summer Palace.  being stingy, we took the subway and a bus.  Grand total for 12+ km was 3.5 yuan each (about AU$0.75).  Still, we didn't get there till 2.45pm going this way (we did stop for lunch). 

 

The palace was awesome and you could spend so much longer in there than just two hours.  As it was, we didn't get to see anywhere near all the sites inside, especially because it was so hot we kept stopping to rest.  One of the best things about Beijing is that there are all these street sellers who walk around with bottles of frozen water for 2 yuan and icy pole type ice blocks for 1 yuan.  They're everywhere - thankfully even inside the Summer Palace.  Periodically the cops turn up and they all bolt.  The downside of this is that I end up eating several ice blocks every day.

 

We finally finished up in the palace around 6.00pm.  We got on the bus which was supposed to take us all the way back to Qianmen (our neighbourhood near Tiananmen Square).  Unfortunately we got stuck in one of Beijing's notorious traffic jams.  1.5 hours later we finally got off the bus (a distance of about 15-20km).  We had to stand up most of the way and there was no aircon even though it was a really new bus.  It was dreadful as we were so hot from walking around the palace and the bus was packed.

 

We walked back a different way to our hostel and came across a little restaurant doing Peking duck.  Of course we had to have some.  It was a pretty good deal too at well less than AU$10 each (we ordered some other stuff and drinks as well).  After dinner, I bought one of these weird drinks that I had seen everyone drinking.  They come in a little grey clay pot with a piece of paper on the top (kept on with a rubber band).  You stick the straw through the paper to drink it so I had never seen what was actually in the drink - but they're everywhere.  I was a bit scared to drink it at first but it turned out to just be a honey flavoured yoghurt kind of drink.  It was pretty nice though - plus you can get 0.50 yuan back when you take the pot back to the shop for recycling.  Now that's incentive!  None of this 5c stuff!  Imagine how many people would recycle if they gave you 50c for every bottle you gave back to the shop!

Blog blocked?

Hmmmm, we have been in China two days and we still haven't been able to access the blog.  Is it too early to conclude that access to blogspot is blocked here? 

 

It's mighty annoying not being able to access the blog.  It means that that we can't update the site or properly edit posts, although we can still post by emailing the posts to the blogs website email address.  If I wasn't so technologically challenged I'm sure I could figure out a way to unblock the site but as it is, well...there's no chance.

 

Not surprisingly, Picasa is also acting up and we can't access it most of the time.  Basically, what all this means is that while we can still put photos on Picasa, I can't create a photo album link for our China pictures on the blog and we aren't able to caption the photos in Picasa to tell you where they were taken.  However, if you follow this link you should still be able to see the photos we take while we're here - http://picasaweb.google.com/nr.field/China.  Somebody please let us know if this link doesn't work.

 

(We also haven't been able to caption the photos at the end of our Taiwan blog - which are basically the pictures of me stealing ayi's pineapple cake recipe, Paul and Charles' trip to Kenting, some pics of the storm damage outside the house in Kaohsiung and a pic of us saying goodbye to Paul's mum and dad at the airport).

 

Another quick point about the time - China is two hours behind AEST.  

 

It was such a long haul getting to China.  Firstly, because a typhoon hit Taiwan a few days before we were scheduled to fly out, we were stuck in Kaohsiung when we had intented to drive back to Ilan to pick up a few things prior to our flight.  There were a few days where we basically did nothing as it was too windy and rainy and most of the shopping centres were shut and the MRT was down.  We ended up having to drive back to Ilan on Saturday afternoon/evening (we flew out on Sunday afternoon).  I felt sorry for Paul's dad as Saturday was father's day in Taiwan and he basically spent all day driving!  Paul didn't even get to take him out for a nice dinner like he planned.

 

On Sunday morning we basically finished packing and then we had to drive to Taipei to catch the plane.  It took about 2 hours to get to Taipei and we were just in time checking in and going through customs as it was final call for boarding when we finally got to the boarding gate.  The flight to KL left Taipei at 4.00pm and was about 4 hours.  We booked two flights to get to China - one from Taipei to KL and then one from KL to Tianjin in China.  The total cost doing it this was was less than AU$200 each, as opposed to more than AU$500 for a direct flight to Beijing or one re-routed through HK.

 

We got to KL around 8.30pm and we had to hang around in the airport until our flight to Tianjin at 1.00am!  When they finally turned out the lights on that flight it was after 2.00am.  I was so glad that I brought my eye mask on the plane as my overhead reading light was on all night and there was no way to turn it off as the switch was broken.  Luckily Paul scored a spare pair of seats down the back of the plane so we got to stretch out on two seats each.  I ended up sleeping quite well thanks to the extra room but I don't think that Paul slept much at all.

 

We finally landed in Tianjin around 7.20am.  When we finally cleared immigration in China we were so relieved - no one had asked if we had an onward ticket.  All that worrying for nothing!  Still, I guess it's better to be safe than sorry - we still have the fake ticket up our sleeve in case we need it later.  Tianjin is still an hour or so away from Beijing.  We had to wait around in the airport until 10.00am for a bus to Beijing.  The bus ride was about 2.5 hours. 

 

When we got to Beijing we had to take our bags on the subway to get to the neighbourhood where we were staying (thankfully we had booked a few nights accommodation via hostelworld.com otherwise we would have been too tired to try to find something).  When we got out of the subway we got lost trying to find our way into the hutong neighbourhood where the hostel was and we ended up walking around in circles for over an hour being followed by these cyclo drivers who kept telling us that our hostel was still miles and miles away and why didn't we just let them drive us there for 30 yuan?  After all the effort we went to to get there on the cheap I wasn't going to cave in at the last minute and pay a ridiculous amount to go somewhere that was probably just around the corner if you knew which way to go!  Paul was feeling a bit tired and he had packed so much stuff that he had three bags to carry.  Also it was the middle of the day and it was over 30 degrees in the shade. 

 

I told Paul that we couldn't go on a cyclo unless he paid for both of us.  I knew that he wouldn't want to do that.  However, he kept saying he had to rest.  Eventually, I left him on the side of the road and told him I would go find the hostel, check in and then come back and help him carry his stuff.  By the time I found the hostel (after asking about a dozen people with my excellent miming and the help of the address written in characters) it was ages later.  I thought that Paul would probably be cooked sitting on the side of the road.  I was so hot I was just getting changed and was about to go back and get him when I heard a knock on the door.  It was Paul!  He had managed to find the place without a map or an address (and I think he did it quicker than I did with both seeing as he probably rested for a while and turned up less than 10 minutes after me).

 

We were so relieved when we finally found the hostel and could have a shower and go to sleep.  We were so exhausted we went to sleep straight away and only went out to get dinner and some bottles of water.

 

Today we were meant to go the Mongolian embassy and get our visas but we got up a bit too late so now we have to go tomorrow.  Instead we went and checked out Tiananmen Square and the area around it (Tiananmen Square is about 10 minutes walk from our hostel). We were too hot to line up to go visit Mao in his mausoleum (if indeed he is still there - still not sure about this as our LP is a little old), but since we saw Uncle Ho a few months ago we didn't feel like we were missing much.  Surely one dead but exceedingly well preserved communist leader is enough for one lifetime?

Whoops!

Whoops - Paul's slip of the finger accidentally resulted in the publishing of a half finished post. The finished version should now be available. Just ignore the other one.

Up the hill and down again - Yushan

Well, we made it up (and down) Yushan despite me being worried about being too overfed to make it! To tell the truth, the actual hiking turned out to be a lot more straightforward than what we expected. The difficult thing seems to be getting the permit (it works on a lottery system as they only let a certain number of people climb each day). Luckily Paul's mum and dad hooked us up with a mountain climbing club here in Kaohsiung who organised everything for us. All we had to do was turn up on the appointed day and start climbing.


We were a bit scared by the information sheet which the climbing club gave us which told us about all the serious hiking gear we had to bring. We turned up covered in Goretex with our new hiking sticks (I don't know whether it was the stick or the incline but my knees were a lot better this time). We were surprised to see other people climbing in jeans and Adidas sneakers! Yushan is the highest mountain in Taiwan and is 3952 metres high.

Paul's family were kind enough to take us on an overnight trip to Alishan, a forest recreation area near the Yushan national park for the couple of days before we started the climb. This was fund and meant that we could meet with the hiking club the evening before the climb at Chiayi, instead of coming all the way from Kaohsiung that night (it also meant that we could have a last minute shower before meeting the club - no showers on the trail!). That first night, everyone hiking with the club all slept together in a hut at Dongpu.


The next morning we started climbing from Tatajia around 8.00am. The starting point was around 2600 metres above sea level. That first day we hiked 8.5 km to Paiyun hut about 2.4 km from the summit. Paiyun hut was 3400 metres above sea level. The first day's hike was quite easy, at least compared with Mount Kinabalu. There was a lot of up but it was interspersed with quite a lot of flat ground. The views out into the national park were amazing and the weather was gorgeous. It was quite warm when we were walking but we were in the shade for most of the morning which was good.


We reached the hut at about 2.00pm with time to go up West Peak (another peak of Yushan - we were climbing Main Peak) if we wanted. It probably would have done us good to go but our feet were a bit sore and we wanted to save our energy for the Main Peak. In true Taiwanese fashion, we were getting up at 1.30 to try to reach the summit for sunrise. We went to sleep around 7.00pm and I slept great for once. I don't think Paul was so lucky.


The next morning we set out around 2.30am for the summit. It was about 2.4km to the top. The first part was quite easy - zigzagging back and forth up the side of the hill. It wasn't until 3/4 of the way up the summit that the going got a bit tougher. We were going so slow with so many rest stops though I didn't find it that hard. We decided to take only one backpack to the summit - since Paul was carrying on a non-stop conversation with the guide on the way up I decided that he was going so well he could carry the backpack most of the way!


We got to within about 300 metres of the summit at around 4.30am and waited on a sheltered part of the track until the sun was just about to come up - about 20 - 30 minutes. Then we all went up to the summit. It was soooo cold up there because it was so windy. I didn't bring any gloves to save weight in my bag and my hands were so cold they couldn't even unwrap my Toblerone which I needed for energy, let alone operate the camera. I had to borrow Paul's gloves until they thawed out. They looked all red for the rest of the day.


Unfortunately, just as we got to the summit the cloud came up. This wasn't really surprising as a typhoon had been forecast and there had been some doubt about whether or not we would be able to go for the summit at all. We got a few glimpses of the sun but nothing that spectacular. For most of the time we were surrounded by mist. Never mind - reaching the top was the most important thing. It was so cold we didn't hang around once we had lined up for the obligatory photo with the summit marker.

We made it back to the hut around 6.30am in time for a second breakfast and then headed down the mountain. It was still really cold back at the hut - around 10 degrees. Luckily we took heaps of pictures of the scenery on the way up as we were pretty much surrounded by cloud all the way down the mountain. Still, it was nice walking in the clouds.


By the last few kilometres we couldn't wait to see the end of the track. Paul had a bit of a sore knee and our feet were killing from walking on the loose rocks on the track for two days. We finally reached the end (start) at around midday. Thankfully we stopped at a 7-11 on the way back to Kaohsiung on the minibus and stocked up on food - we were starved! We were so zonked after that we basically slept all the way back home. Paul's mum and dad were happy to see us safe and sound.

At the moment we are still hanging out in Kaohsiung. Paul's friend Charles has come to visit for about a week so we have been doing some touristy stuff with him. Apart from that we have taken the opportunity to stock up on a lot of things that we might need for the next phase of our trip, notably some cold weather gear (Goretex gloves, waterproof pants, reflective sunglasses etc). The prices here are much cheaper than Australia but you can still find some of the international brands plus a few Taiwanese companies do outdoor gear which seems pretty decent. We've also been to the dentist to get some minor work done and I convinced Paul that we needed to get a yellow fever vaccination so we did that at the hospital.

What with all the stocking up, Taiwan hasn't turned out to be quite as cheap as it could have been. Still, staying with Paul's parents has meant that we are able to devote our funds to the stuff we need for travelling, which is a blessing.

We are heading back to Ilan tomorrow to pick up some of our stuff before we head off for China on Sunday.