A-Hing is a scuba diving instructor who owns a small outfit in Tsai Kou called “Hao Peng You” Good Friends, on the north east side of the island. There is no scuba diving today, there is business tomorrow with a diving club from XinZhu. They are all licensed to dive. They booked a boat for their excursion. As he drove to take me shopping for possible other places to stay besides his tin shack, he gave me a quick tour.
The island is only 16-20 kilometer in diameter. The prison that is now a human rights sanctuary is not a place I plan to visit. Just as I have not yet visit Alcatraz that is in my backyard. I am clear that not riding a moped is a good idea. There are curvy mountain roads with winds blowing from the East Wind Storm. I have also excluded the idea of not riding a bike. There is just too much incline twists and turns, the short 20 kilometers seems very long in this distance. There is no hospital on this island. In order to get aid, they have to go onto the main land. During the tour I got to see the housing options and check out the buildings. Only like 4 were adequate in my opinion regardless what they advertise on the internet. So a good deal and typical package deal looks like this and ranges from $1,800 to $2,800NT: 3 days 2 nights including breakfast, hotspring entrance ticket, ferry ride, snorkel and moped for the 3 days. It is a good deal. The camp ground is right next to the hotspring. It is pretty decent campground. It is a nice option for the future. Forget about food and night life here. So not interesting.
The thing about everyone in this Good Friend outfitter is that they are all chain smokers and all kind hearted indigenous natives. They smoke nonstop. This is killing all the good chi and air from Alishan. They all carry with them the pains of aboriginals. And which culture on the planet hasn’t experience pain and been changed by it. This outfit is a scuba gear wearhouse for wet suits, tanks, gear. It is a metal shack. The rooms, one is upstairs in a loft with 3 sleeping pads. The other on the first floor with 6 sleeping pads, all floor style. The set up is very bare minim. My first impression was, “and you plan to charge $300NT per night for this?” The restroom and shower is set up like public beach restrooms for sand rinse down. I refused to use the shower and I am stuck with the toilet. I don’t know what to do about all the smoke in the air. I didn’t discover the chain smoking part until I have decided to board here for a night. I prefer to sleep on the beach or even on the bench outside, the air is better.
People snorkeled in surf booties not fins. I guess this means they are not snorkeling far. People get snorkel package as part of their housing package and moped. It’s really a good deal and very economical. For those who cannot swim they are tugged on a rope in a life saver. Looking out in the snorkel pockets, it seems this is the first time for a lot of the people to be in the ocean, they would try the salty ocean water and taste it.
The sky is grey, the ocean is grey, typically it is celadon jade green. The ocean is a sea of visual gem. The natural beauty is not in the land but in the clear, high salt density ocean. When the waves curl in the grey colored sky reflecting into the ocean, just before it bubbles white foam, the curl of the wave is in the color of florescent electric lightening aqua. Could I have noticed this under clear bright sunny day? Probably not. Nice surprises in the midst of cloudy black skyline. It is such an amazing color to look at, so raw, so clear, so clear, so pure, so natural, so beautiful. Taiwan has a lot of natural beauty preserved due to lack of development and openness to public access, or the public’s lack of interest in venturing beyond tourist areas and as a result, this has kept Taiwan’s natural beauty preserved and pristine in many ways. It is a good thing.
I walked on the beach, they are all covered in coral on the lava cliffs. I walked in the water and it was bath water warmth.
Meeting with A-Hing, it is clear to me getting a padi license is a necessity in my future. But I would like to get it in a tropical place, not in the cold waters of Monterey. I should have gotten it when I was going to school in Santa Cruz along with canoe flipping skills. I can see myself getting into diving doing video and photography. I am interested in pure, clean, pristine nature. I love to travel to see it.I was dropped off at the hotspring at 7pm. I soaked till 9:40pm. I hung out with college students. I enjoyed them. The soak was good in the sea cliff pools with ocean waves rushing in mixing with natural hotspring water to fill the pools. The natural hotspring bubbles from the sandy coral beaches at the bottom of the pools. It produces a nice bath water temperature which is just right for hot summer weather. For this stormy weather, it is a bit cool. So people were looking the hotspring bubbles sources in the dark, by dark, it is black dark and hogging them. The sea side pools are not open when it is high tide time. This place is famous for being open all night during summer season so you can soak and look at the stars the same time while listening to the sounds of waves and watching the sunrise from the Tropic of Cancer in the horizon. It is pitch dark tonight due to the overcast covering the sky, no stars, no moon. Felt good to soak in natural ocean water. I soaked to flush out exhaustion.
Thinking to myself, I can stay in Alishan longer, I can stay in Yushan, I can go back to Shuili, I can go to Penghu, I can stay in Kenting longer, I can stay in Lyudao longer, I can go to Lanyu etc,… all is good and okay. However I thought, ” “ So one night in Lyu Dao and Kenting, no Yushan, off to Taroko tomorrow to meet up with my cousins and the Kimura girls on Saturday.
