24 March 2017
Mountain village metropolis
From Tainan to Puli by train and bus
Now I am in Puli. Getting here was surprisingly easy. More on that shortly.
Yesterday I went to Chiayi, this morning they had a small earthquake. Perhaps my visit was the cause. However since I am now in a small city that was almost flattened by an earthquake only a few years ago, I better be careful what I wish for.
In all my travels to countries that have daily earthquakes, I still dont think I have felt one.
Now, getting to Puli, was train, high speed train, then bus. I had no tickets, and I had questions to answer about every leg of that journey. Amazingly, it all went fine, with no more than 10 minutes between each transfer.
The final bus leg up into the mountains was not even an hours ride, but the scenery was spectacular, more on that below too.
My favourite part of each leg of the journey was watching people immediately go into a deep snoring sleep. Board train, sit, sleep. Head flop over or forwards with snoring. I cant do this. I also saw the same thing in Donutes whilst I was sipping my coffee. Buy coffee, walk upstairs, sit, place backpack on table as pillow, face into backpack, sleep, immediately!
Puli is supposed to only have 80k people, but the city is all city centre, set up largely for tourists I think, of which I am one.
Oh and buddhists, rich buddhists. Look at the photo below of the visiting monk hotel. I saw a convoy of Mercedes S class AMG's deliver a heap of them in their robes to the hotel. Why go the whole AMG V12 twin turbo option in what is effectively a taxi? Only the monks will know. They are probably bullet proof too. Monks, keep begging for more money, you must need it.
Leg 1 of the journey, the local train from Tainan to Tainan high speed rail station which is nowhere near Tainan.
The high speed rail station however, is excellent. Like an airport, lots of places to shop and eat.
There is even a small food court. I am quite fond of food courts.
Here comes my train. They sit on 300kmph. I have been on these in Taiwan at least 3 times previously, its old hat now.
A bit more view of the Tainan high speed rail station and immediate surrounds.
Leg 2 of 3, inside the high speed train. Very quiet and comfortable apart from tremendous snoring. My ride was not even 45 minutes.
I had to transfer to the bus at the Taichung (Taizhong) high speed rail station. Astute readers will remember on my last Taiwan trip I spent a few days in Taizhong.
The terminal here is even more like an airport, a large airport. The trains come about every 20 minutes.
Underneath I quickly found my bus stop to Puli. Well signposted.
Leg number 3 of 3, the bus ride, which was very comfortable, not very long, cheap and the view was amazing towards the end, when not in a tunnel.
Some bus view, now to see what Puli looks like.
Here is Puli, it is much more city like than I imagined it would be. I expected farmers herding dogs and ducks.
Thats a nice mountain in the background!
My hotel room is ridiculously large. The hotel is kind of old but huge. I guess it survived the earthquake. Actually I think all modern buildings did, and the only village part of Puli village was destroyed.
Note to self - stay out of old village housing.
Bathroom shot, here for my mother, she has some kind of thing about bathrooms.
My hotel has a wrap around balcony. I can keep an eye on this roundabout, one of many in down town Puli. Its where you can watch scooter roulette unfold, and wonder why adults have helmets and small chidren and babies just hang on and hope without a helmet.
Also, some poodles have helmets. Just not children.
A bit more view from my balcony. More mountains. Mountains in every direction. I have no idea if its possible to climb them. Information is very hard to come by!
It was still early, so I did a lap of the city, mostly looking at the mountains, studying the map. I looked for a hiking gear shop to ask advice, couldnt find one.
This is the buddhist luxury hotel for visiting monks (I think?). The foyer has a large solid gold buddha, 500 small solid gold buddhas, an no admission to peoople like me, there are guards.
That thing on the roof thats like a satellite dish, and it may well be one, but I think its also some kind of moon beam shooting thing to communicate with the dalai lama or the other rich monks, or possibly scientologists cause this is all just a bit too sketchy for my liking.
I returned to my hotel, and they must have worked out I was staying here, because a parade of some sort is being set up.
I was now shaking from starvation, so another balanced meal of cow piss soda, banana and peas in chilli cracker form.