CNY

Gon xi fa cai! it's the year of the pig chinese new year has come and gone but not before i update on what i did for my 10 days of rest and relaxation during this quiet yet busy holiday. in an effort to save some money, we decided to stay in taiwan for the duration of the holiday. 10 days just to take a deep breath and chill. but, taipei became something of a ghost town as half the city's population migrated back to their home towns further south. with nothing really open and only mcdonald's on the menu, a plan needed to be formulated. I came up with the idea to go to this 2-day music festival in an aboriginal village near the town of fangliao. there were a lot of people staying in taiwan this year, so it was easy to get people on board to go.

we boarded the train shortly after 8:00 for the 5 hour trip to Kaohsiung and were underway. while tired from the early wake-up call, we were all in good spirits.

after reaching the train station in kaohsiung, we needed to find passage to our final destination of fangliao. the cheaper and faster option turned out to be the bus, so another 2 hour ride got us to the fangliao bus terminal. next, a 40-minute shuttle bus ride would take us the rest of the way up a mountain and to the aboriginal village closest to the festival. total hours spent in transit: 10 hours.

hot, tired and thirsty we got to the place at last. it seemed like any typical festival. a stage, booths selling beer, food and trinketry, as well as loads of hippy foreigners staying in tents. set up everything and tried to get into the festival spirit. thankfully, tristan had supplied us with some goods for the night which helped things along. it was a fun evening full of 'shroomy delights and good laughs. a smile comes to my face when i think back on some of the highlights of that night...the urbanite snobbery, the "bad religion is coming"rumours, the fundamental racism, the little dancing girl on stage who can dance better than most pop stars...what a night.

we didn't get a lot of sleep that night, mostly because nobody really went to bed. there was drinking and carrying on until dawn, when a female hippie screamed out that we were stupid for missing something as magical and beautiful as the sunrise. i was too lazy to get out of the tent, but in my head i had killed her dead 4 times...one for each time she tried to get everyone out of bed at that ungodly hour. in the end, it was the sun hitting the tent as well as the overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom which get me out of bed. i blinked away the sleep and surveyed the damage. the chaos of the evening was seen in the detritus left behind. bottles, cigarette butts, half burnt fires...a frown found its way at the corners of my mouth. in the clear light of day i could tell that this field was really a race track for the elementary school up the road. lovely for the kids. i reached the bathrooms and chose one of four porta-potties opened the door and grimaced. the toilets hadn't fared well during the night. they weren't flushing anymore and the toilet paper had stacked up. the next two weren't much better but the 4th was a little cleaner. feeling a little shaken after my bathroom experience, i returned to our site only to hear that there were no showers and no food. that, combined with my general disgust at westerners bringing all this filth with them made up our minds to move on.

we quickly packed up and found something to eat. a short, but hot walk up to the bus stop revealed that the bus wasn't there. 30 minutes pass. an hour. an hour and a half! people on scooters drive by and tell us that they heard the organizer had problems with the bus company and that the buses aren't coming all that often. finally, we got organized by speaking to some locals and offering them money to take us down the mountain in their trucks. if there was ever a better idea, i would love to hear it.

now it was decision time. the festival had turned out to be less than it was cracked up to be, so what to do? return to taipei, tail between our legs or push on by heading further south to kenting? since it would have been a shame to come all this way for only one night, we got on another bus to take us to one of my favourite places in the country...the beautful beach town of kenting. yes, we would have to camp again but this time the facilities were first rate. hot showers, flush toilets, clean, grassy campsites...it was perfect. set up things again and then went into town for some good eating. we had lost a lot of sunlight, but kenting also comes alive at nighttime, especially during CNY when about 50,000 people head straight for the town. lots of noise, music, smells and fireworks. also lots of fun.

the next day was spent getting something else delicious to eat, then hitting the beach for a swim. the weather wasn't that great, but the water was nice and so were the cheap beers at the bar. the rain started soon and so did thoughts of the long way back to taipei. it would be busy and we wanted to beat the rush so we set off at 2:00. another long and hot bus ride to kaohsiung with no toilet. we all began to plot our way back home. some of us would take the bus while some of us wanted to try out the new high-speed rail service.

unfortunately, we were unable to buy tickets as they were all sold out. we tried several times to find a way home other than a bus, but there were no openings for almost 2 days. so, beat it back to the bus stations and took the first available bus back to taipei. the trip back took an age. taiwan is about 500km from tip to tip, and about 150km across...not a big country by any stretch of the imagination but with 22 million people trying to get around, it makes seemingly short day trips into arduous overland treks. our bus stopped at every major port of call between kaohsiung and taipei adding to the time spent in my seat. it was a 6 hour ride before
getting back to taipei and hitting the hay.

it was a good little trip into taiwan, which is always enjoyable as you get to see a very different side to this place. living in taipei can mean living inside a bubble, just like anywhere else. before taking this little trip down south, i hadn't been out of taipei in 6 months. that is the longest period i stayed put in this city and it was getting to be a little too much. nice to get out and stretch my legs. while i was doing that, i also learned a few things too. i learned that music festivals aren't really my thing anymore. while i love the idea of them, being in one reminded me that i enjoy showering and a going to the bathroom in a toilet. in light of this realization, i'm going to make spring scream 2007 my last music festival. i also learned that travelling with a large group is fun, but only if things are planned out in advance such as accommodation and tickets. all in all, CNY 2007 was alright and i'm sure will rate highly someday in the future as one of my favourite holidays....not now, but someday soon i'm sure.