Wrap-up

(In the airport: the last photo I took in Taiwan.)

So there’s that. I’m ending the blog here, and won’t update it again. I’ve been home for a couple of months now, and in some ways, I really do miss Taiwan. It’s a wonderful country, naturally beautiful, the food is delicious, and the people as nice as any I’ve ever met. I certainly had my complaints while I was there but I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum on the blog; it could overshadow my positive sentiments about Taiwan, or give the impression that I regretted going there, which I don’t, in any way. I had a great time and loved having the chance to spend my first year out of college the way I did.

If I get the chance — and maybe I’ll have to make it — I’ll go back. And given the price of plane tickets to Taipei, that’s some pretty high praise.

Taroko, round 2

On my last weekend in Taiwan, Laura and I went to Hualien on the east coast so we could make a trip to Taroko Gorge National Park — the second time for both of us. We stayed in a really lovely bed and breakfast, which Laura arranged (actually she did almost all of the planning for this trip and deserves a public thank-you). The owners took us on a bike ride at sunrise down to the water, and later in the day Laura and I borrowed their bikes and went up to the gorge to hike and, on Laura’s part, swim.

Cingshui cliffs.

On the right, one of our lovely hosts. She is getting a master’s degree in social work (if I remember correctly) at WashU in St. Louis, actually. The family that owns the bed and breakfast are members of the Taroko ethnic group, one of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples — the social condition of which is largely analogous to that of Native Americans in the US. She plans to use her degree in Taiwan to help improve that situation. Her father was pretty great, too — he had taught himself English out of dictionaries, and he spoke so well it sounded like he had spent some time living in the US.

Hiking.

Joyous Laura. That water was freezing.

We also went whitewater rafting (or, since this is Taiwan, “whitewater”) with — well. Our B&B in Hualien arranged for us to go rafting. We got picked up in the morning by a bus, drove around for half an hour, and then filled the rest of the bus with social-work students who were about to graduate and spent the rest of the drive singing karaoke with great enthusiasm (this was about 8:30 in the morning). We arrived at the rafting place, which was swarming with people, and milled about, attempting to understand the instructions and being forced into some pretty appalling safety gear (see photos). The guide gave a demonstration of how to paddle and then said “Now get into groups of eight or ten.” At which, of course, Laura and I looked about in a bit of a panic. However. Taiwanese people being the nicest in the world, and always looking out for the confused foreigners, we found ourselves invited to join a group of vacationing officers from the military academy, who gave a cheer for “our foreign friends” and called us “teacher” for the rest of the day, which we spent communicating in pidgin.

Laura and I are in the back. All of these photos were sent to me later by Ethan, who’s in the front right of this picture.

And that’s the story of how Laura and I went whitewater rafting with the Taiwanese military.

Bitou

Northeast coast of Taiwan, scenic area: a fishing village called Bitou where I ate fish for the last time — a woman clubbed it over the head and then I thought, I can’t do this anymore. It makes me feel brutal.

That’s Bitou down in the valley.

After our hike we got to the bus stop just as it started pouring rain. This sky should have been a hint.

Happy Cedric.

These pictures make me miss Taiwan. Really a beautiful country. Allow me to recommend it for your next vacation.

Back but not updated

I’m back but don’t have time to post my last two sets of photos yet. In sum.

Remaining Photos

I still have photos to put up from Bitou, where I went hiking with Cedric, and Hualien, where I with with Laura for my last weekend in Taiwan. Those will be getting posted, I promise, but my internet situation is uncertain for the next month (possibly), so I can’t promise they will appear soon. But they will appear.

Leaving

I am leaving Taiwan this weekend, and so I’ve been saying goodbye to my students, which depresses me terribly. I was feeling bad because I hadn’t taken any pictures of my students (too awkward), but they solved it for me — some classes, the ones that like me, wanted to take photos with me after their final class, on the fancy cell phones they have (relatedly, I hide my phone from them, because the one time a class saw it they made fun of it. If I had an iPhone they would respect me more). I consented on the condition that they email the photos to me.

(HS1B: 10th grade)

I am all packed and ready to go; have made my final trips to my favorite restaurants, and bought presents for the teachers at the high school as well as my Chinese teachers at the language center. The presents are food, which seems extremely Asian … This weekend Laura and I are going to Taroko Gorge for a final trip, and then early Monday morning I will be on a plane back to America. Leaving Taiwan is making me sad — I really like this country, and most if not all of my students — and will miss it when I’m gone. Hopefully I will be able to come back sometime. That said, the fact that the humidity has hit in full, shirt-soaking force is making this a bit easier.

Hong Kong

On a whim, Jo and I decided to go to Hong Kong for a weekend and see a friend of ours from high school who is working as a Fulbright English teacher there. We took separate flights out of Taipei (there is about one every half hour); mine left from the Hello Kitty gate.

Which played truly appalling music.

We stayed in Kowloon, across from Hong Kong Island. The first day was foggy and cold, but we did see the walk of stars.

(Tony Leung.)

We crossed to Hong Kong Island and spent some time wandering around hills, parks, shopping and restaurant areas, and mayyyyybe an H&M.

Aviary:

Unfortunately I have no photos of the world’s longest escalator.

In one of the parks is the Museum of Tea.

“Mr. Black Tea, please tell me more about the story of your life.”

On Sunday morning, we ate at the Flying Pan: real American breakfast. I nearly cried upon seeing pancakes and syrup.

A Kowloon market:

Fish market:

Me & Jo:

Much debate about whether or not this post should be under the “PRC” category. I suppose so.

Angkor

Waiting for sunset.

Our last destination was Siem Reap, a city in western Cambodia that is your base if you plan on going to Angkor Wat. And we had to go to Angkor Wat. I mean, I majored in archaeology. Angkor Wat is basically Mecca.

I had this image in my head of one big building with three towers or so, the one everybody is thinking of and which shows up occasionally in movies, sometimes with giant trees growing out of it (Lara Croft, anyone?). Turns out Angkor Wat is one complex, and not even the largest one, in an enormous archaeological area that it would take at least a week to see fully; the area is really just called Angkor. It dates to about 800-1400AD and was the seat of the Khmer empire: “In 2007 an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest preindustrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of 3000 square kilometres. The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, was between 100 and 150 square kilometres in total size.[2] Angkor could have supported a population of up to one million people.”

This is the actual Angkor Wat (sorry no good pictures, I kept taking them into the sun):

The faces at the Bayon were beautiful as well:

Terrace of the Elephants in Angkor Thom (also the site of the Bayon):

Ta Prohm is the temple that has been left in its original condition (as it existed in the early 20th century), rather than being restored or propped up the way the rest of Angkor has been. Ta Prohm was far and away my favorite part of Angkor.

After Angkor, it was three hours to the border with Thailand, a few more to Bangkok, and then back to Taiwan.

Cedric at Longshan Temple, Taipei

Pre-haircut.

Phnom Penh

The paradox of Cambodian buses is thus: they stop at regularly scheduled intervals so that you can go to the bathroom, which puts them about a thousand points ahead of buses in Laos (which seem to assume only men have that need and so never bother to stop at actual bathrooms), but they also pack more people into stools in the aisle, and the roads are only intermittently paved. Pick your poison. Eventually we got to Phnom Penh; we started from the Four Thousand Islands at seven in the morning, and arrived about fourteen hours later. This is a bit more impressive when you realize the Four Thousand Islands are only about, oh, 120 miles from Phnom Penh.

Royal Palace:

Evidence of French colonization.

Something was bothering me about Cambodia, and for a while I couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t the heat, which was blinding, or the dust, which tinged several of my shirts permanently brown. It wasn’t that they use US dollars and seem surprised when you attempt to pay in Cambodian riel. It was that there were no old people. Once I noticed, I started to count. I saw a few old women, and in six days, three old men. Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge is unnerving, a country of twenty- and thirty-somethings, a large portion of whom are trying, at any given moment, to get you to buy a ride on the back of their motorcycle. The guidebooks say this is a legitimate way of getting around Phnom Penh. Laura and I absolutely refused.

There are no old folks because of this:

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, formerly the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 prison, and before that, the Tuol Svay Prey High School.

Photos of the inmates, virtually all of whom were killed, fill the rooms. Most of them have never been identified. Many of them are children.

An estimated 14,000 to 17,000 people were imprisoned at S-21; of these, exactly 12 people are known to have survived. One of them is Vann Nath, probably Cambodia’s most prominent painter, who was spared because of his artistic skill. Some of his paintings, including his famous one of a man being tortured via waterboarding, are in the museum, next to that very waterboard.

Most of the prisoners at S-21 were taken to Choeung Ek, to be executed at the killing fields. The ditches are excavated mass graves.

Eighty-odd graves have been excavated, while an estimated sixty or so remain sealed. Nine thousand bodies were found, and thousands of skulls, as well as clothing found in the graves, are displayed inside the glass stupa at the back of this picture. Many of the skulls are fractured, smashed, or have bullet holes.

Probably the most disturbing part of Choeung Ek is this:

Bones are coming up through the ground, as are pieces of clothing, and teeth. I asked a man working there about them. He said Oh, yes, they come out when it rains. I asked if they pick them up or put them somewhere; he shrugged and said, I don’t know.

The first Khmer Rouge trial, of Duch, the commandant of S-21 prison, opened at the end of March.