Umbrellas in our hands to shield us against the rain, we walk down a small dirt road in the dark. Save for a few burst from the flashlight to make sure we don’t veer off into the undergrowth, it is near perfect dark. A deep, blueish grey mist hangs over the mountain, the beam from the flashlight spreads a diffuse white glow around us. Against this misty background, the profiles of trees rise up from the shadowy undergrowth, black shapes on a dark background. Among all these half visible shadows are dazzling lights, hundreds of small, florescent dots, lighting up … Read the rest
We follow a small mountain road until we reach a fork, I take the left, which seems to be the main road, but my girlfriend points out it might be wrong, so I back up and turn right. We are now faced with a muddy, broken piece of road undergoing repairs. Gingerly I inch the car forward and, like a little donkey it takes us past without a hitch. It seems this short stretch of roadworks has transported us off the relative comfort of Taiwanese roads to a more remote area a South American jungle. The road is narrow and … Read the rest
We are walking on a small road winding it’s way along the mountain face. The sun has been drenched by the evening mists that shroud the peaks, and the heat of the day is beginning to dissipate. The mountain rises steeply upward to my left, rows upon rows of tea bushes covering the mountainside in a pattern of dark green stripes and waves. To my right, the slope is covered by bamboo trees, the thin, straight reeds creating a surprisingly sparse forest. It occurs to me that we are walking between fields of two quintessentially Asian plants, as if walking … Read the rest
Even though we are well within the city limits, on a big road no less, the street lights suddenly end. As we pass the boundary between bright orange and near complete darkness, the head light on my scooter becomes our main light source. A couple of concrete barricades stop us from entering the main road surface but the bike path is free,so we move forward on that until we pass the barriers. As soon as we enter the wider lanes in the center of the road, I open up the throttle and yell with excitement as we accelerate down the … Read the rest
When I woke up this morning I felt sure my cold would keep me indoors all day but, with the sun shining brightly through my window, I decided a small cold couldn’t kill me, grabbed my bike and ventured out. That turned out to be a stroke of genius, for here I am, a bright blue sky above, the sun on my face for the first time in ages, and I’m walking on the Ice. Admittedly, I’m really just crossing a small, man made bay and I know that it doesn’t sound all that impressive, but given the dreary weather we normally … Read the rest
It’s a few degrees above freezing, a milky grey mist hangs low over the hills and there is a fine drizzle in the air. The trees are bare and lifeless, bland pop music is blaring from a subpar speaker system and the snow is beige rather than white. It is possible to ski but it feels all wrong; the snow is either too hard or too soft and sticky, it’s not cold enough to give the air that crisp feeling and the dreary weather is just depressing. I can not muster up the enthusiasm to say that it is fun … Read the rest
The air gets chillier as the small, open train takes us through a tunnel of rough rocks into the underground. The tunnel opens up onto a new world full of limestone formations, stalactites hanging from the ceiling, stalagmites growing up from the ground, free standing pillars and curtains clinging to the wall. Some are lit up by strategically placed lamps while others lay in shadow, creating a captivating play of light. Some times the train winds through narrow passages that then open up into large caverns. The landscape is fascinating for an inexperienced spelunker like me, just too bad there … Read the rest
The cavern we are in gets larger up ahead, the vaulted, stalactite clad ceiling lit up by a soft orange glow, expands outward then opens up on a black void. A string of lights like a band of diamonds stretches out into the darkness, shedding light on a vast canyon beyond. The floor drops off steeply to the river down below and the ceiling disappears overhead. There is a rushing of water from the river and the air feels cooler. A silent, ” bloody hell” rises up in me at the sight of the canyon which is awesome in the … Read the rest
To my left, green mountains with bare Rocky cliffs, a blue sky up above and a slope down towards azure blue sea. In front of me a thin band of asphalt bending of to the right. I slow down and savor the moment of being on a motorized two wheeler once again, my girlfriend behind me and the wind on my face. Then I lean into the curve and twist my right hand, the scooter shoots forward and zooms through the bend while a fizzy feeling of speed bubbles up within me.… Read the rest
I walk down the utterly dark tunnel, my flashlight the only source of illumination. The tunnel is long and narrow and vaulted overhead. The white paint on the walls has deteriorated over the years and a bunch of rusty metal clamps are all that remains of the previous lighting system. As I come closer to the end I can sense a faint glow somewhere, when I reach it, it turns out to be a crossroads. I go to the left because it’s shorter and there is light in that direction. It leads to a small open space within a low … Read the rest
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