Category: Travel (Page 5 of 28)

Albania has always been occupied by larger powers as it occupies a strategic position in Europe. From the Greeks to the Romans to the Ottomans to the Nazis to the Communists… it’s been like a revolving door of oppression.

After WWII, Albania was like North Korea. Until 1991, they were in a communist dictatorship.

They were totally isolated from most of the world outside the communist bloc.

The communists destroyed everything that remained of the Byzantine and Ottoman buildings. There are only Italian Fascist and Communist remaining, which, when combined with the modern buildings now being built is interesting. Still, when you hear of the old Byzantine markets being destroyed in the 1950’s because Khrushchev made a visit… it’s a shame.

This duo of squat blue blocks is called the twin towers. They were built after 9/11. Make of that what you will.

I was walking with the local guide and I asked about the wars Albania has gone through. Then, we saw this guy walking ahead of us.
“Oh. Do you think he would have been a soldier?” I asked.

”Probably,” he replied.

A Catholic Cathedral dedicated to St Paul was our first stop. Mother Teresa is also venerated in this country, as after she left for Calcutta, her mother and sister moved here.

It wasn’t a smart move, as soon after they relocated, the communists banned all religion from Albania. Mother Teresa was never allowed to see her family. They suspected that she was religious, so the government refused her many applications.

She was an absolute cow to her patients in India, denying them pain killers because “It was God’s will that the poor should suffer”, but I did feel for her being unable to see her family ever again because of a regime change.

Albania was officially atheist during 1967 to 1991. Over 2,000 churches and mosques were destroyed. Anyone caught practicing religion would be jailed.

Nowadays, it’s very easy going. For example, the country is 70 % Muslim but only 7 % practice. Our local guide is orthodox Christian, and is married to a Muslim. They celebrate Christmas, Ramadan, Easter…. It’s all good.

This is one of the few Muslim countries where it’s ok for people to enjoy a raki (like grappa: but stronger) with their coffee without it being an issue.
Honestly, isn’t that how it should be?

Albanian is considered one of the oldest languages in the world. It has no relatives anywhere. It’s thought that it is derived from the tribes of the Ilan people, who were cut off from everyone else, back in the day.

Written Albanian was forbidden to be used by the Ottomans for over 500 years. It’s quite amazing that it survived.

North and South Albanian dialects are very different. Sometimes they need translators to understand each other.The southern dialect is the official one.

There are bunkers all around the city, because during the Cold War the government was paranoid. They were sure that the great powers of the USA or Russia would invade, so they started a program ensuring there’d be enough bunkers for the whole population.

There are also tunnels between the government buildings, for the same reason. Nowadays, they are museums. This is the ceiling of the bunker we saw.

A few fun facts about Albania:

1 coffee shop for every 108 people.

Albanian is part of NATO, but is regarded as one of the poorest nations in Europe.

500 euros / month is the minimum wage.

750 euros / month is average.

It’s an agricultural economy.

Tourism is number 3, and is rapidly growing.

1 in 4 civilians were spies during the Cold War. You know, like the Stasi in East Germany. Grim times…

Housing here is expensive. 1,200 euros per square metre.

150 years wages to pay for a 100 square metre apartment.

Florence is the most expensive city in Europe. Tirana is close to that.

Healthcare and education is free. That’s something, I guess…

Look at this!! The local guide and I were talking about North Korea, when we rounded a corner and there was a propaganda mosaic.
“ This is SO North Korea!” I said.

He chuckled. “Communist propaganda,” he said.

Unlike Macedonia, the Albanians only had ONE statue in the main square. He is their National hero.
Gjergj Kastrioti (also known as Skanderbeg; c. 1405 – 17 January 1468.

He was taken by the Ottomans after they killed his family. He rose to be a general under them, even gaining the nickname of Alexander The Great because he was so good at Generalling.

Later he escaped from the Ottomans and came back home. He joined the factions and started a resistance movement that fought against the Ottoman Empire for 25 years. A mouse fighting against a pride of lions.

But look at how the Albanians have honoured him. Not just with a statue…

This apartment block overlooks the square where his statue is, and it depicts his face.
That’s pretty cool.

We were there on a Sunday, so I don’t know if the vibe would be different during the week, but the city was buzzing. People were out enjoying the sun, eating out and generally having a good time. It was a pleasure to be there.

The inner part of town was alive.

I guess Pokémon is international.

On the way to our evening stop, we saw Rozafa Castle. It was originally built by the Ilyric tribe 2,000 years ago, and then subsequent invaders kept it going.
The legend is that the castle was bing built by 3 brothers. Unfortunately, the walls kept crumbling.
They sought help from a holy man, who said that one of their wives needed to be sacrificed and buried under the walls for them to stay strong.

The oldest two princess told their wives to stay away from the castle, but the youngest one forgot to mention anything to his wife about this disturbing prophecy.

The next day, his wife and toddler son rolled up to the building site to bring her husband’s lunch. Big mistake.

When a mob surrounded her, baying for blood, she accepted her fate, but asked only these things:

That she be left with one eye, to look upon her baby boy.

To be left with one breast, to be able to feed him.

To be left with one arm, to cuddle her son.

To be left with one foot, to rock his cradle with.

It’s one of the first legends to describe sacrifice for the common good. Though to this day, it’s reported that the inside of the walls run with breast milk…

We went out to the pedestrian precinct for dinner, and we had a lovely meal. It was bustling, and alive with music, local families, tourists, stray dogs, and food thieves.

YES! We were sitting with a couple from Sydney and an old woman came up, started ranting at them and then swooped in and stole one of Carol’s cabbage rolls off her plate and ran off.

The waiter said she is a local woman who lives with her family but is insane.

We also had a couple of child beggars coming up to our tables, asking for money. That was sad.

Tomorrow we leave for Montenegro.

Dad joke of the day:

There is a downside to staying in a hotel close to a mosque, in a room that doesn’t have a plug low enough to plug a kettle in.
It was 4 AM, when the mosque started up again.We started laughing and gave up trying to sleep.

The internet at the hotel wasn’t cooperating yesterday, so I was frantically downloading the photos for yesterday’s post while most people were off the internet. Meanwhile, Sandy REALLY wanted a coffee.

What could she do?

There’s always a way around everything!

This country is officially called North Macedonia, but everyone drops the first word. The reason ‘North’ is there at all is that Greece has a region called Macedonia, where Alexander the Great came from. So when Yugoslavia fell, they objected strenuously against Macedonia being used. In order to get into the United Nations, a compromise had to be found.

Though a few years ago, just to rile the Greeks, Macedonia put up a statue of Alexander the Great.

Classic trolling.

The plan for today was a free morning, grabbing lunch before jumping on the bus for a few hours drive to Ohrid. Sandy was googling and planning while I was blogging, so our morning was productive.

Here is the Alexander the Great statue, with Blogless Sandy helpfully standing at the bottom to give it scale.

Skopje is a city that likes a sculpture. Our bus driver is from here. As we were driving in yesterday, Jake said, “Our driver doesn’t have a statue of himself in the city… yet. Just give it two or three years and he will have!”

There was also a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, like in Pyongyang.

Here we are posing on the Bridge of Civilisation, which has lots of ancient Greek guys on it.

My jeans are rolled up to try and stop them getting wet. I gambled that the rain wouldn’t come, and although it was spitting, the rain held off. As I’m wearing merino again on this trip, that made me happy. Smelling like a wet sheep isn’t great.

We’ve noticed many stray dogs here. They appear to be well fed, which is surprising, given that this country is heavily Muslim. I remember in Zanzibar that dogs were never to be seen.

It was nice to see this kennel.

The Art Bridge is way famous. It’s lined with artistic Macedonian guys from all branches of the creative arts.

Unfortunately, some of the plaques have come off. I don’t know who this man is, but even as a statue his gaze sees right through you.

This one was cool. Swishing his arms around like that.

Action shot.

Zoom in on his little pointy shoes!

Meanwhile, the artistic women were chucked up on top of a building…

Mother Teresa was born here. There’s a Mother Teresa House here, but I’m not terribly interested in a woman who denied medicines and pain killers to sick people because it was god’s will that they should suffer. These quotes are all you’re going to get, I’m afraid.

The ancient fort was built in the 6th century. From the outside it gives Tower of London vibes, with the old stone walls within a bustling modern city. I didn’t go inside. By all accounts it hasn’t been well looked after, so it’s not worth seeing.
I’m sure when they get sick of making statues – or they run out of room – they’ll get around to some restoration work here.

On the way back to the hotel, we bumped into Jake leading many of the group down to see the sights.

We were glad that we chose to see the city while it was uncrowded. I’m finishing this up while lying on my bed. I’ll have a short Power Nap before we check out and move onto the next town.

It was my turn for the window seat. It was a shame that I was so sleepy after our early morning call to prayer.

We drove over the mountains and they were wreathed in cloud. We stopped halfway for a toilet stop, and when we headed off again, practically the whole bus fell into deep sleep. I know I did. I was dreaming, and a couple of times I surfaced, realising that my mouth was wide open, which is a sure sign that you’ve been sleeping sitting up.

When Jake woke us all up, the sun was shining and we were 10 minutes away from the ancient city of Ohrid.

This place is a popular tourist destination for the area, with plenty of people from Serbia, Albania and Turkey wandering around. It was a Saturday, and I imagine in high season it must get packed.

This statue is a celebration of the activity they do here on the 19th January. Epiphany- the baptism of Jesus.

A bishop drops a wooden cross in the freezing water. Over a thousand young people jump in after it. The one who gets it will be lucky forever.

We began our walk into the old city at the waterfront, then moved up the hill, heading for the amphitheatre.

Along the way was the church of St Sofia. This one has a fantastic story.

St Sofia was originally built in the 11th century, but before this, there are ruins showing that 3 Christian churches were also on this site.

Underneath those ruins, there are the ruins of pagan temples. This has always been considered a holy place.

It’s famous for its fresco paintings. These originate from the 11th and 14th centuries.

The Ottoman Empire changed the church into a mosque. Rather than demolish the church, they covered the frescos with white plaster, because mosques always have plain white walls.

It remained that way until after WWII.

An international team saved 60% of the frescos. Can you imagine how carefully they must have worked, chipping away at that plaster??

I really wanted to see those frescoes.

We were heading off, so I raced down to the door and snapped this. It was a tantalising sight, but I couldn’t linger. It was off up the hill again.

There are many pearl shops here. Our guide explained that these are hand made. They take a granule of mother-of-pearl, then coat it in many layers of a compound they make from fish gills. Each layer takes 45 minutes to day before they can add another one.

There are over 100 churches in the Old Town alone. This why this town is known as the Jerusalem of the Balkans. This is one of the smaller ones, built in the late 19th century and consecrated to Saint Barbara.

Wood fires…

… and an Hellenic amphitheatre. This pre-dates the Romans.It was built in the 3rd century BC by the Greeks.

When the Romans came, they kept it and used it for gladiatorial games.

When the Slavs arrived, they used it for public executions.

It was deliberately covered by the traumatised population and was forgotten about for centuries, until it was rediscovered in the 1970’s.

The original stones are below. The seats are new.

Church of Saint Jovan the Theologian at Kaneo. This, according to the local guide, is the biggest tourist attraction in the city. To be honest, I’m not sure why.

I would have thought that the thousand year old frescoes in St Sofia would draw the crowds. The views of the lake outside the church are very pretty, though.

On the way back down, we passed this stray dog. The strays here are beautifully mannered and are cared for by the community. When stray dogs are collected, instead of being euthanised, they are sterilised. That’s what the tag on its ear signifies.

When we got down to the harbour, I had great news. Instead of taking us straight back to the hotel 4 kms away, we were staying in town for 90 minutes for dinner and exploring.
I couldn’t see the frescoes after all! Blogless Sandy and I didn’t waste a minute.

Imagine being hidden for so long?

I took a video, but it wouldn’t upload no matter how many times I tried,,, and I tried a lot of times.

I guess you’ll simply have to go there yourself,

Then it was dinner on the waterfront, with a beer for Blogless Sandy and a pink gin and tonic for me, because that’s how we roll.

in a place like this, dinner by the water is practically mandatory, isn’t it?

Dad joke of the day:

This morning was a replay of yesterday. We headed off for a walking tour of the old town of Sofia, going back over much of what Todor and I covered yesterday.

The good thing was that we had 3 hours afterwards to see whatever we wanted, before we had to get on the bus and leave Bulgaria forever.

Before we separated, the group went through the Alexander Nevsky church (again.) It turned into being one of the funniest churches I’ve been in.

Look at the face of this guy.

Now look at Jake, our guide. He comes from Croatia, but he must have a great-grandfather who had a secret second family in Bulgaria.

He laughed when I said this. “ Who knows? It’s very possible,” he said.

A painting of a Tasmanian.
That’s an Australian joke.

Look at the strained expression on this poor little lion.

He’s holding up a lot of marble.

“Who farted??”

See? This church was hilarious.

As we wandered through the parks, there were lots of interesting sculptures.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, I’m partial to a sculpture or two.

As we were walking back towards where our meeting point would be, we saw the church of St George. It’s is a late antiquered brick rotunda in Sofia, Bulgaria. Built in the early 4th century CEas Roman baths, it became a church inside the walls of Serdica, capital of ancient Dacia Mediterranea during the Roman and Byzantine eras.[1]The early Christianchurch is considered the oldest building in modern Sofia and belongs to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

Here is a better view of St Sofia than the one I took yesterday. She is the patron saint of wisdom, which is why she has the owl perched on her arm.

Blogless Sandy wanted to go back through the Roman ruins, while I wanted to go back to St Sofia church and have a good look at the interior, without a funeral getting in the way. I also wanted a photo of the decapitated president.

Look at what I saw! What a great name for socks. 🙂

Seeing as the church was the furthest away, we walked there first.  As you can see, it doesn’t look terribly impressive from the outside.
the wreaths are from the equivalent of our Anzac Day from a couple of days ago.

Blogless Sandy visited it yesterday, but didn’t realise there was the crypt beneath it. So she prowled through the ancient graves, while I wandered around and drank in the beauty.

“ You went all the way to Sofia, and all you brought me was this lousy cross?”

Todor pointed this sculpture out yesterday.

The “decapitated” Bulgarian leader sculpture is a bronze monument in Sofia’s Kristal Park dedicated to Stefan Stambolov, a 19th-century Prime Minister known as the “Bulgarian Bismarck”. Unveiled in 1995, the sculpture features a severed head with a split, commemorating his 1895 assassination where he received 24 fatal knife wounds. 

I liked this view of the Russian church.

We wandered through the Roman ruins, both underground and outside. 

Blogless Sandy contemplating her own mortality.

Putting my foot over an ancient Roman mosaic floor was a bit of a thrill. 

Ancient water pipes for indoor plumbing in the 3D century. Amazing.

Remember the tiny church built on a hill with a dug out floor? This is the back of it. 

I liked this view of the mountains. Both modern and ancient people had the same view.

On the road again! Snow-capped mountains on one side …

… and a Smokey power plant on the other.

After a one and a half hour border crossing … no, I’m not joking … we were in Macedonia.

A charming thing we soon noticed was that there were poppies along the sides of the roads.

“When my mother was young and kids were sick, the adults used to grind up a few poppy seeds to get them to sleep,” said Jake. He also mentioned that Albanian has poppy fields for the heroin trade.

After we checked into our hotel in Skopje, we gathered in the foyer and walked 5 minutes to the old town, where we found dinner. Macedonia has its own currency and we were warned that it might be difficult to find a place that would take euros.
But we’re only in the country for a couple of days. I didn’t want to risk being left with money I couldn’t use. So we decided to risk it. After all, if all else failed, I had protein bars that taste of chocolate flavoured plaster board to fall back on.

The first place we asked, they were happy to take euros as payment. I mean, they’d be stupid if they didn’t. They’d be actively turning away business.

Again, dinner was lovely and pretty cheap. Nothing like the shock of Icelandic prices, thank god!

We walked back to the hotel with the wailing call to prayer from the local mosque ringing in our ears.

We went to bed and we’re just drifting off to sleep when this hit.

Honestly, all you can do is laugh.

Dad joke of the day:

After 30 hours of travel time – we made it! Blogless Sandy and I are in Europe.

Fortunate Frogdancer struck again. We arrived here mid-morning, with the official tour starting tomorrow, which meant that today was a free day. Todor, a Bulgarian friend I made on the Greenland tour last year, offered to show me around.
Speaking of Greenland, the cruise ship that has had the hantavirus outbreak is the same one that I went to Antarctica in 2022 and Greenland only last year. I guess I got lucky with the timing of those trips! Who knew?

Blogless Sandy headed off with Brian and Quinh, who were on our Taiwanese trip in March, while Todor and I jumped in his car and went looking for a parking space near the sights.

As we were walking along, he pointed out this building. It was originally like a Master Craftsman building, where if you are given the nod as being a skilled worker, you had to work on the building in some capacity to showcase your talents. Nowadays, it’s a bank.

We walked to the door and entered, only to be told by a doorman that we couldn’t come in. There was a bit of back and forth in Bulgarian, then Todor pulled out his phone and made a call. The doorman instantly changed his tune when he saw who came down the stairs to greet us.

We were shown some lovely period details.

The colours! The ceilings that were so high you could have fitted another whole floor in!

They seem to be fond of the gold leaf in this country.

Look at this stunning wisteria! The trunk was huge, so it must’ve been there for ages.

”You’ve chosen the right time to come to Sofia,” said Todor. I was pleased. It’s the first thing I google when I’m considering a place to travel to.

Sofia has lots of parks and trees, as well as plenty of paved squares for people to gather together. Like Melbourne, it has its fair share of graffiti. Blogless Sandy said that Brian said that if they cleaned the place up a bit and gave everything a fresh lick of paint, it would be a stunning city.

It has a lot of buildings that were put up in the late 1800’s, with that simple, classical design.

Not that this is an example of simplicity.

The first church we went into was the Russian church, with the fabulous name of The Church of St Nicholas The Miraclemaker. It’s a Russian Orthodox Church.

It had art everywhere, covering the walls and ceilings. The lighting was dim, but maybe that was the fault of the day being a bit overcast.

It’s a bit hard to miss this cathedral… the Alexander Nevsky cathedral. He was a Russian saint who defended the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholics in the 13th century. Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire until very late in the game, with the city of Sofia being designated as the official border between the two brands of Christianity.

Consequently, Bulgaria has very few Catholic churches.

I’m sure Nevsky would appreciate this church being given his name. It’s a landmark – you can see the gold domes from our hotel room.

But for me, the pick of the churches was the one that the actual city of Sofia was been named for.

The church of St Sofia was built in the 4th century and is still in use today. There was a funeral going on when we were there, which is why I don’t have many photos of the interior. I want to come back tomorrow to really have a good look around. That brickwork is stunning.

It’s had a tempestuous history, starting off as Christian, then becoming a mosque in the 16th century before reverting back to the Christians in the 19th century.

However, the crypts underneath the church are interesting, with the work coming from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

The graves are all empty now.

Still pretty.

I took this video to show you how it felt being underground in the place where who knows how many people have been laid to rest, hearing the funeral being performed above my head. It was quite eerie and beautiful.

I was wearing the same ring back in 2015 when I touched Jane Austen’s writing desk.

A statue of Mercury.

A puppet in a shop window.

St Sofia in the middle of town.

Like in Rome, Sofia still has a flourishing water system from thousands of years ago. These fountains continuously provide hot mineral water, with people leaving big plastic bottles there so people can take some home.

Naturally, I took the chance to fill in my water bottle.

This is the very elegant bathing building for the hot springs, where you can almost see all of the Regency ladies moving in and out, taking the waters for their health.

The Banya Bashi mosque.

Luckily for me, they had a selection of head scarves out the front.

The acoustics were pretty good. I coughed, and the sound wasn’t lost. It must sound amazing in here when they’re preaching.

I’m really starting to struggle with jet lag, so the rest of this post will be brief.

A while ago, Sofia discovered the remains of the Roman ancient city when they were building a subway. The station exists side by side with the ruins, with archeological discoveries continuing to be made.

I love the way Sofia has accommodated the past into the present.

This little old church was built at a time when there was a law stating that a church wasn’t allowed to have a roof taller than a warrior on a horse. So rather than have churches where everyone had to crouch to fit in, they simply built them on high ground and then dug the ground out from under them, rather like digging for a basement.

There’s always a way around anything, isn’t there?

And to finish – a few murals.

Phew! Finished.
I’m getting really sleepy, but we agreed to go out for dinner with Brian and Quinh at 6pm. That’s only 20 minutes away, but with Melbourne time being 12:40 am, we’re going to struggle.

I hope I don’t face plant into my dinner…

Dad joke of the day:

Today Blogless Sandy and I parted company. She was keen to climb more steps on a hike near Taipei 101, the building we visited on the first day here. I wasn’t enthusiastic, but I was going to go with her until Mel said that she was going to get new glasses.

We’d had the option to do that in China but we didn’t do it. I’ve always looked on that as a missed opportunity, so I ditched Blogless Sandy, and a small group of us set out in search of a clearer world with sharper edges.

Getting new glasses fits nicely into my habit of buying useful souvenirs.

Most shops in Taipei don’t open until 11am, so we dawdled our way to the department store. We killed some time at Daiso, where I bought a squeaky toy for the dogs; a hair clip for Georgia31 for looking after them; a nonstick spatula to replace the one I bought in Pyongyang in 2018; and the perfect gift for Tom34 and Sophie. I can’t tell you what it is, as he may be reading this. I’ll show you a photo once I give it to them. It made me laugh.

Mel, being a millennial, had googled where to go to get glasses made on the same day, so we followed like ducklings.

I decided that I wanted everyday glasses, as well as reading glasses, so here I am walking around the shop, seeing if the lenses were ok.
Being a frugal person who still likes her reading glasses frames, I simply replaced the lenses on those.

Oh! See the lanyard my phone is hanging from? We were given these when we rode the Breezy Blue train. I’ve been thinking about getting one, so I was rapt.

Here are my new “everyday “ frames.

Everyone was sharing what they were doing on WhatsApp, so we shared too.

We walked back to the hotel and I did what I did in Copenhagen… I gave myself half a day to rest. I read the most amazing book… The Push, by Ashley Audrain, I napped and decided to write this post. In 2 days I’ll be back home, so I wanted to recharge my introvert battery before it all starts again.

A few things about Taiwan I’ve forgotten to mention:

1. The garbage trucks play music, just like our Mr Whippy trucks do. Imagine how many disappointed children of Australian tourists there must have been over the years.
2. Their attitude towards the Japanese occupation is very different to China and North Korea’s. Japan conquered the other two countries and treated them terribly, but Taiwan was ceded to Japan and was considered as fully part of Japan. For the 50 years that the Japanese ruled Taiwan, they invested heavily in infrastructure. The Taiwanese seem to regard Japanese rule as a mere fact, not a mortal insult.
3. People here are really open and friendly. Even though Taipei, for example, is a big city, it feels safe and welcoming.
4. The pedestrian lights here have that wonderful feature of letting you know how many seconds there are to go before the light changes. I wish they’d do this in Australia. It’s really handy.
5. It’s not as bad as in Japan, but there are not many public bins around. We’ve learned to be prepared to carry our waste paper etc around with us.
6. Food is incredibly important here. The department stores make more money from their food courts than they do from the actual things that they sell. People are constantly snacking. I have no idea how they stay so slim.

This photo was posted in WhatsApp, with the caption, “Look Frogdancer! An easy 600 steps to the top!”

I was so glad to be in the glasses shop when that came through. What a horrible set of stairs, I thought as I was happily trying on different frames.

Later, when Blogless Sandy came back, I heard the full horror.

There was no let up to the steps. No flat portions to give people a breather. It was 600 steps straight up. Even she said that if she’d known that, she probably wouldn’t have done it.

But she did, and said the thing that every fool who climbs up a crazy hill says.
“The view was worth it.”

We decided to give the night market a miss on our last night, and instead we went down a tiny lane close to our hotel, to a place Mel told me about.

She’d had beef noodles there the night before and said they were good.

Beef noodles is apparently the most Taiwanese thing you can eat. So far, I’d never had it, so being our last night, it was now or never.

This was beef shank with flat noodles and it was delicious. This bowl cost $120 NTD, or $5 AUD.

Afterwards, my little addict and I went back to the bubble tea place, where, after counting her coins, she was ecstatic to realise that she had enough coins left for another bubble tea tomorrow morning before we leave for the airport.

Dad joke of the Day:

Here’s a glimpse of Sun Moon Lake through the trees, as I was pretending to take a picture while I was fighting for breath on a crazy uphill climb. Why, oh why do I climb things when I’m on holidays?
We were driving back to Taipei, and this was a beautiful place to stop for a few hours to break the journey.

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan. It’s in the mountains in central Taiwan, and is a huge holiday destination here.

It’s not connected to any other body of water and is 748 metres above sea level.

The Japanese made Sun Moon Lake into a dam and increased the depth of the lake by 3 times.

The walk to the pagoda goes up 570 metres. I was NOT a happy camper on the way up. It was a long walk.

Yes, I was grumpy. Look at the size of this thing! Not only had I walked up 500 metres, I still had to go higher.

”Frogdancer!” called Blogless Sandy from the top. “Come up!”

”No,” I said, but we all knew that I’d got my breath back. I was always going to climb up.

But ok… the view wasn’t bad.

I was still tired, though. But look at the mountains behind me.

Those 3 tiny figures on the ground are Cindy and a couple from the group. That’s how tall this pagoda is.

The lake went around three sides of the pagoda, and the mountains encircled us entirely.

The entire interior of this island is covered with mountains.

And what mountains! They’re how mountains should be; all straight up and down with fabulous shapes at the top.

We went down to the town for lunch, then we wandered around for an hour or so.

We sat for a while on the harbour, chatting with some of the group.

Some kid probably went to drama school for 4 years to end up doing this.

Boat time! We had a little cruise on the lake before we went back on the bus.

I tell you, my feet were looking forward to relaxing.

But not so fast…

We stopped off to walk UP to another temple. Bloody hell!

What was strange about this temple was that the monk who founded it had his remains (mainly just his head) split in two. The Japanese took him back to Japan when WWII broke out, and then after the war they gave half of him back to be buried here in this temple.

Half of him.

This was back at the dock when we came back down. It’s probably the monk, in happier times.

Mel took this shot, looking behind us on the bus as we made our way through the traffic back to Taipei. This is the last day of the guided tour. We have a free day tomorrow before we fly home on Friday.

This man takes his pet pig to the night market every night. I tell you what, he’s a big boy!

Dad joke of the day:

These are betel nut trees. People here like to chew them, also they are used for Chinese medicine to aid in digestion. They were planted all over the place in the mountains, as we saw on our way to the National Park.

The National Park is 2,300 metres above sea level. Michu Picchu is 2,400 metres, so this will be a little training. If I feel breathless while walking around here, I’ll know to take altitude medication with me to Sth America. (I felt fine, and I was racing around the place as nimble as a mountain goat. )

My ears popped three times while we were driving. These mountains are high.

We left the hotel at 8 am and we didn’t reach the park until after 10. It was a long drive, much of it seemingly straight up. The views were spectacular.

The mountains are so steep, so every piece of flat land was taken up with tea plantations and buildings. It reminded me of North Korea in that very little arable land was wasted.

Remember when I was in Japan this time last year and we were looking at the early cherry blossom? It’s here too.

The forest here is red cypress. Red cypress trees weren’t discovered until the Japanese came. They cut down heaps of them, to the point where there are hardly any mature trees left. The intense wood logging only stopped when Chiang Kai-Shek came to Taiwan.

The result is that there is a lot of erosion after earthquakes disturb the ground , because the smaller cypress trees can’t hold the earth together properly yet. Every now and then, some old trunks are left, to give an indication of just how big the original trees were.

Thankfully, the plan for today was to take a shuttle bus to the top of the mountain, then walk back down. The path was well-defined and easy to navigate. The only uphill climbing would be if people elected to walk fast and then go and see the Three Generations Tree at the other end.

This tree must have been monstrous.

Off we went. We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather.

A little way down the track, we rounded a curve and saw this. It was all fun and games until:

Well, damn.

Seeing as I wasn’t allowed to frolic, I set off again. See how this tree is holding on to the ancient trunk? To quote Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, “Life will find a way.”

The path kept heading downhill. It was actually fairly steep.

I looked behind me and I was pretty glad that Cindy didn’t make us walk both ways.

Cherry blossoms weren’t the only flowers. Magnolias!

All too soon, I was at the meeting place. We still had heaps of time left. I’d left Blogless Sandy behind at the No Frolic Lake, so I had lunch with Mel and Earnest, then, after getting directions from Cindy, I set off to find the 3 Generations Tree.

I was standing on a bridge looking at this. Imagine how pretty it would be when the river was full.

There were only a handful of people on the path with me. As I walked, I could hear bells from the temple I’d just left. This is such a beautiful place.

Across a stream and up a small hill … and there it was.

”Life will find a way.”

I had a little time up my sleeve, so I walked a little further and discovered the pagoda of the tree spirits.

I’m sure that having a concrete obelisk would be a comfort to all of the tree spirits whose forest was decimated by the Japanese. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound!

I poked my head into the temple when I came back and I saw this thing. Yes, I don’t know what it is, either.

Pretty, isn’t it? I sat here, watching the bees gather pollen and dislodging petals which fell to the ground.

It wouldn’t be a trip to Asia without a tour of a tea plantation. I didn’t buy anything. I still have tea from Vietnam, Japan, China and Borneo to get through!

We didn’t get a tour showing us how tea is produced, like in every other tea plantation I’ve been to. Instead, they had a singing and dancing show instead. It was all in Taiwanese, so when they were talking, I was on my phone messaging the kids.

Suddenly, a girl in costume was standing in front of me, holding out her hands. She wanted me to dance.
um…. Ok I guess…

I was lucky to be between two people who knew what they were doing!

We tried some tea.
I guess some people in the group don’t like tea much, judging by the expression. 😂
There was a sculpture in the garden…

In the bus on the way home, Cindy told us why the sculpture of a penis was there.

Two tribes in Taiwan have the penis statues. Their legends are different.

1. The first tribe tells of a house proud goddess who mops the floor, but whenever she does this she makes earthquakes happen. She sees the penis, she gets embarrassed and she takes off. The village is safe from earthquakes.
2. The second tribe tells of an evil goddess who brings bad luck wherever she goes. When she sees the penis, she gets embarrassed and leaves. Then the village is safe from bad luck.

”I don’t know why they think a goddess would be embarrassed by seeing a penis,” said Cindy, after telling us this.

And then it was back to the hotel. Blogless Sandy and I went out for sushi for dinner, and that was the end of a fantastic day.

Dad joke of the day:

This morning, we were whisked away to the Lotus Lake, which is a lake in the middle of Kaohsiung that doesn’t have lotuses in it anymore. However, what it does have is pagodas. This one turned out to be my favourite.

These pagodas were built in 1976 by the temple across the road. One had a dragon at the front and the other a tiger. You enter via the dragon’s mouth and exit by the tiger’s mouth.

I was surprised once we entered from the dragon’s mouth. The hallway was lined on both sides by ceramic art.

It was a shame. People had obviously worked hard on this, and here we all were, marching obliviously past. Look at the details in this thing. And there were hundreds of them.

Well, damn. Looks like I’m climbing more stairs.

A view of my soon-to-be favourite pagoda from halfway up the dragon pagoda.

This is the bridge to the pagodas from the road. Its shape is designed to confuse any evil spirits or bad luck that might wish to follow you.

One down, one to go!

Once I climbed both pagodas, it was time to cross the road and look at the temple.

OK.

It was a little bit ornate.

Even the roof was given the full treatment.

This is the god of good luck.

I thanked him for all he has given me, and asked him to keep up the good work.

I’d show you more photos, but after we all ate fresh pineapple from a little shop outside the temple, we walked down the street to another temple.

This one was dedicated to the god of war and the god of literature.

First the god of good luck and then the god of literature? This was my lucky day!

There he is! I thanked him for all of the stories.

You can see the smoke rising from the incense sticks, taking people’s wishes to heaven.

This temple was much larger, but the congregation have met the challenge of not letting any surface go undecorated.

Taiwan is super chill about different religions. They figure that if a religion has been around for awhile, then it means something and is deserving of respect.

So you can have a mosque beside a church beside a temple. It’s all good.

The day was beginning to heat up. Blogless Sandy and I headed out to the pagoda in the middle of the lake.

The further out over the water we got, the cooler the breeze became.

It was so lovely out there. The breeze was cool and so refreshing, and there was hardly anyone else sharing the space with us.
We stayed out there for around 15 minutes, just sitting there chilling.

On the way back I saw those turtles I’d been warned about.

We had lunch at a fast rail train station, because it has a big food court attached to it and this is a TripADeal tour, after all. I liked this sign.

On our way to Chiayi, where we’re staying for the next 2 nights, I snagged this bag of coriander Doritos. They were bright green, and surprisingly more-ish.

We visited Hinoki village, which is an arts and crafts precinct housed in buildings from when the Japanese ruled over Taiwan in the 50 years before they were defeated in 1945.
There were some lovely things being sold. My niece and her girlfriend are expecting a baby soon, and I may have bought a little something for them…

The Japanese garden in the middle of the buildings was beautiful.

We also saw what wasabi looks like.

Over dinner at the night market, we also found out what chicken testicle soup looks like. Cindy ordered it. She says that it tastes creamy…

Of course it does.

When I took the photo, Cindy laughed up at me. “ You’ve came all this way to look at testicles!”

“Well Cindy, I’ve been single a long time!” I replied. 🤣🤣

After dinner, we had an hour or so to walk around the night market.
Why they allow a market to be opened on a street, but still let traffic barrel through it is a mystery to me.
But then again, what could possibly go wrong?

This was the best sight to end the day. People here adaore their pets, and seeing a dog in a pram isn’t unusual.

But five? 😂😂

Tomorrow, we commune with nature.

Dad joke of the day:

Today had all the hallmarks of being a fun day… and it was!

In the morning we drove to a bike shop in the middle of a maze of rice paddies. We had the option of golf caddies, e-bikes or normal bikes for a couple of hours of fun tootling around, finding landmarks on the map we were given.

This is what we chose:

For $20 AUD each, it was a bargain. And it even had a Yoshi on the top.

I assumed Blogless Sandy would want to drive, but she said that she was happy to sit in the back seat, so I was given all the instructions by the bike man. 

As we set off, I decided to turn into the car park to practice. Just as well I did. I lost control of the bloody thing and we started careering everywhere. Cindy and the bike guy ran towards us, people were screaming and I lost my head and stuck my foot out to try and stop it that way.
It was only when I grabbed the brakes with both hands that the bloody thing stopped.
“No one drive near Frogdancer!” Sheridan yelled.
“Frogdancer, we’re swapping seats!” said Blogless Sandy.

I told her how to use the controls and we set off. Sedately. We had a great time over the drive, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as if I’d been kept behind the wheel!!

Not 5 minutes later, Harry and his pushbike fell into a rice paddy. He said it took him 10 minutes to wash the mud off his clothes, it was so sticky.

I was glad it wasn’t just me causing mayhem.

It was a beautiful morning. We cycled or drove around the narrow roads, enjoying the view. The rice paddies reminded me of when you get a quilt all pinned up, with the pins radiating out in straight lines.

Here’s one of the landmarks. Look at the mountains behind us. These rice paddies were in a valley between two mountain ranges. In front of us were the Central mountains, while the mountains behind hid the Pacific Ocean.

This was taken from another landmark, which was a high platform giving a bird’s eye view of the fields.

On the way back to the bike shop, Blogless Sandy slowed down when she realised that we only had 10 minutes left.
“Oh no. I don’t want this to end; I’m enjoying driving around here!”

After lunch at the train station, we hopped onto the iconic Breezy Blue train.
This is a restored 1950’s train that used to service the east coast of Taiwan, back in the day.

It even has authentic 1950’s air conditioning.

The train weaves its way through orchards of custard apples, mangoes, pineapple fields and rice paddies, and there are stretches where it runs along the Pacific.

I zoomed in to see these fishermen.

We stopped at an indigenous community for a while. To be honest, I found it a bit primary-school-excursion, but some people seemed to get into it.

The best part was this farewell song.

We also saw this dog, which was hobbled with this stick. It looked mean, until it was explained to us that it stops him from running too fast and chasing cars.

As we set off again, we saw the inky black sand on the beach. I had a flashback to Iceland.

It was a fun experience to ride the train.

We all piled out of the train to take a sunset photo, then 5 minutes later we were off again.

Then a few minutes later, we saw this:

How beautiful is this sun?

We arrived at Kaohsiung in the evening.

We walked to the local shopping mall on the river for dinner.
What a view.
Tomorrow morning we explore the city.

Dad joke of the day:

The view from my window before breakfast reminded me of something Cindy said on our first day. I can’t remember her exact words, so I’ll give you the gist.

She said that we may look at the buildings here and think that some are very shabby and need to be knocked down or repaired. The Taiwanese feel the same way. When Chiang Kai-shek lost the civil war in China in 1949 and fled to Taiwan, he brought 2 million people with him. Buildings were put up fast to house them.

Nowadays, most apartment blocks are privately owned. If any improvements are to be made on the facade, EVERYONE has to agree. I need say no more.

On a national level, the government has ruled that when a building is torn down, the site must remain vacant for 2 years before any rebuilding is done. Any person living there has to find another place to live for 2+ years, and if they’re paying rent, the rent would be much higher in the new place because… well, everything is new. Plus, show me a landlord that will happily forego at least 3 years’ rent??

So the buildings remain dilapidated.

Two years ago an earthquake struck Taiwan and Taroko Gorge was hit badly. 

Earthquakes usually last for a few seconds. This lasted over a minute. It not only shook side to side, but up and down as well, which was the killer.

The gorge was a major tourist attraction, and its closure has hit the hip pocket of the town nearby. The damage to the gorge was so severe that they estimate it’ll take until 2037 to repair and make it all safe.

Luckily for us, certain sections of the gorge are now open, as of early 2026. Fortunate Frogdancer strikes again!

It’s heavily controlled. Cindy has just warned us that we HAVE to be back on the bus on time, because the gate is only open for 5 minutes…

They weren’t kidding. Cars are queued up and if we don’t get through in time, we’ll have to wait until midday. Luckily for us, there was a gap in the queue and our driver nipped into it as quickly as a huge coach can nip anywhere.

Marble as far as the eye can see.

Blogless Sandy had the window seat today, so this is me, not taking photos and just looking at the scenery.

I couldn’t believe the colour of the water.

The walls of the gorge rise straight up. And when I say up, I mean UP. They are like hills that little kids draw.

Stunning, isn’t it?

Once we arrived at the car park, Cindy pointed to the pagoda. Yep, we’ll be climbing up to that.

Buddhist temple. Built in 1968. These are the first of 300 steps.

For some reason, it seems like everywhere I go, I have to climb something. I don’t know why.

I certainly don’t enjoy the actual climb itself.

I do enjoy the views at the top, and the feeling of relief when there are no more steps to climb.

The ease of going downstairs is also nice.

I suppose even monks have to dry the washing.

We stayed for about 20 minutes up here on the balcony. It was so pretty and peaceful.

They were drying daikon radishes in the sun.

This was a lovely calm boy. I’m sure he could smell Scout and Hazel on my jeans. He is trained to chase the monkeys away when they come to steal the offerings.

Of course, I walked to the pagoda.

Taiwanese toddlers are cool.

I asked Blogless Sandy to stand beside this statue for scale.

I was walking with Earnest, a lovely boy from Brissie, when out of nowhere this monkey jumped onto the girl in front of us. He was literally hanging off her, and he grabbed her water bottle.
omg.

Believe all the signs telling you to keep all food and drink out of sight. There were 2 more attacks in the car park.

Blogless Sandy took this one. There was a man killed for every kilometre of road, and the road goes for a couple of hundred kilometres. Imagine chipping through marble to turn a tiny track into a road big enough for a bus to drive down? You can see by the overhang how much rock they had to remove.

We went to an indigenous restaurant for lunch, which was very good. While I was there, Georgia31 sent me this photo of Hazel.

It’s the best photo of my girl I’ve seen. It’s now the wallpaper of my phone.

After lunch, we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us. Halfway through, we stopped to stretch our legs and take in the view. This is the Pacific Ocean.

They had some cool indigenous art scattered around.

Everyone loves a splash.

We arrived in Taitung just after 6:30. It was a long day, especially for the bus driver.

As he was parking in front of the hotel…. Crunch!

He backed into a van.

After we dumped our bags in the rooms, we walked with a nice couple to get dinner at the night market. As I was walking by a man with a little toddler, I saw him place the little boy on the kerb, then he put 2 boxes out into the street. He grabbed a lighter, and said to the boy, “Boom! Boom!”

Boom boom all right. It was spectacular.

We ran into a mother and son who are in our group. They’re Asian and they have very good taste in street food. We followed their recommendation and bought these fried batter balls with shrimp, octopus and veggies.

Delicious.

Dad joke of the day: