City of a Thousand Temples

Despite my having covid, we kept to our plan to take the high speed train to Tainan, the ancient capital, located on the southwest coast of Taiwan.

We were surprised (and happy) that the hotel near the train station that we would be staying at for one night on our return to Taipei agreed to store our big bags for the two nights we’d be in Tainan (although we had a hard time finding it, as it was actually located on the sixth floor of a high rise building—something we’d never seen before!).

We were virtually across the road from the train station, but the minute we stepped out on the sidewalk and began looking around to get our bearings, a lovely middle-aged woman rushed over to ask us if we needed help and pointed out our destination. A few minutes later, when we were having a hard time figuring out how to cross the busy road in front of the station, she magically appeared again the and steered us in the right direction.

It was that way throughout our stay in Taiwan. People just couldn’t have been more helpful and kind, even when they spoke only limited English.

The train station itself was a cavernous and soulless place, but the trains were ultra modern, comfortable and fast.

We were in Tainan in about 2 hours, and checked into our hotel in the old western quarter. Weirdly, the hotel was entirely beer-themed, which was completely lost on us non-beer drinkers, but it was modern and comfortable and centrally located.

At that point I needed a nap, so we rested for a while then went out exploring the area around the hotel, which was historic and absolutely chock-a-block with temples.

They were literally on every corner—elaborate Taoist and Buddhist shrines with altars piles high with offerings of fruit, boxed food, money, drinks and piles of joss papers.

Many of these temples dated back to the 16th century, and had beautifully carved wooden interiors. Most had pagoda style roofs topped with colorful dragons and other creatures.

One temple featured an outdoor puppet show, that was apparently quite entertaining.

Some of the smaller temples were quiet, but in the larger ones, we were floored to see scores of people, mostly young, lighting incense, praying, throwing wooden yin/yang sticks while making prayers and asking for divine answers.

We also noted that each temple had a separate oven-like structure where the joss papers were burned, stack after stack.

In every temple it was the same, and it was endlessly fascinating to us.

Unlike Taipei, however, Tainan was hot and humid, and still feeling the effects of covid (a little worse than a bad cold, a little better than the flu), I could only walk around for a while before needing to go back to the hotel for a rest.

That evening we decided to play it safe for dinner and go to a hot pot place, which we knew I could eat. We picked ‘spicy hot pot’ and the place was quite a bit more upscale than the family style restaurant we’d eaten at in Taipei. All the servers were very gorgeous, hip young people, and a few spoke enough English (helped by the Chinese GF card I carried) to make sure I didn’t accidently get glutened. It was a delicious meal, and even though in a fancy hotel, not expensive.

We ventured out the next day for a more ambitious tour of the city’s landmarks, travelling to the old port district of Anping where the French, British and Germans all had trading houses, a few of which have been preserved as museums.

An intact trading house had some interesting photographs from colonial times, giving some idea of what the area looked like in the 19th century.

One has been let go back to nature, the famous Anping Tree House, whose intact walls and window frames have all been taken over by fig trees. It is strangely beautiful and we enjoyed walking around the different levels to see what nature has wrought on the structures of man.

Later, (fuelled by some delicious gelato that we availed ourselves of everywhere we could throughout Asia), we walked to the large temple and ancient citadel complex, of which very little original remains.

There was a lively market, nearby where we watched people making some kind of caramelised sugar treat and I became transfixed by the many succulents for sale, some of which I had never seen before.

By afternoon, we were exhausted by the heat, noise and general sensory assault that is any large Asian city, and retreated back to the beer hotel for a rest. We didn’t have the energy to find a place to eat, so ducked into a nearby supermarket and bought some cheese, canned tuna, yogurt and fruit and went back to the hotel to snack on those and call it dinner.

Later that evening, when it was cooler, we decided to go out for one last walk and ran into some kind of religious procession, which was entertaining, and took in the sights and sounds of Tainan at night.

We walked through a motorscooter repair shop that was set up on the sidewalk and saw some questionable looking meat products, a sidewalk temple with a motorscooter inside, cafes spilling out onto the sidewalk,

We then walked along Tainan’s famous Shennong Street, which we had visited during the day, but was much more crowded and lively at night.

This street is famous because it retains many of the original shophouses that once covered the city before modern apartment blocks took over.

It was a charming street, hung with colorful lanterns and full of people shopping and enjoying the cooler evening air. It was a great way to end our short visit to Tainan.

The next morning, Tom awoke with unmistakeable symptoms that were confirmed by a covid test. He didn’t feel terrible, jut a bit sniffly, so we kept to our plan and took the train back to Taipei, where we were once again met by John and Hui Ching, who took us on a short visit to an important Taoist temple in Taipei, where Hui Ching was able to explain a lot of the things that were going on and elucidate us about some of the displays (such as columns of tiny illuminated windows with images of Buddha and different names) that had kind of baffled us in Tainan.

We then visited a small section of restored old shops which gave us some idea of what Taipei had  looked like in previous centuries, before going back to the hotel to pack and rest.

We got our own dinner that night in a kind of American style diner (again, like our hotel, located on the 5^th floor of a multistorey building) for the sole reason that it had a GF menu, which is practically unheard of in Asia. The food was not great, but it seemed very popular with young Taiwanese kids.

In the morning, we were once again surprised by John and Hui Ching, who had arranged a car to take us to the airport and had come to say goodbye. We had so enjoyed our time with them, and were sorry to be leaving, especially because our covid positive status had put a bit of a damper on the visit and meant that we couldn’t even give them proper hugs goodbye.

We talk to John regularly by Skype, but it was so great seeing him in his own home environment, and it was wonderful to get to know Hui Ching so much better and to see her in her own milieu, where she so clearly enjoyed showing us her home country and was such a knowledgeable and lively guide and the most kind and considerate host.

It was a great visit—though short, we learned so much and were delighted to travel around in a country that hasn’t yet been invaded by hordes of European and American tourists. Our next stop, Singapore, promised to be quite different….