Impressions of Taiwan

This was actually my second trip to Taiwan. The first trip a couple of years ago was vey brief and only for two days. This time I was going to be in Hsinchu for a week and then would be visiting Singapore for 4 days before coming home. I was looking forward to my visit in the hope of getting to know this country a little better.

I visited two cities in Taiwan,  the mecca of semiconductor manufacturing and electronic companies Hsinchu and a day's trip to the capital city of Taipei. Hsinchu is a very small city primarily developed due to the presence of semiconductor manufacturing companies such as TSMC , UMC and the many "TEK" or "TEC" companies all around. My first impression of the city is a somewhat  a cross between an American city and a messy typical Indian city. The place follows American standards of orderliness but probably not as spic and span and has the occasional water spilling on to the streets from a shop or some unruly shrubs lining the footpaths. Of course the sights and smell of non vegetarian delights are overwhelming - not so much a delight for my vegetarian friends, and to some extent even for me it was sometimes a little too overbearing ! The streets are also crowded with two wheelers , not too many motor bikes though, mostly scooties and everyone big or small , wearing the compulsory helmet.

Hsinchu is lined with innumerable eating places - and I really mean innumerable - there is some small outlet selling food at every step. Most of these places are not really elaborate sit and dining places though. A lot of them are just takeaway joints and others have a couple of small tables and chairs , though the prevalent system seemed to be taking away food in predesigned boxes. In between the food places are endless tea joints - not the kind of tea you have in mind - but exotic tea such as fruit teas, green fruit tea, bubble tea with milk and so many other variations of tea !! The signage is totally in Mandarin , so on the first day we relied on the pictures along with the writing to help us decide what to eat. I settled for a non adventurous chicken with rice dish from a very small joint which had a long queue and lots of people packing dinner boxes to take home. You could always find the familiar Pizza Hut or McDonalds or Starbucks all around as well if local fare didn't suit your palate.

the many dumpling places that lined the streets

I later found out that cooking is not something that most people indulge in. With the variety and abundance of eating joints, dinner was something carried home from these places , rather than cooked at home. I understood this phenomena and a little more about this culture further during my next couple of days at the office. Folks in the office (and this was not special about MediaTek, but seems to be a practice in all the companies around) come early morning into work , start the day with breakfast served in the office cafeteria , but usually packed and carried back to the desk. Then there is a set time for lunch at 12 noon to 1pm. The office cafeteria is full of people lining up in queues to the huge number of food joint options. There is a vegan stall which is a survival strategy for my vegetarian companions :) The lunch hour is ideally meant for eating and a short nap since lights are turned off during this time and just before 1, there is a soothing music that plays and wakes you up to the second half of the working hour. 6pm and dinner time starts with folks making a bee line towards the cafeteria again. Almost 90% of the work force has dinner in the office. After a point I couldn't help but ask some of my colleagues working there why they wouldn't go home for dinner and the answer wasn't very coherent or convincing giving me the feeling that I was asking very unnecessary questions and weekday dinners were meant to be spent away from home with office colleagues. This was independent of men or women really ..  Not only this , there were many many colleagues of mine who stayed in Hsinchu through the week and would only go home (to Taipei or other towns) over the weekend which was designated as family time. There were a very very few exceptions who said they had to leave early (at 8pm ! ) as they needed to get home to help with young kids at home etc. I of course didn't get enough of my answers , so I prodded on to figure out what the children did and where did they fit in this picture. From what I understood most children would go to a day care post school where they would complete their homework, do exercise, play games, have dinner and then the parents would pick them up and take them home.

Even though I was shocked a bit initially at the way the whole system was set and how family time didn't really seem to play too much of an important part in the overall social fabric , I got to thinking of home and how maybe things really weren't so different here after all. Maybe except for the cooking part or the having dinner together part, our lives were pretty much the same of spending long hours in the office and having little time with family or children. But there was a difference - and  I think the biggest difference is in the "acceptance factor". There was an overall acceptance of the work culture and very little demand from the home front for other time - basically there was no conflict of the "time and duties" at the work place versus your personal space. Even though I have also kept my children in the creche, I have also travelled extensively leaving my kids behind at home with a caretaker, I have continuously felt conflict and tension of how kids would grow up to be and whether this was the right thing to do and so on and so forth ! But that was not the case there and the acceptance also gave folks a wondrous sense of peace in a way. You didn't see folks walking around very stressed with all the hard work and long hours they were putting in, there was in fact a sense of fulfilment , a general sense of well being all around. That is what really hit me pretty hard.

Taiwanese folks seem to be in general a peace loving set of people. Not too many folks are religious either from what I could make out of my conversations with them. They were a hard working nation, focused and disciplined.  The children started off early in life this way - I used quite a bit of public transport through my stay and did not find a single unruly child around - most of them were soft spoken , very disciplined , and seemed to be listening to their parents. But they didn't look subdued , on the other had they all looked very happy indeed full of child like mischief as well !

The other thing that I felt in the country, both in Hsinchu as well as Taipei is the safety levels. Given that I walked late nights back from the office or in general after dinner or on the MRT or on the roads in Taipei - not once did I have a creepy feeling or a general unsafe feeling at all which was pretty amazing. I read in an article later on that violence was almost non prevalent in Taiwan and it was one of the safest countries to visit. This was something I truly "felt" first hand. In my mind it was really a combination of two things - the people themselves seem to be a no-nonsense types keeping to themselves in general and also the law and order is very well regulated and maintained. In Taipei , we visited the Chiang Kai Shek memorial and also watched the change of guard at the place. I learnt that all Taiwanese folks had to go through a mandatory military service for a couple of years after college - I think that definitely added to their overall attitude of discipline and hard work at the work place and beyond. The military guards did seem very stern and not someone you would generally like to mess with :)

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial at Taipei

We took the HST (The High Speed Train) from Hsinchu and reached Taipei within just half an hour - the train travels at a top speed of 300km per hour. But the experience was more than just the speed of the train. We took the train on a Saturday , so it was very crowded, but while waiting for the train at the station, people automatically formed queues to enter the train and once it stopped, waited patiently for those inside to come out and then go in. This is something that we could learn from very well. Come to think of it, people even formed queues in front of the lifts during rush hours in the morning or in the evening at the office - there was a general sense of patience and co-existing with others which is a foreign concept to many folks in my dear country unfortunately.

Taipei is a lovely city. The public transport system is flawless - you have the options of the MRT, the public buses and the taxis which don't cost a bomb , so pretty useful in going from point to point. We didn't go up to the top of the Taipei 101 , which was once the tallest tower in Asia. We did have lunch in the food court though where there was a lot of local fare available including stalls selling several body parts of the pig including pig blood cake and other delicasies that I didn't have the stomach for :)

Taipei 101 from a distance

I also visited the city's largest flower and Jade market and absolutely fell in love with the countless shades of the orchids and exotic tropical plants and flowers. Not only were there plants and flowers on sale, but there were several handicrafts , pottery, furniture on sale too. For a person like me, it was paradise - of course I had limited means of buying or bringing back the stuff with me , so  I had to settle for only a couple of knick knacks.

We didn't have much time to visit all the temples , but we did go to the Longshan Temple - it was just amazingly beautiful. The colour and carvings of the temple towers, the carvings of Chinese "angels" and "warriors" on the iron pillars and the colour everywhere was a different experience altogether. People went there to pray just like we do in our temples here - but the offerings would range from anything to a packet of sugar or biscuits to fruits and sweets and some special pineapple cakes. The arrangements of orchids and our homely champak were fascinating.

I also had the chance to walk around a local market at Hsinchu on one weekend morning and found it very amusing that the vendors were old men and women sitting on the sides of the streets just like at home and hawking their fares of vegetables or home made tofu , or several species of mushrooms that I wasn't even aware of , many exotic fruits such as the dragonfruit, rambutan, green gage, varied melons, huge guavas , grapefruit, and some others that I couldn't exactly place.

I tried my best to converse with anyone I could in the shops on the street - but conversations are a little tough as most of the local folks are not conversant in English at all - so you can make progress with limited sign language or with the help of Google translator in many cases. Taiwan in a sense is a much younger country given its political turmoil and history of the past and always having been under some colonisation - but the progress it has made over the last 5 to 6 decades the strides this country has made of progress and the kind of industries it can boast of are close to none other across the world. I am definitely impressed and I can't help but compare with my own country and why we can't seem to do more with the talent and work force that we have at home. I  enjoyed my short visit and am looking forward to going again and visiting the smaller towns around the next time. 

A short Nilgiri break !

This summer, its just been planning and planning a vacation with no option really working out for a variety of complex reasons. So I decided to quit planning and venture instead back to a place we had tried to visit long ago which unfortunately ended in a terrible nightmare of a road accident. This was near Bandipur and we never made the trip since then to Red Hills , a place near Ooty where we were supposed to be going.  Seven years hence and we decided to visit the same Red Hills but instead of driving straight through, we thought it would be better to break the jinx by stopping shortly after Bandipur at Masinagudi.

So we started off on our journey on Friday morning , 10th April. All packed and set for our road trip, we left around 6:50AM in our Honda Jazz. I decided to take the wheel to start off the journey which was not per the plan though. I had vowed not to drive on this trip since the last time around I was driving on this route, the ending wasn't too happy. But I didn't want D to drive the whole way, so I drove for the first 4 hours. Since it was still early morning, we actually managed to zip through out of the main city and got on to Mysore highway within about an hour which is like record time , driving from Whitefield. Surprisingly there wasn't the usual chaos after Kengeri as well and it was pretty smooth driving all the way. We stopped for a short coffee break at Bidadi Cafe Coffee Day. The last time we were on this Mysore Highway was two years ago when we drove to Mysore and Coorg. It's amazing how the outskirts and districts after Bangalore are expanding. A couple of years ago, there were just vast stretches of greenery on both sides and even though there were signs announcing the small towns of Ramnagar (of Sholay fame) , Channapatna , Mandya etc, you could just pass by through the town without realising these were districts or towns that you were passing through. But now there are actually big banners announcing "Silk City Ramnagar", "Toy City Channapatna" , " Sugar City Mandya" etc and there are traffic signals at each of these town junctions . There was definitely more locality and more civilisation than desired and more highway as well as local traffic added to that. Soon we crossed Srirangapatna and entered Mysore. After a couple of questions here and there, we were on our way towards Bandipur now crossing Gundelpet on the way. The weather was bright and sunny , a tad too hot. The boys in the back seat were patient only for a short part of the distance. After Mysore , when D started driving, B was in the front seat and I was at the back with T lying down , my lap his pillow. We entered Bandipur forest reserve and were greeted by the usual monkeys - big, small, tiny, all busy trying to find food being thrown by passengers passing by or eating the food they had already found. Tiny ones clutching their mother's tummies while the mothers deftly crossed roads with the babies tucked underneath. We were soon greeted by lovely spotted deer as well - they seemed to be totally at ease with all the cars and people watching them. Happily grazing in flocks in the middle of the jungle. And of course the Indian tourist crowd continues to believe that they are infallible because in spite of the many warning signs saying "Do not stop vehicles; Do not stop to take photographs; Do not feed animals" - our friends happily stopped their cars, bikes anywhere and everywhere along the way, feeding the monkeys , coaxing the deer and hoping no elephants or tigers, leopards came charging at them !

After a while, we crossed the state border and entered Tamil Nadu and Bandipur changed to Mudumalai but the same forest continued. We didn't get to see any more deer as we had slowly started climbing the hills. The place we were going to halt at for the day and that night was called Campfire Nights and we had read rave reviews for this place on TripAdvisor. We reached a place called Theppekadu and had to park our car there as the road beyond that point to the resort wasn't really made for a city car  - needed a jeep to transport us to the resort. It was a short 5 minute very bumpy ride up the hill in the resort jeep which both kids thoroughly enjoyed of course. The first impression of the place was that of abundant freedom nestled cozily in the lap of the Nilgiris which you could see from the resort all around. It was just so peaceful and serene .. vast open stretches of grassy land with a tree or two adorning the landscape and bamboo clusters of the Mudumalai forest marking the boundary of the resort. Samantha (the proprietor) explained that they were the last ones to own land near the forest boundary and hence this unique positioning. By the time we reached Campfire Nights, it was past 2:30, and we were famished , so we dived into the scrumptious lunch that awaited us at the central eating area. The number of cottages are very limited and we were fortunate to actually have the place completely to ourselves for the one day that we stayed there, so the experience was even more beautiful. Finishing a wonderful lunch with a unique salad of lettuce and oranges, chicken biriyani, chicken kababs, rotis and a sabzi , we were too heavy to dive into exploration immediately .. so we just took it easy for a while - as in D and me - because B&T were busy playing cricket and badminton since these props were promptly presented to them post lunch and they had the whole area to themselves - happily running around playing.

After a while we started off on a trek to the top of a small hillock behind the resort. It wasn't too high but the path was filled with small boulders and stones which were kind of loose , so a little dangerous if one was not careful enough. I realised that B&T were actually mountain goats :)  as they effortlessly climbed up to the top , slipping a bit here and there but they made it okay. Once we reached the top we had a lovely view of the whole of Masinagudi .. the sudden brightness of the gulmohar blooms greeting us amidst the patch of light and dark greens of the forests all around. The sky was dark with clouds gathering in the distance and it was oh so so windy all around. I was actually scared at a point that the wind would simply blow T away - he looked so tiny suddenly atop the hill and was literally swaying in the wind ! So we decided to start walking back down. There was a small temple nearby  - we found out later on that it was built by Mithun Chakraborty and he owned the Monarch Resort as well just next door ..
   
We came back to our cottage and sat resting outside on the chairs waiting for our coffee. Darkness fell too soon for our liking and after a while there was really no point sitting outside , so we went inside the cottage. The lights inside weren't too bright as is typical in all these jungle places , so there wasn't much to do. After a while Samantha knocked on the door and whispered to us to look into the distance just where the jungle edge started as she shone the torch that side. We saw a hundred pair of eyes or so shining in the dark .. all the deer would come there to rest at night ! Would have loved to see them even closer but it was an enthralling sight just to see them there. After another wonderful dinner rounded off with perfect chocolate mousse , we retired back to our rooms. There was some undue excitement with B as he discovered that the door was completely covered with ants and he coined a new word called antophobia - though these were jungle ants and not the biting types but definitely it added to the wilderness experience :)

I spent a good part of the next morning sitting outside watching the sky, and the birds flying around the open space - I can't exactly explain but they actually looked so happy flitting all around , small black birds with pointed wings , swooping down near the ground and taking flight again, not rising too high, just going around in circles as if playing tag with each other .. I have rarely felt so much at peace. One day and night were too short a time to be spending here. We spent the rest of the morning walking through the jungle area beyond the resort boundary. The jungle wasn't so dense but still a jungle with all its beauty. A big water area greeted us at the start with swooping dense bamboo bordering the edges - I missed it but D and R claimed to have seen a turtle resting on the rock in the middle and then jumping into the water. We spotted a lot of deer running around and playing hide and seek with us - they would run away as soon as they spotted us looking at them , but after a while, we would see them peeking out from behind the trees or bushes looking for us - they were so adorable - especially the baby ones running behind their mothers ..

After a hearty breakfast , we set out for Ooty. We decided not to take the short cut with the 34 hair pin bends and instead drove through Gudalur. This route was undoubtedly more scenic , even though it added almost two hours to our drive. The roads were terrible though, full of many potholes. But the majestic drooping bamboo forests looked just beautiful and lent their shade to the otherwise very sunny day. Unfortunately though as we were driving in to Ooty, it started raining very heavily. The drive through unknown hilly roads through the rain was not exactly thrilling especially with two cranky and very hungry children. After 4-5 hours of drive and several frantic phone calls to Mr Vijay Kumar asking for directions, we finally reached Red Hills Resort at 3:30pm. The first look of the place was just beautiful - nestled in the middle of nowhere , cradled in the middle of the Nilgiris all around. And of course added beauty was we being greeted by Moby the 8 year old German shepherd who insisted on playing fetch with us the moment we landed and was hugged by B .. Moby was our companion through our stay at Red Hills. I love dogs for sure but Moby has an extra extra special place in my heart. Moby is a gentle giant - he sniffed his way to our room all the way at the top and patiently waited outside with a big stone in his mouth which would be used to play fetch as soon as we came out of the room.

The rooms were big and lovely with old period furniture and a fireplace for very cold wintry nights. The view from our verandah outside was breathtaking with Emerald Lake and all the other lakes of the catchment area clearly visible from there. The various flower patches all around the cottages in vivd colours of yellow, pink, purple and the wide green lawn at the front with the backdrop of the mountains makes Red Hills seem like those places we would read about in English fairy tales in our childhood. What made it even more special for me though was the vegetable patch at the back growing everything from  broccoli, purple cabbage , scarlet beans, carrots, cauliflowers to all types of herbs and exotic stuff like artichokes and brussels sprouts. I had never seen how brussell sprouts and artichokes actually grow and it all looked so picture perfect. I went on and on taking tours within the garden and admiring the bounty of produce - this was like the vegetable garden of my dreams !

The first morning at Red Hills after a filling breakfast of idlis, set dosas, excellent sambar , the most delicious strawberry jam ever ,with toast  and gulping down many cups of tea , we set off for a trek to the hilltop behind Red Hills. Apparently this is the fourth tallest peak in the Nilgiris region. It was a steep climb all the way 1000 Ft up to the hilltop. But the trek was just so much fun. B&T continuously complained that I was always too worried about them and wasn't letting them wander off to the edges though. But they both were pretty impressive climbing all the way to the top. The flora and fauna through out the trek was so pretty as well. Except that we were a couple of weeks early for the actual summer blooms to be in full force. I could only imagine how pretty the landscape would look like when all the flowers would be in full bloom and glory. Our guide who helped explaining the landscape to us in broken hindi and english mixed with tamil , was telling us about how the hills all around looked completely blue during the ritual blooming of the kurunji. I am eagerly waiting to visit during the next bloom in a couple of more years. We reached the top after almost two hours of the steep climb and were mesmerised by the views of the Emerald and Avalanche lakes below and the surroundings. The whole place looked so pristine and untouched and I could very well relate to why the place was called Nilgiri's best kept secret .. The clouds started to gather as we reached the top , so without further adieu , we started our trek downwards. Going down was far tougher than going up actually and was a little bit tough on my poor knees - but once we reached our cottage and after a nice shower, we were all geared up for a sumptuous lunch. There we were introduced to Moby's friend Mika - a one year old golden retriever, full of energy and so very very naughty  and completely adorable. If Mika would trouble us a tad too much , Moby would make sure he would put her in place and scold her  ! They were absolutely the most adorable pair of canines ever !

The next day we also met the resident white calf who was just a few days old - her fur was oh so soft but she was a little timid and didn't really let me pat her too much .. I managed to wake up fairly early to catch the break of dawn. D was of course ahead of me with his camera gear capturing the ethereal beauty of the morning mist over the lakes in the catchment area. The colours were  a mix of sunrise pink, orange , the different shades of blue in the sky and the mist .. I could sit there for hours watching the beauty of the lakes.

We spent the morning trekking down all the way to the lake. This was walking through the tea gardens through the first part and then through the jungle where we encountered two huge black faced monkeys. I wanted to breathe and breathe in the fresh air and the fragrance of the hills as much as possible so that I could store it inside me to take out and inhale in my solitary moments. I have never experienced this kind of freshness in the air .. Once we reached the lake, I was pleasantly surprised at how pristine and sparkling clean the lake was. Amazing that it wasn't allowed to be ruined with filth like all typical Indian lakes. The breeze near the water was so nice and cool and I was about to take a short nap on the grassy banks when the sky opened up and it started pouring. We were of course brilliant in our decision to not have brought any umbrellas with us :) And there was no place all around to really take shelter , so we ran a little, stood a little under any tree we could find to stop from getting totally drenched. We weren't very successful though and by the time we went back to our rooms , we were very very wet , but it was a lovely experience walking in the rain on the hilly roads.

The rest of the day was overcast and we spent some time after lunch lounging on the sofa in the dining area watching some movie together. The temperature at Red Hills was much lower than we had expected it to be. That was the only thing that we weren't really prepared for - with some more warm clothing , we would have enjoyed our stay a little more. Our last night at Red Hills was around the campfire with delicious grills being prepared for us there and then and stories of panthers and cheetahs being related by Mr Vijay Kumar - a thoroughly enjoyable end to our stay. I wasn't ready to leave the next day to be honest - the stay was too short , but with a promise to come back later for more. Packing my bags with three bottles of freshly made strawberry jam and organic artichokes , we were ready for our drive back to Bangalore , not before we said our good byes to Moby and Mika though - we couldn't hug Moby enough and he literally howled as he saw our suitcases being loaded into the car and he knew we were leaving .. what a tearful farewell it was....

The drive back was really tiring though since it was raining for almost the entire journey. Had we not been so tired and not so driven to be back in Bangalore before it became dark, we would have enjoyed the road trip even more. But D was not feeling too great and B and T were just super tired, so we couldn't really prolong the road trip by stopping at all the places I would have liked to. The huge eucalyptus forests while we came down from Ooty were mesmerising. They completely reminded me of those fairy tale forests , just beautiful. These forest slowly gave way to the bamboo forests in Gudalur all along the way. I was really hoping to see some elephants along the way but we weren't lucky enough for that. Then came the forests (not so dense) of Mudumalai .. The light green colour of spring leaves on all the trees getting drenched in the rain and the green interrupted with the bright yellow of the Golden Shower flowering trees - and then packs of spotted deer standing in groups getting drenched in the rain in the clearing, was a sight to behold. Two monkeys sitting on a tall tree branch holding each other and swinging their legs enjoying the rain was such  delight .. I felt like I wanted to stop the car and just be there soaking in the sights of the jungle life - such joy and such beauty. Unfortunately it was raining too much and I couldn't get down from the car to take any pictures but the impressions are etched in my mind forever.

We stopped for lunch at the Pugmark Restaurant of the Jungle Lodges and Resorts once we came into Karnataka. We were probably very hungry , but the simple food of rice, chapatis and chicken curry, sambar and vegetables was so delicious and tasty. We were on our last leg of the journey now and it stopped raining for about an hour or two in between when we were greeted by a huge rainbow guiding us along the road all through in front over the lush green fields of paddy, sugarcane and maize. It was such a beautiful sight , difficult to describe such beauty of mother nature and the miracles of every moment  in words ..

Even though a short break , it was completely worthwhile and refreshing before we got back to our daily grind of city life .. I would surely love to go back to both the places again soon .. and explore the hidden sights and sounds that I had left out this time ..