We were prepared for a long day of travel as we left Jehjiu bound for Yunlin.

It’s hard to say goodbye to our cozy stay and wish we had another night.

Chen picked us up promptly at 8 AM. Within 20 minutes, with his fast driving, we were at Badu train station. There were no cafes open, so for breakfast, we had 2-minute noodles, bread, coffee and banana from the Family Mart at the station.

The Long Ride to Yunlin

The train ride was basically a local train that connects regionally. So while there were no allocated seats, there were plenty available so we made ourselves comfortable. The train was clean and the passengers were quiet.

The ride gave us a good glimpse of the shift from urban-scapes of Taipei, Taoyuan, Tai Chung – the large cities – and the villages and farmlands in between.

Vertical development is quite common, similar to other Asian cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. It’s interesting as there seems to be plenty of vast empty space, but for some reason the country has avoided urban sprawl afflicting places like the USA.

Douliou

Doulio is the main city in Yunlin.

My sister and brother-in-law were easy to spot in the fairly quiet streets of Douliou. Despite not being in the big cities, it’s not a backwater place.

It was already almost 3PM by the time we had our lunch of Japanese at Carre Four.

There isn’t much to see around, but my sister put in an effort and brought us to one of their ‘tourist’ places, The Pink Palace, with pink flowers all over!

Nearby is the Honey Museum but it was already close by the time we got there.

Along the way, I noticed most of the area is farmland. My brother-in-law pointed out that Yunlin County is predominantly agricultural. One of the presidential candidates is from the area, and the wife is the daughter of a farm baron. Farmers here are wealthy and they have good support from the government.

We then proceeded to pick up my nephews at an international school, where my sister is the international academic coordinator as well as a teacher.

I can’t blame my nephew for being so excited showing off his school, touring me around. They had great facilities, the classrooms are clean and tidy, the school grounds inviting… and certainly, the oval inspires running and walking for exercise.

My sister decided to bring us to a buffet dinner, where you pay for an ala-carte main meal, and then have unlimited sides, desserts, appetizers.

We were stuffed!

Sun Moon Lake

Caught up on our sleep and had breakfast with the family at home before we headed out around 10:30 AM for Sun Moon Lake.

The road getting there was as windy as a horizontal rollercoaster. It’s the kind of place where you would need a car, as it’s not easily accessible with public transport.

Xuanzhuang Temple

First, we stopped at Xuanzhuang Temple, which gave us a good dose of history.

Known as the crownless king of the Silk Road, I was impressed by the story of Zhang who travelled from China to India and back, surviving hunger, isolation, and braving hardships you could only imagine crossing deserts and hostile landscapes. The temple was built to house his relics.

Second, we briefly checked Ita Thao, but did not alight. We thought we may as well head straight to our guesthouse.

Full Moon, Sun Moon

Third, we finally reached our guesthouse on a street by the lake only to find out our allocated villa was further inland, although it was only a 3-5 minute walk to the lake. So there was a bit of a confusion there.

Once we got settled in, we explored the street and stopped by a traditional Taiwanese restaurant for early dinner. We had egg and kelp soup, stir-fried vegies, steamed prawns, fried tofu with plum sauce, prawns fried rice, beef fried rice, fried pork, spring onion omelette.

After dinner, we went for a brief walk along the lake trail and down the port area. The moon rose, blood orange in colour, directly opposite from the plum garden. It was the best view of the moon lighting up Sun Moon Lake, with a backdrop of the mountains, and directly beneath it was the Xuanzhuang Temple that we visited earlier in the day.

Sunrise at Sun Moon

I woke up early to watch the sunrise and the plum garden once again provided a great viewing point.

My sister and brother-in-law were already there, with the same idea.

The view reminded me of those Chinese paintings of mountains and lakes. As the Cowboy put it, the landscape made him feel like he was in the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

The three of us couldn’t help ourselves, we went photo-crazy with the photogenic landscape. While the sun rose at 6:45 AM, we didn’t see it come through the mountains till past 7 AM. Once the sun was up and bright, we finally made our way to collect our complimentary breakfast of hot drinks and bread.

Boat Ride Around Sun Moon Lake

After breakfast, we all loaded our stuff in the car and we barely made it running to the boat to catch the 9AM ride!

The boat captain was nice enough to wait for us. It was a small boat and there were only us and another couple.

There are only three ports in the lake, Shuishe where we alighted, Ita Shao where we stopped, and Xuanzhuang where we already explored yesterday (so we didn’t need to stop this time).

At Ita Shao, we only had 45 minutes till the boat picked us up again – which went by so quick. The place is more traditional and looked older than the Shuishe port. It was also busier, and most of the people milling around were from the marathon event.

C’ian Pagoda

We then made our way from Shuishe to the Pagoda which we saw as the highest point from the lake area.

It was worth stopping over, and climbing up a flight of 570 steps of stairs, then another 9 stories or so at the pagoda itself.

The reward was a stunning 360-degree view of the lake and surrounding mountains.

Not many people seem to stop by and visit the place. At one point, we were the only ones on the grounds.

Finally, we made our way back to Yunlin. With only half an hour to rest and re-pack our stuff, our cabbie, Fish was ready to pick us up and drop us off the airport.

She drove fast so we arrived by 4:45 PM, with plenty of time to spare before our flight at 9 PM. Able to check-in online, we got through immigration without having to wait for the counter to open.

No Man’s Land

While we were taking it easy at the business lounge, we did not know that Taal volcano has started to spew ash back in the Philippines. As we rushed to catch our boarding, we couldn’t find where our flight went. There was no announcement of any delay or change of boarding gates.

Finally, we found the information board only to find out a last-minute cancellation from Philippine Airlines (PAL). No warnings, no advisory, nothing. It was like a black hole of information from the airline. There was no service staff on transfer desks or counter. The service hotline cannot be reached, and finally, when The Cowboy reached another number, PAL was not able to help us. It was bizarre and extremely frustrating. I never quite experienced anything like it.

I quipped to the Cowboy, “Maybe that’s the reason why PAL is not part of any airline alliance… their standard is so poor nobody’s accepting them.” He later did a Google search and verified that was the case.

Finally, The Cowboy got hold of the online booking agent, Trip.com, and they said they were going to take care of it.

Meantime, China Airlines staff pulled us out of the lounge into the transfer desk and pretty much “kicked us out” of the departure terminals. They said we had to go outside of immigration and strongly encouraged us to stay at a hotel.

So we did, and checked in at the conveniently located City Suites, 5 minutes ride away from the airport.

We can only wait and hope for the best. I was not feeling optimistic that the situation is going to be much better tomorrow.

It had been an exhausting travel, but it was worth spending time with my sister and her family, and experiencing the serenity of Sun Moon Lake, savouring the food, being invigorated by the north coast, and finally being reminded that in this time and age, people in a highly developed country can still be nice and courteous.