Our driver was lost, and late.  It was 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday.  The dorm lobby was empty, aside from some crazy French guys who were trying to figure out how to get up the elevator without an ID card.  And we had a four hour car ride ahead of us.  I don’t know about the rest of my group, but I was wondering if the top of Alishan was going to be as spectacular as people made it out to be.  And it was.  It was better.

We just had to survive the sketchiest cab driver ever to get there.  Sketchy move number one: while lost, he offers a “deal” to my language partner.  We could either keep the taxi fare we agreed on, or we could pay by the kilometer with a 30% discount off the total.  But he wouldn’t tell us the km/hr rate he was charging.  He confessed that he didn’t know which one was cheaper, so it would be a gamble.  Here we are, thinking he’s a nice guy.  We decide to stick with the original fare.  We didn’t really trust him enough to not “get lost” and take a super long detour to hike up the rate on us.  Then, when we confirmed our price, he says that we made the right decision.  The other option would have been at least $4,200 NT ($140 US dollars) more expensive.  Liar!  You said you didn’t know!!

So then, I fall asleep somewhere along the way.  I wake up to Elizabeth asking me, “Why is he talking to Tammy about his divorce?”  Apparently he told Tammy all about his failed bar/stripper business, how financials were a catalyst for his divorce, and how the custody of his children was divided.  Interesting cab conversation…

After several more mountain-hugging turns, we climbed higher and higher.  We stopped at a little rice pot restaurant for lunch somewhere near the top.

 

Elizabeth and I received an intense stare down from an entire three tables of Thai tourists, who were completely silent watching us bump into what seemed like a thousand chairs.  There we were, maneuvering around chairs, zigzagging at 90 degree angles, horizontally, vertically, horizontally…  Every time we look up, a captivated audience.  They could have at least clapped or cheered or something.

Then I got trapped in the men’s handicapped toilet stall.  It was the only place with a western toilet, so I ran in as soon as I got the chance.  Karma, though.  I was locked in for about 5 minutes.  However, I did get to experience what it felt like being held against my will, so that was something I didn’t expect out of lunch.  I was toying with the lock, tugging at the sliding door, knocking on the face of the door itself, thinking someone might help me.  I eventually got it unlocked.  Thanks for all your help, Thai tourists.

Back to the cab.  Almost up the mountain.  We stopped at a little train station along the way that carries people up.  We found it very bizarre that people were walking freely on the tracks.

 

But we didn’t stop for too long.  Back to the car; we came to see the top.

We had arrived.

We finally get to walk!  Hike, even!  I was very excited to get out of the dizzy car.  We were all pretty confused when we saw literally no one on the way up to the park area.  “It’s so quiet up here…”  But when we got to the real entrance, we saw a lot more people.

We entered a hazy forest, with red Chinese lanterns strung along trees towering over a bridge and a waterfall.

We were walking through clouds, finding the most miraculous treasures behind each new sheet of mist.  Stone dragons.  A pond that reflected the massive temple standing above it.  Bright orange flowers.

Coming up to the temple was a surreal experience.  Incense burned in a cauldron of ashes, smoke dancing in front of the temple’s golden interior.

 

Dragons frozen in position stared you down at every turn, their eyes burning into yours through the murky air.  I couldn’t help but return their gaze.

  

I was in a temple, in a cloud, on a mountain.  I didn’t want to be anywhere else.  This was where I was meant to be, right here, right now, with these friends.

     

Next door, people were burning fake money as an offering to the gods.

Then we went to the big sister pond.  It was a lot more impressive than the little sister pond.  There were two pavilions in the center of the water.  When we got there it was completely covered in fog.  It looked like a scene taken straight out of Jurassic Park.

But by the time we walked down the boardwalk and back, the fog had lifted, and we got to redo all of our pictures with a visible backdrop!  It was a totally new pond.

 

The thing we arrived at next was my favorite part of Alishan.  It was an area with extremely tall trees.  With the fog surrounding us and the sunlight coming in, it might have been heaven on earth.

I straight looked straight up and there was a beautiful collage of black and white— splotches of sun shining through the opaque canopy.

Then of course, there were some really cool tree formations.

One was shaped like a heart.  We took full advantage of this photo opportunity.

Then there was one shaped like a pig’s head.  The snout and the ear looked incredibly realistic.

Earlier, near the entrance, we saw a three generation tree, meaning a tree that grew from another tree, that grew from another tree.  Pretty awesome.

It was just beautiful up there.

     

After a peaceful experience in the park, hiking among birds, and flowers, and cute couples, we returned to our taxi.  And then we almost died.  Several times.  The driver sped down the mountain, passing every vehicle that got in his way.  He would race around curves like he was in the Indy 500, once even skidding and emitting a loud “EEERrrrCHHHEeeee” from the tires.  We all gave each other wide-eyed stares.  Though we weren’t sure we would make it down alive through most of our decent, we did in the end.

But before we did, we had to seal our friendship, just in case we didn’t.  About halfway down the mountain we stopped at a suspension bridge that, when you crossed it with someone, you would be friends forever.  We walked across the wooden planks of the swinging bridge and declared our eternal friendship.  Then we had to walk back.  We decided that this would not undo our eternal friendship, but rather, make it doubly strong.

Also at this stop, we got to witness a drunk Buddha dance around in front of an active temple to the beat of a drum, spit at the little piles of fake money burning on the ground, and raise his canteen to the sky as if it were Simba.  The temple lit up at night and there were lots of little Buddha-in-sunglasses statues across from its entrance.

When we made it down Alishan, we got dinner at a turkey rice place.  Soy bean oil was the perfect gravy for the juicy strips of turkey.  Our waiter even gave us a free salad since we were foreign.  The perks of being American in Taiwan…

When we returned to the car, our driver had toothpicks and diced pineapple and mango waiting for us.  We decided to like him at this point.  We didn’t die, and we had fresh fruit at our fingertips.  Tammy translated to us that we were rare customers for him.  Most of his clients are from China or Hong Kong.  After what we got to witness at the top of Alishan, the drive back seemed much shorter.  There was no question that this trip was worth the drive, and the life-threatening driving, to see those flowers, and those trees.