Sun and Moon Lake

Sun and Moon Lake

Sun and Moon Lake is the most beautiful area in Taiwan. It reminds me of Rotorua and Taupo put together. Well, in fact it is two lakes put together. SML is also strong on Aborigine culture and it is the home of the Thao people.
This was the first time I had travelled in Taiwan outside of the cities and I can confirm that it is beautiful there. The cities seem so derelict and temporary, but the mountains are natural and everlasting.
It is hard to get to the mountains without a car. I took so many different modes of transport to get there and had to over-night in Taichung. I can’t wait for the next 3-day weekend so I can do it again!

Sun and Moon Lake was originally two lakes. Surprisingly, one was shaped like a Sun and the other looked like a Moon. But when the Japanese came, they saw the potential for a hydroelectric power station and they damned the rivers. They also diverted several other rivers into the lake. The result was a significant rise in the water level, and the two lakes merged. The communities living on the shores of the lakes were all swamped; including the homeland of Taiwan’s smallest tribe the Thao (pronounced Shao). The little Lalu Island is now almost completely under water, except for one peak that breaks the surface. The ancestors of the Thao are all buried in the island, so the Thao have built floating gardens around the peak to protect the island from the many tourist boats that encircle it on a daily basis.
There is a new hotel built in honour of the Lalu; not that the Thao people see any of that money.

Sun and Moon Lake was also an important area for forestry and deer hunting, so there are many roads and a railway leading to the area (though not quite to the village – which is inconvenient). To get there and back I needed to take several different modes of transport. I took a train to Taichung and overnighted there. The next day I took a bus to Sun Moon Lake village. On the return journey, I took the same bus back to Taichung. But since it was a long weekend, there were no train tickets, except standing tickets. So, I took the High Speed Rail (HSR) back home. However, there are no stations anywhere near where I live, so I had to take a bus back to the main train line, then once I arrived at my station, I had to take a bus back to my town. It is a real hassle to get anywhere in Taiwan if you don’t have a car.

Sun and Moon Lake looks like a Taiwanese Riviera (even though there is no river or coast). Wharves jut out into the lake from everywhere and they are full of boats and other pleasure craft. The hotels and restaurants that border the lake are all painted in bright colours and they are all lit up at night. As I walked around the shore on the balmy evening, people were busking and singing romantic songs. I sat outside for a refreshing cocktail and watched the boats and people going past.

Transport is cheap and easy in Sun and Moon Lake. There is a circuit bus that takes you around the lake, and other bus services that connect the neighbouring towns and the nearest big city – Taichung. But why would you take a bus when you can take one of many boats across the lake. They are actually quicker to many locations and drop you right in front. Plus nothing beats the view from the water with the breeze in your hair (if you’re lucky enough to have hair), and you can be forgiven for forgetting that you are in a heavily industrialised Asian nation in the middle of the tropics.

I was told to bring warm clothes as the mountains are at least 10 degrees colder than the plains. But when the temperature on the plains is in the high 30s dropping down only ten degrees isn’t exactly freezing. So my warm clothes were surplus. The good news is the weather is bearable here.  You are not left with the tough decision of trying to find a restaurant with aircon or having to shoot yourself. The weather here is just nice, and a great way to spend a tropical afternoon is to sit outside with a cooler and admire the view.

The biggest attraction at Sun and Moon Lake is the Formosan Aborigines Cultural Village (FACV). It is known in Chinese as the 9 Tribes Cultural Village, as a vestige of a time when there were only 9 recognised mountain tribes. This century, 5 more tribes have been recognised by the government, bringing the total to 14. Many others remain unrecognised.

It is an interesting business model where a theme park is combined with an historical village. It contains such Aboriginal treasures as ‘Caribbean Splash’, ‘Mayan Adventure’ and ‘Aladdin’s Cave’. There is even a model European garden on the grounds. But if these things provide the money for the aboriginal village, then it is worth it.

The main thing I was interested in was seeing all the recreated buildings and wax works depicting the native people. There is an interesting continuum from south to north of how the buildings are constructed. The buildings in the typhoon ravaged south owned by Paiwan and Bunun are made from stone, but the further up-country more wood is used, until at the farthest north, the buildings are entirely made from wood in Atayal areas with significant living areas below ground made from stone. The north is still hit by storms and floods and I wondered why people would want to live in dug-outs. But this area also gets a lot of earthquakes, so perhaps there is some benefit.

The most disappointing thing about the village is the lack of the new tribes, especially the Thao. The Thao were recognised in 2001 and their homeland is Sun Moon Lake, so I thought there would be a key exhibit for them. Instead they are grouped in the ‘Tsou/Thao’ section, and it is not clear which exhibits relate to the Thao and which to the Tsou (they are not related to the Tsou, by the way). The Sediq are grouped in a similar way with the Atayal. The Truku, Sakizaya and Kavalan have no exhibit at all. The most recent recognised tribe was registered in 2008, more than enough time to build exhibits.
The largest tribe in Taiwan, the Amis, has a large exhibit, but it is off the main trail. I didn’t realise I had missed it until I got to the bottom of the valley, by which time it was too late to go back up.

The main method of transport at the FACV is the Ropeway – which is a kind of cable car that is hoisted over the hills and valleys. It is made by an Austrian company that produces ropeways for the Alps. The Taiwanese are so proud of showing off their European technology, I thought they would have been prouder if they made their own – though I certainly feel safer with the Austrians in the design room.
The Ropeway is very good and fast with spectacular views of the Lake. But it only runs in good weather and stops an hour before the park closes. So what do people do when it is not running? Climb the mountain and leap the valleys?

The other main attraction at Sun and Moon Lake is the Xuanzang Temple.  Xuanzang was the seventh century Chinese monk that walked to India and brought back the scrolls of Buddhism. He wasn’t the first to bring Buddhism to China, but he did make the best translations (having spent most of his life in India).
So the legend goes, his remains were buried in China, but the KMT exhumed and stole his remains and brought them to Taiwan. Supposedly they are hidden somewhere in this temple. Still it’s a pretty amazing feet (haha  . … get it?) for him to walk all those places in India and back.  

The temple itself feels like it is covered in snow, what with all the white-washed buildings and white aggregate on the ground. If it had been a few degrees colder, it may have seemed like a winter wonderland. Maybe It should come back at winter and check it out.

To get to the temple, one needs to climb a moderate hill. The main tourist route follows the winding main road around the mountain. With no tree cover or natural shadows, walking on the baking asphalt is a nightmare in summer. Ironically, there is a hiking trail that takes less than half the time and is completely covered by bush. Do Chinese really have such an aversion to hiking that they would rather walk on the road (which has no footpaths) in that heat and take much longer?
Moreover, the walk was quite interesting with all those sculptures and art zones dedicated to Buddhist motifs.

During the walk to the top, I met some random Turkish family arguing with their children. They were trying to take a photo of the spectacular view, but the kids wouldn’t stand still. They asked me to take photo while they held the kids, but to no avail. Still, they kindly offered to photograph me .
I’m not sure which looks better, me or the Lake.
You can see Lalu island in the mid-ground.

When I returned to the village I sat down for a traditional Aboriginal meal in Thao style. There is quite a burgeoning industry at Sun Moon Lake for Aboriginal food – but I don’t know how authentic it is. Just like in Maaori cuisine, there is a lot of pork and fish. This particular restaurant served the meal in little bamboo bowls on top of a Betel nut tree leaf. The centre-piece was a Thao man sculpted out of wood holding a plate full of Mountain Boar; and the drinking mug looked like a shrunken head. Quite cool. There was even a shot of the famous millet wine, which didn’t didn’t make me feel woozy like Baijiu does.

One last note about my hotel: It was a boutique, like the one I stayed at in Kenting. These boutique hotels seem to pop up in tourist towns where the big business hotels won’t compete with the international resort hotels. These kinds of hotels are small and quaint, with even a hint of romanticism. There is a strong focus on aesthetics and personal service – which were both very good.

But they often miss simple things that bigger more established players would do as a matter of course. The aircon was positioned badly and didn’t cover the whole room. So when I turned it off to go sleepy-byes, all that hot air that had been hiding in a corner crept back over towards me and slow-roasted me over night, so I couldn’t sleep. Plus, there was no drapes on the main window (despite there being drapes on every other window), so I got woken up at the crack of dawn and had to listen to babies and roosters screaming all morning. So much for getting some rest over the long weekend.
The room had a TV, but it was a 14” and it was so far from the bed that I had to strain to watch it. Babylon 5 was premiering in Taiwan TV that night – didn’t that come out like 15 years ago?

The strangest thing about these boutique hotels is that they give you towels to dry your body that are smaller than the hand towels to dry your hands. What am I supposed to do with that? Maybe if I was descended from a tiny Fujianese it would be ok, but I was a normal white guy. I already fell like a giant in this country, now I have to dry myself with a loin cloth? I was seriously considering using the floor mat until I realised they probably don’t wash it as often.
I guess they do that because they are a small hotel and don’t have a laundry room. There are no Laundromats in these small towns, so they have to launder and turnover hundreds of towels per day in a normal household washer. Remind me next time to take my own towel.

                          

Well, this Blog post is up over 2000 words, which is hard to believe since I didn’t do much! I only really went to the FACV and the Xuanzang Temple, and spent the rest of the time relaxing by the Lake.
It really was a good trip to Sun and Moon Lake, one I hope to do again when the weather is cooler.
Sun and Moon Lake is one of the few beautiful and pure places in Taiwan (even though essentially it was man-made). I recommend you all to visit there.