Elephant Mountain
Let me just paint this picture for you.
You’re in your pitch black room, comfy in your bed, sleeping, when your alarm goes off. It’s 4:40 in the morning and you think back to the conversation you were having and the text you sent your teammate the night before, no, only several hours ago. The one that started as an idea to go on a hike to see the sunrise. The one with me being very hesitant because, mornings.
Her convincing line?
Which will you regret more, getting up early tomorrow morning or getting home at the end of the season having never gone on this hike?
Damn her.
That’s exactly what I said.
I also told her I was gonna be pissed at her for the first hour of the next morning (possibly longer) so be prepared.
Well that’s the part I was referring to. I was pissed. I did NOT want to be awake at 4:40 in the morning.
Are we really doing this? I texted her.
I don’t know, are we? She responded.
I’ll skip the suspense. We were really doing this.
So I got up. Got dressed and grumbled my way out of my room to the hallway of our hotel where she was waiting and we were on our way. It was so early in the morning the metro wasn’t even running so we had the bright idea the night before to just do a nice morning bike ride. According to google maps it was only a 30 minute ride.
That was a lie.
About 50 min later we show up at the bottom of this hike. Now I’m not mad, it was a nice ride through the city. It was dark. Hardly anyone was out and about. Just those few psychopaths who go running at 5 in the morning getting a great start to their day but other than that empty and peaceful. We put the city bikes back in the station and walk to the start of the trail, or rather bottom of the never ending staircase.
We looked at each other and started climbing.
According to my Apple Watch it was an easy 106 flights of stairs climbed but who knows what exactly a “flight” is? I was definitely pissed at her during flights 3-50, then there was a nice look out and I thought we were gonna stop but she said no keep going and that’s how I stayed pissed at her for the next 56 flights of stairs. Until we saw that view and discovered how big this trail was and all the things we were about to see. We planned it so we could have some time to sit and watch the sun actually rise. It was still pretty dark by the time we got to a bench with a view of Taipei 101 and the city below. It was beautiful. Dripping in sweat but also shivering a little bit; it was fun. No sarcasm what so ever.
In all seriousness though it was amazing!
It just slowly got brighter and brighter and lit up the world around us. The coolest thing about living in Taipei is that it is a giant city. And it’s for sure city life, but a short bike ride and a few flights of stairs later and it felt like we were in the jungle in the middle of no where and the only thing telling us we weren’t was this view of the city sitting right next to this giant green mountain of trees and leaves and bushes. I might have become obsessed with some of the leaves of the plants we discovered on this jungle hike.
We sat there until the sun was up and we had recovered a little bit and were breathing normally. We started to notice some chanting and yelling and other sounds so we decided to explore a little bit and head to what we thought was another little look out spot. And then we saw a sign that read ‘temple’ and we just had to go that way.
There were a few more flights of stairs here and there, mostly just some hills but we headed in the direction of this temple not sure what we were gonna find and I had never been happier that I was forced to climb more stairs than I ever wanted to in my life. This temple was unreal. Just sitting in the middle of a jungle, bright red, with these detailed dragons perched on top of the roof guarding and protecting. We just stared at this temple and each other. We couldn’t believe it. And then we turned around and there was more mountain covered in fog from this morning sunrise and a slight view of the city behind this mist. It was mystical and magical and absolutely wild.
We stayed and marveled at this hidden temple for quite some time. Lost track of time while we were at it. Took a billion pictures and that still wasn’t enough. The design, the detail, the peacefulness of this place was a thief of description.
At some point we said goodbye to this beautiful temple and continued on our way to see what else was hidden in the trees and mist. We found some creepy statues - which is probably very rude to say but in the haze of the light rain and grey morning these stone to gold statues that wound their way up a hill were slightly creepy. We didn’t stay too long. But we did make a wish in a fountain with some tiny koi fish.
We meandered through different paths and the light drizzle of rain just enjoying being outside and taking everything as slow as we wanted. On our own time, eyes of a child experiencing this new place, and then we heard the drums. Naturally, that’s the direction we went in. One moment we were in the trees and in the jungle and then the drums got louder and we opened up to a bigger paved path and another more open temple with people chanting and worshiping and praying. Drums going, flowers everywhere, and still the rain. I felt like such an intruder. Here we are hiking through this green wilderness and then we stumble right into a group of peoples typical Sunday morning. I wanted to take pictures and get up close and hear what they were singing and their practice of worship but all I could think is how I would feel if people wandered through my church during my worship and acted like a tourist. So we walked through slowly and took in as much as we could and left them to their spiritual activities.
Just beyond this experience there was a sign that that read ‘garden’ to our right. We turned to go and beheld another never ending set of stairs. So we left that for next time…
By this time the rain has started to pick up and we are on about hour 3 - 3.5 of exploring so we decide we should start heading back down. We found a little park bench under an awning to escape the rain for a minute and put the camera away and get the rain jacket out for the rest of our descent. While we were preparing we were passed by an older gentleman, by himself, with a grey umbrella who walked right past us into the trees down a slightly hidden path and disappeared. We looked at each other, as we had done most of the morning, shrugged and followed the man down the random path. We think it was quite a short cut. We’ve decided there’s still a lot we didn’t get to explore so we intend to go back for sure. This secret path took us right to a little market that is still on the side of the mountain. As we continue down this semi steep incline and check out all the fruit and vegetables and meats being sold along the road. Maria stops to buy a bunch of bananas. And I mean a BIG BUNCH of bananas. I think she got about 12-15 bananas for 84NTD which is about $4 USD. Great find. I don’t know how she’s gonna eat them all before they go bad but who cares. Cheap fresh bananas for the win!
Our last adventure of the day was as we got to the end of this market and started to enter civilization again, we were rounding a corner and there on our left was one more giant exquisite temple. So of course we go in. It’s grey. Lots of grey on the walls outside trying to blend in with the concrete jungle of the city, but it’s the roofs that stand out. Bright orange with intricate detailed creatures prowling along the top. This temple was huge and had by far the most detail to it that we had seen. I honestly didn’t even know how to photograph most of it because there was just so much going on I couldn’t stop long enough to focus on just one part. And that’s not even the inside. I don’t even know where to start with the inside of this temple. Gold. Gold everywhere. It’s kind of a lot to process. This was a similar experience to the worship that we stumbled on in the mountain. We didn’t stay long inside because there were people worshipping and we felt like intruders to their prayers. But it was beautiful. Grand and overwhelming, but beautiful.
This was a very successful outing until the very last seconds. As we were leaving, after all the stairs and hills and rain of the day it was the last five steps that threw it all. I slipped down the stairs tossed my camera on the way down and broke my lens. Luckily honestly. Just the lens got busted. The body still works and so does my other lens so it wasn’t the end of the world, just sad. Most important all the pictures were saved. So, 5 hours and only one slip up; can’t complain. We continued down the road through an even larger street market and made our way to the metro. We were home by 10 am. It felt like we had lived a whole day and it was really just beginning, and I am no longer pissed at Maria. Actually very grateful.
Moral of the story? Go on the hike at 5 in the morning and watch the sunrise. Who knows what else you’ll find.
p.s. there were a few videos that I took but I can’t upload them here, so I’ll put them in my story on instagram and save them to the ‘Taiwan’ highlight on my page so you can find them if you’re interested.