As part of a weekly series, #NoFilter, each blog post is a different story from my travels in Taiwan. Be sure to check out the #nofilter tag for more from past blog posts.
I will start with something that hopefully clarifies a lot: I consider myself to be quite the navigator. But being a good navigator means absolutely nothing if you can’t read the signs, can’t communicate with the locals, and actually have no idea where you’re going, because you’ve never been to said place. That’s exactly what happened about two years ago, when my friends and I went to Dakeng to hike for the first time.
Around this time, I was still in that happy honeymoon phase. Taichung was still just a flower on the cusp of budding, with so much beauty anticipated and so many visions of what could be. One of the places I wanted to go to, more than anything, was Dakeng. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a part of Taichung nestled into the mountains where there’s no shortage of lush green foliage, monkeys (if you’re on high altitude hikes), flowers, and people flocking there every weekend, especially on Sunday. And especially families. It’s quite the popular local place, so naturally, I knew I had to go at some point.
A group of my friends made plans to go hike. To be honest, I didn’t even know what the trail number was until months later when I returned with another friend of mine. But we parked near the majority of the trails, walking along a creek that flowed from the mountains to the city. It was something out of a dream: us in our hiking gear, walking by Taiwanese selling fresh produce (think papaya, dragon fruit, guava, raw sugar cane, and the like), and trying to read signs to see if we were in the right direction. And we were. At the start.
We come to a sign that I now know to be the one we were looking for. It was a simple sign that when we allowed Google a little bit of time to translate via pictures, it told us the temple was up the hill. We probably should have taken that, but instead, our fascination lied with what was to the left: hundreds of blossoming orange trees, a barely touched trail, and an ascent that looked like it led to a view worth every ounce of sweat we’d endure. And possibly every bug or snake related scare that could come out of it.
Our fascination overrode another sign that was posted just next to the temple sign, reading 私人財產. This, I’d learn much later, meant private property. Meaning we probably shouldn’t have even entered in the first place. But did we go onto the orchard trail? Of course. If a potential adventure reminds of you of a cross of Tarzan and Jumanji, it’s hard to say no.
The hike was not all too long and unfortunately, we didn’t get to that golden spot that we saw from the bottom. We stopped in a shaded area, definitely something out of Tarzan: vines hung overhead shielded us from the sun, weeds and flowers peeked out of the ground, and we practically had to climb through small pockets in the foliage to make our way in, with a few bumps and scrapes, but nothing too injurious. Nonetheless, we made it. Then we descended and found ourselves on our way towards the temple, and towards the real trails.
All of us, relatively new to Taiwan, were not used to the heat. These days, the heat is something I merely complain about for the sake of finding a conversation topic (as most everyone finds Taiwan to be unreasonably hot at times). But back then, by the end of our little two hour adventure that led to some pretty cool pictures, I was soaked in enough sweat that I probably could have convinced someone we didn’t go hiking, we went swimming instead.
One of the most popular restaurants in Dakeng is this roasted duck restaurant. In Taiwanese and Chinese culture, family style dinners with a giant round table are found at a lot of traditional restaurants. They’ll serve you side dishes, giant entrees that mostly consist of meat or some protein, and then they’ll give you a pretty big portion of rice to share, and most likely some bone broth soup. Everything with a traditional Taiwanese family style dinner is pretty methodical. And after hiking two hours with only a medium size water bottle and nearly drooling over the thought of shaved ice, we all knew we needed some food in our bellies.
For those of you who won’t know, I am now vegan, but back then I was indulging in a lot of the local flavors, mostly because I couldn’t read anything. My big motivation for learning Chinese was being able to tell when there was meat or dairy in something. And it totally paid off. But, as I’d come to learn after the roasted duck, this was not a flavor that agreed with my body.
The roasted duck came out entirely intact. Yes. They cook the entire duck whole in this giant vat of oil. It actually did taste pretty good, not going to lie, but something just didn’t feel right. It was the combination of the food, the sun, and the exhaustion is my guess. But needless to say, upon returning home from our little trail excursion through a private orchard, I found myself leaned over the toilet with my first bout of heat sickness.
It is possible not to get lost at Dakeng, as I have gone back many a times in the last two years. It’s an easy place to go and explore when you aren’t sure what to do in Taichung. So, my pro tips for anyone who wants to go explore Taichung and doesn’t want to end up like I did that day: bring water, mind your body, and make sure you refuel with something likely to agree with your stomach. Save the fun, new food choices for days when your body hasn’t already been taxed enough. And most of all, make sure you read the signs before you embark on what looks like an overlooked hiking trail. More than likely, that Jumanji-looking paradise is actually someone’s fruit orchard and you could get yourself in trouble.
