Taiwan Tea Guy

On the way home from our Landrover Camping Trip, we decided to make a short detour up into the bamboo groves for a visit to my favorite spot in all of Taiwan – we usually just refer to it as ‘the mountain’ – a dead-end farmer’s access in a natural bamboo forest that overlooks the valley I lived in before the 9/21 (1999) earthquake hit the area.

Since we were driving a Landrover Defender 110, I felt we could probably handle the road up to the grove. I hadn’t been back there for about a year and a half, and wasn’t even sure there would be a road anymore. Turns out I was pretty much right! The jungle takes over quickly, and it looked like the locals hadn’t been using this area for a couple of years. Despite the overgrowth and some deep potholes (caused by typhoon runoff),  we had a very easy ascent. After I scouted the route and returned to the vehicle, Mrs. Teaguy asked, “Can we just not drive up there?” I shook my head slowly and replied, “We’re driving a Defender, dear, so, no, it’s not possible for us to not drive up there!”

After getting to the halfway point where the trail cuts back to the right, the road was more visible and easier to navigate. I engaged the differential locks for extra traction in the wet foilage, but we didn’t really need them. The only real ‘roadblock’ was a bamboo cane that was growing horizontally across the road, but my Leatherman tool made a quick job of getting us through that!

It was great to see all of the new bamboo growth – the forest seems to be doing well. I found this spot on my first weekend living in Jiji. I was trying to find my way up to the top of the mountain (on my motorcycle) when I came to a fork in the road (it was much better maintained in those days, so there was less adventure driving around). My dog, Bojangles, who was running along in front of me, took the right hand fork and led me up to this spot. We ended up spending the rest of the day here, then heading home. It’s been my favorite spot ever since. When Bojangles was hit by a van 6 months later, I buried him here, and come back to drink tea with him as often as I can.

The road down the mountain is much better than it used to be – it’s been paved in recent years – but clearing the  jungle back to improve the roads leaves them prone to mudslides from the heavy typhoon rains. Luckily we were still able to pass through this section here. There’s also a tea farm down below the bamboo, that grows Jin Hsuen and Sz Ji Chwun (two kinds of oolong tea).

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Interesting Stories, Life in Taiwan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.