The Return: Taiwan Interlude

The final chapter of HFM’s globe-spanning 2023 trip involved no new countries. Instead, I retraced my steps, back through Taiwan, briefly, with Ellen for a week as a post-Thailand farewell before dropping in on Claire in Tokyo for a mirth-filled December taking in Tokyo for a second, truer time before I’d finally return to America after nine months abroad. This time in Taiwan and Japan with people I really care about made for a really fitting conclusion to so many months away from home, and to relationships forged and stoked for many months of adventure.

Ellen had the cool idea of spending half our week in Sun Moon Lake. This scenic lake, hidden away in the central mountains of Taiwan, is famous throughout for vacationers, and is also well known as the home of one of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, the Thao. Our Chiang Mai flight arrived at night, after buses stopped running, so we had to shell out for an hour plus taxi ride there from Taichung, where Ellen befriended the driver and I zoned out to their chatter in Mandarin. By the time we reached our destination, Ellen knew our driver’s life story and for his part, he was pretty eager to take photos and help us with our baggage. Cheers to new best friends!

What does one do at Sun Moon Lake? It’s a natural paradise, so simplest worked best. We rode bikes around the lake, ferried across it, tried the gondola, and enjoyed the street food scene. We also tried kayaking, but it was significantly constrained in scope due to the boat traffic. Oh well, the views and vibe were more than sufficient! I liked that we didn’t need a car out there and the lake is fairly developed for use by public transit. One could only imagine the congestion if this was in the USA!

We closed out our time together with a lively weekend in Taipei to cruise over some of the same spots where I had lived and worked for a month back in Summer, now in a much more temperate Autumn. We saw some cool nightlife, a couple Taiwanese weddings, and went to my favorite veggie buffet one last time. I got to meet the family and friends of someone I spent months traveling with, which is always a joy.

Finally, it came my time to fly on to Tokyo. Ellen would be remaining in Taiwan, and this would be goodbye after a long period of traveling together. Through fate and fortune, we wound up together almost all of the prior two months and became pretty close despite some interesting trials along the way. We managed a farewell and our lives have gone on apart, for one sad moment of goodbye, we had a lot of fun had together on the way and promises of reunion in the future.