Where the dog is buried

Actually, the Fo Guang Shan monastery should be resting on top of a hill, a prominent tourist Hotspot in the southwest of Taiwan. But the GPS navigation device in the Japanese small-car explains the Route in front of an unassuming business building right in the middle of a small town, surprisingly. The adventure to explore Taiwan in a rental car, have to go wrong before it really started?

The "long-noses," thought, take a Tour of sun moon lake to Kaohsiung, the second largest city in the country, is as easy as the trip to and from lake Walen to Basel. The secret to the lost monastery and the extra loop of around 200 km is unveiled: "We programmed the GPS incorrectly," analyzes the Chauffeur.

In Taiwan, it is also a little street stalls a wonderful feast. Photo: iStock

In General, the travel office people from the use of a rental car in Asia rates: bad roadways, Signals, handlebars, only in the hieroglyphics of the language of the country, dangerous encounters with Hara-Kiri and the naked madness on the streets. However, Taiwan, the 36'000 square kilometers large island off the Chinese coast, is a laudable exception. The traffic is civilized, the infrastructure is excellent. Getting used to the motorways leading out of Taipei and beyond: three parallel strands and a navigation system that fires a staccato, hard-to-understand commands. So it takes a little luck to keep in the industrial plants and residential silos-dominated suburbs of the course. The Juggernaut of Taipei to the rural Taiwan, rice fields, orchards, stalls on the streets and easing traffic.

Grilled pigeons in the Sunday sale

The green-blue shimmering sun-moon-lake, and is surrounded by picturesque hills, three hours ' drive from Taipei, waiting for the Sunday excursion to the carnival. Mobile caterers offer grilled pigeons, and boiled chicken. Tasteless bread on a stick is dipped in honey or milk. Penis-shaped wooden sculpture would also have to like curved sticks, with which you can scratch their backs. In contrast to the Chinese visitors, the majority of the traders are from ethnic minorities.

it is the Taipei 101, at 508 meters, was once the highest building in the world, even Western tourists, so this is almost entirely in the Taiwanese province of lack. Stephan Roemer, head of Swiss Asia specialist tour Asia, but sets high hopes on the tourism potential of Taiwan. Experts count the Republic of China, as Taiwan is called officially to the objectives of the global Trend in 2019, and the "New York Times" recognizes "the greatest enthusiasm in Asia for good food".

This is not only true for luxury hotels and gourmet restaurants, you can feast pickling in Taiwan, even in small, hygienic Street wonderful. The Westerners should be the country's specialty, the "stinky Tofu," a fermented soybean mass, careful. The attempt to cater for us in a hamlet between South and East coast in the style of the country, succeeds only halfway. The landlady, who speaks how many Taiwanese hardly speak English, dishing up rice and vegetables, and crowned the meal with a pungent-smelling chicken soup.

views of the Taroko gorge in the national Park in the East of the island. Photo:

Skeptical, we cost of the blässlichen brew, place the spoon but will soon. The good woman disappears into the kitchen and returned beaming with a plastic bag, in which she draws the Rest of the soup. The catering moves from the well-knotted container in the next ditch. Too late we discover a lifeless dog. Whether the animal was already dead or it has killed the smell of the soup, remains unclear.

A cinematic Mix in the Taroko gorge

ready, After a wild Ride along the osttaiwan coast and a 19-Kilometer-long journey through the unlit Tunnel in the Taroko of a steep gorge, we meet again Western tourists: a mother and daughter from the Canton of Thurgau, for a mountain hike. Exotic birds sing in this picturesque valley the miracle: There is in one of the most densely populated countries in the world-picturesque locations with a film Mix of mystical fog tire steam, and Golden sun.

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the Silks Place Hotel puts every Instagram-Freak in ecstasy: The Infinity Pool perched boldly above the Taroko gorge. In loungey chairs to enjoy the view to the tree-lined mountain edge beyond the deep gurgling stream. On the granite rocks and a pagoda wakes up in the middle of the ascent, in a small cave, a Statue of Buddha. Whether the public fixed-line telephone next to it is the wire to the sky?

In addition, we reach on the Road trip through Taiwan, also thanks to the now correctly programmed the Navi to the monastery of Fo Guang Shan. Its main attraction is the 36 meters of the most powerful seated Buddha in the world. The Taiwanese people watch and photograph the Golden Thick from a respectful distance, and strengths in the monastery's own Starbucks. In a room in the side wing, we meet a shaven-headed nun in mustard yellow cowl. While outside, rumbling drums, draped in the niches of the temple servant, a victim of the flowers in the wall. In between, supplied with the wishes of the believers. And what we want from the mild smiling deity? Quite profane: May spare us the duration of croaking Navi detours and safely back to Taipei escort.

The trip was supported by Cathay Pacific Airways and tour Asia.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 21.03.2019, 17:59 PM