29th Birthday Celebration

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It was an early morning as the River Trekking company was to pick us up at the hostel at 7:15am. We quickly packed up our things and headed downstairs to the lobby area and waited for about 5 minutes. Then 4 men showed up and we decided they were the River Trekking company there to pick us up. They didn't speak much English and we were thinking how are they going to tell us directions or what to do later in the day.

We hadn't eaten breakfast and thought we should get some food before we head out on an all day trekking adventure. We told the men in Chinese that we wanted some food and they quickly pulled over to a little shop along the road that sold baozi, bread with meat inside, very common on mainland China and also Taiwan is famous for it. The 4 guides also got food to eat and milk tea as they must have been hungry also.

Next stop was the police station and they asked for our passports. This was the first word in English they said after about 20 minutes of being in the van."Passports" They must have had to check us in with the local police department that we were going on the trek, another very common thing in China.

Once they got back in the van Pete told them it was my Sheng Ri, birthday. The 4 guides broke out singing "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you." It was so AWESOME to have 4 Taiwanese men sing in English Happy Birthday to me since they didn't speak much English. It put a smile on my face.

We drove for about 10 more minutes and pulled off the highway to this little village. We then arrived in a parking lot and parked. The guys got out and started to pull out all the equipment: full wetsuits, life jackets, helmets and booties. We had to give them our height, weight and shoe size the day before so they could bring the correct sizes.

Once we were changed we started to head into the jungle that was along a river bed. It was such a great experience and we had no idea what we were going to see today. We came to the 1st swimming pool area in the river that they said 'Jump". I was not going to jump off of the rock into the water but Pete did it. We had another 2 jumping areas before I decided ok, I should do this and started in on the adventures.

It was refreshing to get in the water as it was a warm day already by 9am and walking was pretty tiring over rocks and boulders. We stopped to rest around 10:30 and they said 40 more minutes. I was beginning to think that I was going to be really tired by the end of the day.

One of the 4 guides was the photographer and took lots of pictures of us and we left our camera in the van so it wouldn't get wet. Their camera was waterproof. After we arrived at a resting point the guys opened their backpacks and pulled out a pot, propane, and lots of food in order to cook us lunch. We truly were in the middle of the jungle and it was such a neat experience.

After eating lunch they told us we would see Poo bo, what? Poo bo, means waterfall in Taiwan. It was actually the Golden waterfall. We had to climb up crazy rock formations, swim through pools of water and even climb up smaller waterfalls to get to the pool at the bottom of the Golden Waterfall. It was AMAZING.

On our way back to the van Pete and I were very tired as it took us a long time to get to the Golden Waterfall. At least now we were going with the water current so anytime we could we floated down the river. At some points we couldn't because of the rapids and rocks. At 2pm we stopped for a break and we asked how much longer until we are back. 2 hrs was their response. UGH how will we make it?

But we did and it was such an amazing birthday experience. We changed hostels as the hostel didn't have a private double room for all 3 nights so the trekking company drove us back to their office and make a copy of all the photos and videos for the day at NO EXTRA CHARGE. They drove us to the new hostel Formosa Backpackers, as we were staying there 2 nights before heading back to Taipei.

Once we arrived at the hostel we showered and relaxed for a little bit then went downstairs to the hostel bar. Pete had Taiwan beer and I had a glass of Jacob's Creek red wine. Cheers to a great day!!!! We asked the owner if there were any Indian restauants in town but she said they only had one and it closed recently. Bummer!!! She said a friend of hers has a great place that serves burritos since it was Cinco De Mayo. She only knows this holiday because she has been to Central America several times and actually wants to buy a hostel there. 6 months in Costa Rica and 6 months in Taiwan.

We set out to One Way Restaurant and entered we sat down and a woman came up to us with a menu but only in Traditional Characters, no pinyin even. We told her in Chinese that we only spoke a little but haven't learned to read yet. So she told us in English what they had to eat. We told her we were sent for burritos. Oh we change the menu everyday and we don't have burritos today. BUMMER. Once the food came out though we were so Amazed and told them we would be back tomorrow for more food since it was so great. All organic and from the local farms. She said "Maybe tomorrow we can make you burritos."

We were both really full but I said since it was my birthday we needed to stop and eat dessert. We found a little cafe near our hostel that had desserts so we ate some tiramisu and cheesecake.

This was such a memorable birthday and learned some new Chinese words from the guides today.

It was also a great deal as the all day trek was 2,200 TWD per person=$69.77, the hostel that booked the trip told the company that we were short on cash and wanted to go. They gave us the price of 1200TWD per person=$38.06.

Reason we were short on cash. Our friends Staci & Martin told us to either bring enough RMB to exchange or use US debit/credit cards since not many places took UnionPay and no ATMS take UnionPay, our Chinese bank card. While packing I brought enough RMB but we both forgot our US credit and debit cards. So we had to budget our week much more than we ever have when we traveling. Proud to say we even had left over cash to exchange back to RMB at the end of the week, without feeling we missed out on anything.

Taiwan is more expensive than Mainland China but cheaper than Hong Kong.

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Comments

[Mom]

29th birthday
Quite the Experience! Really neat pictures! You were lucky with the cash situation! Forgot the debit /credit card???

[Staci and Martin]

yay, what an awesome birthday day! and the celebrations continue this weekend.... and im glad it all worked out for you guys with the $$. we got back and almost had an overdraft charge in our bank account cause of withdrawing from our US account too much!