A Beginning Like All Beginnings: Different

Dear Other World,

The last I spoke to you was when I was in a warm Taipei apartment, helplessly buzzing around, packing last minute details and tangible items into my backpack.

Now we have walked about 25 kilometers (not an exact figure because I lost my pedometer...who needs a pedometer anyway. Do you even know what a pedometer is?), were almost run over by a freight train, are on the east coast of Taiwan, and I don't have pictures to show for it....well maybe one or two, but I'll get to that in another post.

The first day on the road was quite something. We got to a late start after my aunt and uncle treated us to a seafood lunch somewhere above the town of Dali. After our first steps from a seaside cafe, we decided to walk a little on the train tracks. It offered a spectacular view, and plus, after reading the book Hobo a few years back, I've always enjoyed the feeling of being on train tracks.

Bad Idea: Within half an hour, at least four trains wizzed by, the last of which nearly nipped both my friend, Steve, and I. We heard the horn a-comin', and jumped to take a squat on the ledge which offered our other potential option -- a 15 foot drop into a muck of a garden and various degrees of trash. Luckily, we're alive to tell the story, and I have minidisc audio to prove it.

Our main route at the moment is Rt. 2. With the openning of another faster route to the coast, the urbanites generally choose to take a faster route to the sea. This leaves the tractor trailors to Rt. 2 zooming down the coast.

After a close call with the train, we walked the road with varying shoulder widths to Dali. We went to a YMCA, but no one answered our calls. Dogs barked us out through the gates. We tried seeking shelter at a temple, but it was quite the tourist attraction, it seemed, and offered no form of shelter. It even had an information center. Mentally exhausted and physically wrecked with a 13-hour time difference, we chose to stay at a hostel, deserted from the likes of the winter "cold." It's chilly here, but it ain't nothing like an American winter. Barely anybody comes to these parts in the winter.

Thank you all kindly for the comments. It keeps me going.
tootles