Taiwan & The World’s Most Dangerous Festival
Moon landscapes, fireworks shot at you, UFO houses, and a 500m tall building on an earthquake fault line - there’s a lot to see in this blog post!
Earlier this year I had the chance to spend a week in Taiwan (or the Republic of China, as it is officially called), starting in the south and making my way way north on the westerly, more populated, side (the east with its beautiful countryside is still on my list). What drew me to Taiwan was the Beehive festival - which has nothing to do with our striped flying friends at all. Read on to find out what this insanity is all about!
Start here with a few video impressions from some of the experiences that you can have in just a few days on the island.
Southern Sights
I arrived to Taiwan from Palawan, one of the Philippines’ most beautiful islands, flying to the country’s largest city on the southern tip, Kaohsiung, with a plan to experience some of its sights and festivals while making my way north to Taipei, the capital.
On my arrival I first wanted to visit the landscape of badlands in this area, often called Moon World due to their interesting rock formations.
There are different areas with these mudstone formations sculpted by years of wind and erosion, the most famous and easily accessible one is in Tianlao, seen above.
Colorful Nights of Tainan
After that, I spent an evening in the city of Tainan, exploring some of its famous old streets from the Qing Dynasty with their picturesque shops and lantern-lined streets. Especially around the time after Chinese New Year, decorations were in full swing - even extending to our furry companions.
Pastime
Like every Taiwanese city, Tainan is home to plenty of these little stores. Claw machines and their similar variants can be found everywhere, and took over a little less than 10 years ago. The craze has died down a bit since then, but they still act as a source of income for their owners and the landlords renting the space to them. Guess who needed a lot of coins during his stay in the country…
On the next day, I visited the Wushantou Reservoir, the largest of its kind in Asia when it was completed in 1930. Its interesting shoreline patterns gave it the nickname Coral Lake, and it’s a popular recreational spot today. The hazy weather made photography a little tricky, but I could still see where it got its name from.
Madou Daitian Temple
Not far from the reservoir lies this rather unusual temple with its beautiful colored roof ornaments, originally constructed in the 17th century, but rebuilt and expanded several times.
🐉
Its most recognizable feature is arguably this large dragon, with a 76m long tunnel leading up to the head through different heaven and hell worlds (shown in rather detailed questionable animatronic presentations) before spitting you out at the mouth, where stairs lead back down.
A small ceremony was being filmed while I was there, which allowed me to get a few traditional casual portraits.
The Yanshui
Beehive Festival
.
In the afternoon, it was time to prepare for the main event, and what really drew me to visit the south of Taiwan during this time of the year. A tiny town in the Yanshui province, about 30km north of Tainan, turns into one of the most insane festivals on the planet. Let’s start from the beginning: As the story goes, in 1885 the area suffered from a cholera outbreak that couldn’t be contained. The solution people turned to - as they often do in times of despair - is a higher power: The god of war, Guandi. To appease him to help drive out the disease, his palanquin (little carts with the statues inside seen on the top right and in some of the photos below) were paraded through the streets, with firecrackers set off to rid the town of the plague.
Preparation
Since then, local residents prepare for this yearly celebration far in advance, setting up the firework displays, mainly in square clusters full of bottle rockets: the so-called Beehives. The largest ones are the size of a truck, and people try to outdo themselves every year, storing the precious creations in their garages and living rooms - literally! - hidden from view until the big day. Millions of crackers are attached by hand to the metal and wooden frames that later get pulled out on the streets.
Living with Fire
One can only hope that smoking is banned in this house until the big day, but from what I saw in terms of safety, this assumption is questionable.
Lined Up
Guandi's palanquins are ready to go in front of the Wumiao temple, where the procession starts.
Judging from what I experienced a few hours later, my guess is that this futile attempt to protect the car parked on this street with a few card boxes would not prove to be a very successful strategy.
The world’s most dangerous festival
Having seen the preparations, it was time to ensure our own safety with a little bit more seriousness than I had in mind a few hours earlier. It’s not surprising that every year people get injured, suffer burns, or lose their hearing when attending these celebrations. Full body cover, helmet, ear protection, and ensuring there are no gaps where a rouge cracker could enter and explore next to your eardrum, are mandatory. I was still wondering how my camera would fare in this mess, but at the least I had a UV filter to protect the front lens.
Warm Up
As a little introduction you could get yourself draped in chains of crackers and then literally be set on fire. I’d rather watch from a distance. For now that was still an option.
The Main Event
And then it started. The palanquins got in line, the crowds gathered, and we were off - at this point I didn’t quite know what to expect yet…
I soon had a better idea. As the parade started to make its way through the streets, occupant of the nearby houses were throwing chains of crackers onto the carts, dancing and jumping while people ignite them under their feet. In the background, fireworks are shot into the sky and the spectacle turns into a constant stream of noise, smoke, and flashes - and your own attempts to escape the worst of it while you admire the proceedings (and in my case, try to get some photos).
As we moved through the streets with dozens of carts and thousands of people split into a few groups, we occasionally reached a small open space, such as the front yard of a temple, and things came to a halt. This is when I realized it was the moment the big guns would come out - it was time for a beehive.
The Signal
After praying and burning joss paper in front of the deity, the rocket tower is ignited, and the blasting begins. For a few minutes, thousands of bottle rockets shoot out into the crowds from either side. Getting hit is considered a charm of good luck, so the bravest of the onlookers position themselves just in front of the tower, bearing the brunt of the explosives.
The spectacle is a deafening scene of shrieking angry rockets looking for a target, low, high, wide, and far, while the smoke slowly penetrates your helmet and makes your eyes water as you look to escape the crowd into a safer spot.
Take a look at this little clip to get a feeling for how these moments look like in action.
Dark Souls
At times being part of this procession through the streets felt like a mixture of joining a cult, being part of a video game, a war zone, or a post-apocalyptic movie scene. It’s surreal.
The parade of carts with the venerable Guandi moves through the entire town, before the celebrations settled in the town centre, where more beehives are brought out, and more rockets are shot into the sky (you get the theme by now).
Into the Night
Some of the firework displays here eclipsed anything I had ever seen before in size, color, variety, frequency, and noise.
Through the Neighborhood
A pit fire for joss paper was ignited by these onlookers as the procession passed their home.
Side Entertainment
If you needed a break from fireworks, the small public square had a DJ booth and dancing girls to round up the celebrations - don’t ask me how that relates to the traditional cultural background of the festival 😉
Do you think all of this was a little much? Well, I should tell you, this was the “slower” day - the next day is the actual original traditional event date, with more people, bigger beehives, and growing craziness. The main reason I didn’t stay for that was due to the fact it traditionally coincides with Lantern Release Day in the north of Taiwan, which I wanted to see as well. In hindsight, it was probably a good idea to start gradually - but I’m pretty sure I’ll be back for the full extravaganza… It becomes a little addictive after you overcome the first shock (and survive the first bottle rockets hurling towards you).
Clean Up
Water and shovels were always on hand to extinguish the occasional fire that broke out among the leftover unexploded fireworks, street side shrubs, or pieces of clothing.
Saved
Kyle, my trusty companion, was happy to have his protective equipment. Despite that, we still left with some bruises, comparable to a few proper paintball hits.
Time for some Peace and Quiet
We left Yanshui a little after midnight towards the mountain regions of Alishan, feeling relieved to be alive, counting bruises, desperate to clear the smoke from our clothes and bodies, and give our ears and eyes some respite. The next day was going to be a long one, as we made our way straight to the very northern tip of the island for Pingxi’s Sky Lantern Festival.
Before that though, I wanted to enjoy a quiet sunrise among the beautiful tea plantations of the highlands of Alishan, a picturesque area in the centre of Taiwan.
A pleasing contrast to the previous night, the central mountain ranges and eastern coasts (which I didn’t see much of) are very different than the highly populated west side, and full of natural beauty and a calmer life.
Cheery Blossom
The season was upon us, and we discovered the occasional hint of color on our way.
Forest Railway
Not far from this area is one of Taiwan’s amazing narrow gauge forest railway tracks. We walked along these tracks near the Erwanping scenic area for a bit, looking for a very special tree…
Namely, this amazing giant cypress, growing around a huge boulder into the sky. I couldn’t find out how old it is, but it must be several hundred years, and is truly a special sight. We spent a few minutes here, and then had to move on quickly, to make it north in time for the lantern festival.
Pingxi
Lantern Festival
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Taiwan loves lanterns - they’re everywhere - and on one special day of the year many of them get released into the sky at this lantern festival in the small town of Pingxi.
Busy Affair
Although there are several rounds of releases with dozens of lanterns each, and each lantern often with a group of several people, the festival always sells out its permits way in advance, with only a few tickets available on site. This leads to many people buying and releasing their lanterns “unofficially” in the surroundings.
A Good Spot
Access to the releases is quite strictly organized by slot numbers, and my last minute plan to go to Taiwan didn’t do me any favors. Visiting the organizer’s office and begging for a way to take photos did help though - being one of the only Westerners I spotted around may also have played a role 📸.
The idea of the festival is for wishes of good luck and prosperity to be written on the lanterns by their respective owners before sending them into the sky.
Singers and other artists perform in between the releases, making it quite an entertaining evening. They get to release the large primary lantern in each round.
Year of the Rabbit
Each group of lanterns uses different colors and follows its own theme, but the evening culminates in the final release, representing that year’s animal in the Chinese zodiac calendar with a huge lantern.
Rain isn’t ideal when releasing lanterns made of thin film meant to fly in the sky based on the buoyant force of hot air, so one or the other didn’t quite make it, and came crashing down in a rain of burning pieces - I almost felt transported back to the Beehive festival …
The Aftermath
The next morning shows the real consequence of the festival, with colorful remains all around the nearby forests. Even though the majority of the lantern material is biodegradable, the frame and other pieces linger in nature for a long time, something the organizers should find a better solution for.
Divine Trees of Qilan
The next morning had one more destination in store before heading to Taipei, and it was the only time I had a chance to visit the eastern coast. The road up the hilly landscapes makes for a motion sickness inducing drive, but the idea of seeing some of the few remaining Taiwan red and yellow cypress giants was worth it. A lot of these trees have been logged during the Japanese occupation, and only very few aged 1000 years or more (which gives them the “Divine” status) remain. Over 50 of them can be found in this area alone.
Shortly after we arrived for the small hike through the tree garden, clouds started to reach us at an altitude of around 1700m, making for a beautiful soft atmosphere. The largest of these trees have sign posts on them and are named after Chinese people of historic significance. They often reach more than 30m into the sky, with diameters as wide as a human is tall. The longest standing tree here is over 2500 years old.
The path is about 2 kilometers long and passes almost all the divine trees. It’s a beautiful forest trail, which we had all to ourselves until a small bus with a guide sporting a megaphone arrived (yep, that happened - so try and avoid it).
The Male Tree
No need to explain this naming methodology any further. Let’s move on.
Tapei
Arrival in Taiwan’s capital city, which, going by municipal boundaries, is actually not its largest with a population of 2.5m. That title goes to New Taipei City, with 4m people, more or less surrounding Taipei itself.
Tapei 101
As a skyscraper geek, visiting the former world’s tallest building was obviously on my list, but the 508m tall tower decided to hide in a blanket of low clouds most days.
Blossoming between the Clouds
As my time in Taipei was slowly coming to an end, I had to try my luck and made my way to the tower on a somewhat overcast day - and ended up having just a few moments in between the clouds.
The view from the bottom shows the curled ruyi figures above the entrance and at each of the stacked repeating sequences, often said to resemble the bamboo stalk (or a stack of Chinese take out food boxes, your pick).
Balance
The most special aspect of Taipei101 is its structural design. The tower literally sits on a major earthquake fault line and in a typhoon zone, so aside from its extremely deep foundation and heavy interior columns, this 660 ton tuned mass damper counters the building’s motion. In 2015 heavy winds caused the damper to sway by a full meter, its largest ever movement. The damper has become a tourist attraction in itself.
While the panoramic photo at the beginning of this section was taken from Fuzhou Shan Park to the south, another nice and easily accessible (through a small hike) viewpoint of the skyline is the Elephant Peak in the lower hills a bit further east of the city centre.
Ciyou Temple
One of my favorite temples in the city was this one at the entrance of the Raohe Night Market, originally built in 1753.
While the temple features a lot of intricate ancient details, another more modern architectural gem can be found in proximity to Taipei 101. The Agora Garden tower resembles the structure of a DNA helix and features 20,000 shrubs and trees.
Taipei is a great city to explore, with many beautiful alleys, neon-lit streets, bustling markets, intricate buddhist and taoist temples, architecture blending the old and the new, and a mix of north-Asian cultures that altogether result in its own heritage and atmosphere.
Northern Sights
I had time for one more rainy day trip, making my way to the very northern coast of the island, passing by the colorful houses of Zhengbin near the port city of Keeling.
My primary target was a visit to the retro-futuristic remains of the Futuro houses at Wanli village. About a dozen of these, together with several Venturo style houses, were once built here. Their story online is inconsistent, but most likely this happened in the 1980s, before they were abandoned some 10 years later.
The original style was developed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, but the whimsical flying saucers never quite became the reality of the future. Nevertheless I could have spent hours here, but the pouring rain got the better of me quite quickly.
Futuro
The state of the houses is a far cry from the techno-utopian promise they once carried, although I did spot one or two examples that were in a more habitable state - in fact, one looked like it was restored and occupied.
Yehliu Geopark
The last destination for the trip was this mile long cape stretching into the East China See, which features a curious assembly of hoodoo style rock formations that have slowly emerged through limestone erosion.
Nature has done some great work here, creating everything from oddly shaped holes in the coastline to a flip-flop style shoe outcrop, as well as beautiful colored patterns in the sandstone, and a human sized formation that is said to resemble a woman’s head: the famous “Queens Head’, standing like a sentinel with the dozens of tourists wanting to take their photo next to it.
Until Next Time
I think my story in Taiwan isn’t quite over yet - exploring the east coast and another visit to the Yanshui Beehive Festival are still buzzing in the back of my head.
