Planalto Cycles

The night was short, although it had started promisingly, as I was alone in the room until midnight. But then, between midnight and 1:30 a.m., the door opened several times, sometimes for no apparent reason, sometimes it seemed as if someone was moving in. All in all, it was too loud, and every time I thought I could try to sleep, the next “attack” came.

We met at 10 a.m. at the south gate of the Zhejiang University campus (once ranked is the ugliest gate of all Chinese universities, or so). I’m not sure what vocabulary I’ve already used to describe a Chinese campus—big, huge, vast? I’d need a different one. It’s a total of 4 km² (bigger than the complete inner city of Vienna), a bunch of skyscrapers just for the professors, etc., etc.

In addition to the enormous infrastructure, it’s a beautiful park with quiet corners. We enjoyed this area, and then Han and Peter also showed me some buildings that played a role during their time studying there. There are so-called “booths” where student groups can develop their skills or pursue their hobbies. We had lunch in one of the large cafeterias, but then it was time to leave—Han and Peter had to catch their train to Beijing (where we’ll see each other again), and I continued on to Shanghai (you know: Zotter, but also some places Han had originally designed as part of a joint tour).

I got to the train station early enough to correct a mistake I’d made:

Since the station also houses the entrance to the subway, which I’ve used several times now, I’d gotten used to this part of the station. Only after checking each entrance to the platforms and looking for my train number did I realize these weren’t entrances, but exits, as this floor was for arrivals. I think in most Chinese train stations, arrivals and departures are on separate floors, as I might have remembered from my first train from Urumqi to Chengdu. The departure halls usually have separate entrances to the platforms and waiting areas on opposite sides: one for the front of the train (e.g., 1-8) and one for the rear of the train (say, 9-16). Depending on the train (either starting from there or arriving from another city), boarding begins 30 minutes or less before the train’s departure. People line up very early to rush to the platform, although they have booked seats.

Usually, there are markers indicating where each car stops, sometimes even indicating which entrance is closer to which seat number. This time, there were three car markers in three different colors, but I couldn’t figure out how they correspond to the different trains. Anyway, this time all indications didn’t fit to my coach. Han explained to me that those colours normally correspond to colours of the train indication on the screens.

Arriving in Shanghai, as a now experienced subway passenger and with the help of amap, I was able to easily find the hostel.’

I’m currently sharing a room with a young Egyptian who, minus the travel time, is only in Shanghai for four days in China. I think that’s pretty brave.

Han, Peter, and I started at a pagoda on West Lake and my struggles what to tell here and what to skip also start here, because both of them could tell so much about the historical and cultural background that what I remember alone would go beyond the scope. So, just a few highlights!

We walked along the Bai Causeway and crossed the lake by boat.

I’ll only mention a stone with a meaningful engraving and three small pagodas in the water.

Both have symbolic meanings. The mere engraving would just say “insect two” 虫二.
But the poet “and emporer) …. excluded the outer frame of two other characters …. and they say “….” (to be competed after consulting Han & Peter)

And the little pagodas are three (symbolic for complete) and have 5 holes to put wishes in and are also related to the story …(to be competed after consulting Han & Peter)

On the other side, we continued our cultural walk and had lunch before Peter and I visited the newly built Leifeng Pagoda. The pagoda had been burned down but eventually destroyed by the people themselves:

The “holy/magic”bricks were supposedly meant to prevent snakes from entering the house, so people took them piece by piece until the pagoda finally collapsed in 1924. For me, this symbolized the tension between society and the individual:
Everyone wants to take from the common good, and no one respects the boundaries before the collapse because that would mean others benefiting just because they were there earlier or were greedier. And no one wants to step back, no matter what the cost, for society or nature or wherever they want their share.

The pagoda, however, was rebuilt 2002, and in a special way:
They built a basic structure over some of the ruins of the original pagoda and built the new pagoda, practically floating above the old one.

Then we walked through Hefang Street, with its many shops, where we sampled delicious tea and pastries before having tea ourselves from a special shop. I also drank a sugarcane juice, which (or what else? Lunch?) later had a strong and urgent effect on me…

Hefang Street intersects Southern Song Imperial Street, which isn’t about singing mighty Southern songs, but about the Song Dynasty.

Afterwards, we sat down at a Muslim restaurant, ate a kind of fermented rice dessert, and tasted whether the Zotter chocolate from Vienna had survived the long journey with all the temperature fluctuations (which it did, quite well).

It was time to go home, and I had a big surprise at my hostel:
After the tutu.ru-disaster, I asked both them and the Kazakh railway why the Russians were selling tickets that couldn’t be found on the official website, and checked my email from time to time for an answer, but got no.
As a routine like every day twice I also tried to find “my” train on the Kazakh website – and now there it was!
With trembling fingers, I filled out the form, clicked “Pay,” paid, waited – and had a ticket!

I asked my sons to confirm this resulting PDF, but everything seemed to be fine!
Finally I can go! 😊

The Legend of the Bai She Zhuan tells of the immortal snake spirit. Bai Zi Niang (the “White Snake”) assumes human form to visit West Lake in Hangzhou and meet Xu Xian, whom Bai Zi Niang marries. Their young couple’s happiness could be so beautiful if the monk Fa Hai hadn’t suspected that Xu Xian’s wife was a snake spirit...

“This time” I woke up early 😉. Ben’s magic file had worked again yesterday after the hotel receptionist helped me with (better?) internet access. At least the procedure was different than in the room. So I could continue looking for a way to leave Arys.

Breakfast wasn’t that tasty, but some things are “safe,” like in this case, sweet potatoes or other vegetables. But here, too, I tried something new, some delicious, some not my immediate favorites. In the end, I took two rolls, one was a nice, sweet surprise, the other was meaty and not the best way to end my breakfast. But can you tell before you bite into it?

At 10 a.m., I took bus 178. I threw two coins into a box, but I could have thrown in one or five coins, or a dead battery cell—no one minded.

The tour differed from the route on the map, but that was fine with me, as the station was the last stop, and the always imperial layout of the stations helped me recognize it from a distance. I was an hour and a half early, but my train, G414, was already on the screen. Luckily, the train numbers are in English!

The hostel manager asked me to add him on WeChat, and there he gave me some useful information. The building and even the hidden entrance weren’t that difficult to find, but then it was really necessary for him to come down to pick me up, since he had written “13th floor,” but it was actually the 17th, and you needed a door code for an entrance that didn’t say anything about a hostel, etc.

I soon set off on the 8km walk to the restaurant Han had chosen. The route took me through various parts of town and neighborhood, giving me a first impression of the city.

Han, her partner Side (or rather Peter, because it looks easy, but I couldn’t pronounce “Side” correctly at the end), and I had dinner together. Han explained that the food in the south is sweeter than in the north of China, and the lotus with glutinous rice filling was a good (= sweet) example. Should I mention that the rest of the food was also good, and most of it was new to me? Okay—done!

We chatted a lot and took a lovely walk along the southeastern shore of West Lake, but Han also had a lot to share, and her warm connection to West Lake was palpable.

Han and Peter helped me use Alipay for the subway, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to do that again since they switched to Chinese in the second phase. But then I can still buy a regular ticket.

The price for the hostel was cheap, and so was the hostel itself. At least now I know why I brought not only a towel, but also toilet paper and a thin sleeping bag.

My train mystery had a new chapter:

That afternoon, I received an email from tutu.ru saying that 90 (!) tickets were still available for the Arys–Tashkent route. Back at the hostel, I tried my best to buy one. Since doing anything on my phone was already a challenge for me, the Russian website was difficult to navigate. The direct translation didn’t work at every step, so I had to copy every word of the form into the translation app and re-enter the details. The final step was payment. One card wasn’t accepted. Things initially looked better with the second card, but then I received the message: “Only Russian cards are currently accepted.”

No ticket!

Now I have another, somewhat risky option:

Should I just go to Arys and hope to get a ticket at the train station? (Even at the beginning of the booking, there were only 77 left!) If not, will I find a driver to Tashkent?

Some worries woke me up at 5:30 and they had been confirmed in the next 2 hours.

Yesterday, I received an email from Kazakhstan Railways stating that my ticket number 58739575 was invalid due to late payment. I could exchange it for another ticket, etc. So I checked and saw that it was for the Almaty–Arys–Tashkent–Bukhara route. This made all my other bookings useless!

I tried to find alternatives, but every option (Shymkent, Bishkek, etc.) was somehow blocked. For example, there is a bus from Almaty (14 hours to Tashkent), but it was only available at a too late date, so only a flight Tashekent to Bukhara would maybe get me there in time. I could risk taking the train to Arys and try to find a taxi or private car to Tashkent (160 km), but what if it wasn’t? I would have been stuck there!

If there is no reliable way to get to Tashkent, flying wouldn’t be very convenient either (a layover and a self-transfer), but it adds up to my “never travel again” decision.

The driver took me to the ferry port. With my passport, I was able to pick up my ticket (prepared by Jing, China agency), buy some nuts, etc., with my last NT$, and drop the remaining money into a donation box.

The ferry was just as fast as last time, but the sea was calm, and my stomach wasn’t burdened by overeating or rough sea, so I was even able to write something.

In Fuzhou, the immigration card was the first challenge, but a friendly official helped me. Fortunately, Han had already gotten me the ticket to Almaty, as you need proof that you’re leaving China within the 30-day visa-free period. I needed my laptop to get the address of the Chinese hotel, as my phone didn’t have internet access, and the official couldn’t connect my phone to the ferry port’s Wi-Fi. However, I had saved a PDF of the booking on my laptop.

The final part of the travel agency’s planning involved taking me to the Vienna Hotel. I followed the route on maps, but after a while, I felt like the driver was going somewhere else. I tried to explain and showed him the hotel’s location on the map, but he didn’t change the route. So, I sent Jing the hotel’s English address (the only one I had on my phone) and asked her to send him the correct one. Meanwhile, we had arrived at a “hotel Vienna”, and I asked the driver to wait before dropping me off. At that moment, he got the correct address and took me there. There are not just two, but several hotels in Vienna in the area.

So it’s good to mark the address on a map, have an offline map (it was only when I was already on the road that I was able to convince the e-SIM to do its job again in China), and generally save, print, write down, etc., everything.

I know this anyway and try to stay up to date, but it’s tedious, especially with many rebookings.

I took an afternoon stroll to the cultural theme park, but I was too late to enter a museum, so I just went for a long walk.

In the end I located the bus stop where I might get a direct ride to the train sation tomorrow (1:20 hours), At the hotel they “told” me (tranlation app) that I would need 2 Yuan in coins to pay, so I went to a shop to get some coins.

And then I struggled with my bookings, trains, and the internet…

You wake up quickly when you can’t sleep well anyway. So, I went where the emperor goes on foot (at least in the Austrian saying), and it blew hot and cold on me, in every sense of the word. A freshly caught polar wind raged from above, and further down the toilet seat was heated—come on!

A driver took me to the hotel, where the manager invited me to breakfast before starting my tourist bus tour.

The same manager came to the bus stop on her own initiative to help me (which was actually helpful!), and additionally a woman asked me, “Are you from Austria?”
Indeed I am, and besides, I was surprised, but maybe you’ll find the answer by looking at the introductory photo?

She, Sophia, had decided to join the tour, and it was only by luck that she and I got the spots (although Yvonne had booked it for me beforehand?!). My luck held, as the tour guide spoke very fluent Chinese, and all I understood was this: nothing. And luckily Sophia gave me some translations! The tour consisted of two parts, and the morning part was dominated by visiting military facilities.

You know Taiwan is constantly under threat, but perhaps you can multiply this thread by saying the Matsu Islands are ten times closer to China. For me, it was a kind of flashback to a tour with Hasmik to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2018 on a bus with a group of Armenian patriots. (This is where the comparison almost ends. The thread for Armenia and Taiwan is different, but prevalent in both countries.)

Everyone was Taiwanese except for Sophia, who grew up in Canada but has roots in Nangan, which is why she returned, and for me and for many of our group, the cannons and other sights were an attraction that made them proud or evolved patriotic feelings but still, at least without understanding a word, it was bearable for me.

Of course, such a tour includes some places to shop or eat, but we were definitely tourists, and its purpose is to support local businesses.

I shouldn’t criticize the tour too much, as it wasn’t designed for someone like me (although the tour’s promotional map was also in English), and of course—and with Sophia’s help—even I had a more accurate idea of Nangan than before.

I took too many photos of information boards and even QR codes with English translations, but I think it will take me months to catch up, so here are mainly photos and not much background information

Another strange night, as the room became full. In the morning, I chatted briefly with a Canadian cyclist who was planning to circumnavigate Taiwan. Then I spent a while busy with my booking and planning tasks before heading to a vegetarian restaurant that Fangfang had recommended.

Then it was time to book. It was stressful because I couldn’t book the Almaty-Bukhara train. So, I had to book Almaty-Arys-Tashkent-Bukhara and coordinate the schedules closely, as not all trains run daily. There was only one seat left on one train (14 days before the scheduled departure!), but first I had to check the connection’s availability, and of course, paying was difficult, so I was nervous about whether I would get all the tickets.

Yes, I have them. Maybe they all work and are they valid? (e.g. I received a message that a booking was not paid (on time?) and I would receive a refund – the main problem is a bad automatic translation)

The strangest part: I must change trains in Arys. I arrive at the “Arys 2” stop at 3:59 a.m. (dark, cold?!) and have to change to the “Arys 1” stop, which is a 3-kilometer walk away. From there, however, I’ll depart for Tashkent in the evening.

After this booking thriller, I left the hostel, took my luggage to the train station, and met Fangfang at a vegan/vegetarian weekend market. I almost lost track of time as we browsed around, in the last minute only buying a few of the things that had attracted me and finishing with a fantastic vegan ice cream. It was a quick goodbye, and I hurried to the train station.

On board, I found myself in the exact same cabin like 2 weeks before (Nangan – Keelung) and immediately shivered under the crazy air conditioning, which was immune to my tampering. This time, I shared the cabin with two men from the very beginning. The crossing was overnight, so it was easier to escape the air conditioning under the blanket but even fully clothed I often woke up because of feeling cold.

The other guest left early, and I went to Hsinchu Park, where, in addition to the zoo, a temple, and other buildings, the Glass Museum is located.

Because of the national holiday, “Ten-Ten,” admission was even free, and in addition to exhibitions on glass art, there was also the history of glassmaking to discover.

Today it’s time for an interim assessment…

When I had to decide whether to pay €4,500 for a guided/guarded/”protected” tour in Iran, with the prospect of meeting my friends maybe just for lunch or something, and maybe not even alone, the decision was pretty clear for me. Still, it’s hard to argue that meeting friends for a few hours isn’t worth €4,500, because the next question might be: Where is the limit? Now I’ve come to Hsinchu to meet Fangfang. I stayed here for two nights and met her for lunch yesterday (and maybe we meet tomorrow afternoon). It was a nice meeting, and normally I’d say I wouldn’t want to miss it, but was it worth the effort? It’s uncomfortable to ask, but it’s part of the decision to stop traveling, because for me, traveling was primarily about meeting friends.

This time, I realized more than ever that getting to know other countries, other cultures, and even other landscapes for me isn’t sufficient motivation for a trip. Meeting friends must be meaningful enough to justify a trip. The quality of a meeting can’t simply be quantified and compared with the more measurable effort required to make it happen.

Besides, it would take far too long to understand for example the “codes” of another place to feel comfortable. Otherwise, it takes a lot of energy, a higher basal metabolic rate, so to speak, to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings. On my first trip to Sydney in 2015, with additional stops to meet friends, I only realized this when I got home. Already at the airport and even more so at home. I was so euphoric on the trip that I hadn’t noticed the general exhaustion and the lack of sleep, but then I got a fever and needed a few days to recover.

We’ll see how I look back on this trip when I get home and whether some crazy idea comes to me that motivates me again, or whether some magical fuel develops that justifies flying? Because without a doubt, I would at least have no problem visiting my brother and Martina again in Australia, if it were only those 21 hours flying and no other consequences!

Later that afternoon, I took a walk (or was it a short hike?), to and up the Eighteen Peaks Mountain. At first, I thought I should hurry to get back out before dark, but I soon realized I was certainly not the only one walking or running there, and the main trails were lit anyway.

The six-bed room in the hostel was two-thirds full, and I had to gather my things a bit, as I was occupying the only table with my laptop. But I was also the only one with any significant luggage. None of the guests returned my greeting, for whatever reason. The air conditioning was running, but it was set to 24°C, not 18°C ​​like last night.

I went down to the kitchen/common room and listened to a radio recording, but immediately turned it off when a second guest came in. Then I heard the radio news on his phone instead 🙂

The farewell was short due to LAN’s tight morning schedule, and I headed to the MRT station. I had Amy’s directions, which I confirmed with Google Maps, but the announcement at the station raised questions: There were several stations that looked like I could take the subway directly to my train. I asked a conductor and got the same information like Amy’s, so—no experiments!

Later, I knew: The train to Hsinchu had one stop after Taichung Station, namely Hsinchu. And I can only assume that some trains make intermediate stops, but it’s too late to delve deeper into that science.

The next thing to delve deeper into was how to make calls/messages via phone/line/WhatsApp in front of the closed hostel door in Hsinchu. Why was the E-SIM, which only provides data, interfering and usurped the call? Then I was able to get the Taiwanese SIM to work, but the number I was trying to dial was dead. There were QR codes for line and WhatsApp, but they didn’t work either. Finally, I called again using that number, but via WhatsApp (now added manually), and that worked. I was given a door code and told to drop NT$600 in the mailbox for the night.

I only had NT$1,000, so I first met Fangfang at Café Hsinchuku, which used to be a dormitory for Japanese soldiers and is now a considerate vegan cafe. (For sharing, packing leftovers to take home, etc.)

We shared good food and shared thoughts, and after a short tour of the city, Fangfang drove me back to the hostel on her motorbike. The hostel was completely empty, and it seemed like I at least had the 6-bed room to myself. Fangfang tried her best to keep the “line” running even if I switched back to my Austrian SIM card, but even the AI ​​told her that was impossible.

In our conversation about “everything and anything” (in German: “God and the World”), I learned that Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) is the female manifestation of Buddha. Fangfang seems to have an approach to Buddhism that may be inspiring, but ultimately, there wasn’t enough time to scratch more than the surface.

That evening, I went to a shop to buy a taro drink and on the way saw the Xinzhu Hou Zhan Night Market. It wasn’t easy to find something that was at least vegetarian, but I ended up buying a kind of dry donut, because I would and taro balls, both intended for breakfast, since I was still full from my lunch with Fangfang.

I went to bed with the fan running, not only to make the temperature more bearable, but also to dry my clothes (in my experience, it takes up to three days otherwise). But at 1 a.m., another guest arrived and turned on the air conditioning as well—I froze for the rest of the night.

In the morning, I visited the Science Museum. The focus was on the history and science of semiconductors. Several guides showed me the interactive parts of the exhibition, some of them fun or interesting, some more time-consuming than effective. The biggest challenge for me, however, was the constant jumble of sounds meant to illustrate modernity (?).

I then went to “Louisa Coffee,” where I had spent time during Amy’s workdays on my laptop in 2019. I was confused because it didn’t look at all like in my memories, but later Amy told me there were several “Louisas”. That afternoon, we picked up Lien from the school bus stop, and when I tried to find “my” Louisa on maps, I saw that she would have been only 30 meters away, obscured only by a wall ledge and some bushes.

Amy, Lien, and I had dinner at a sushi restaurant, where Lien was able to demonstrate how much sushi can fit into a young, active body—she had more than I did. Okay, so, as a fan of Carrie’s baking creations, I had my last two cakes for this Taiwan visit (which, as mentioned, will be my last, barring any unexpected developments).

The evening was digital:

Lien watched a Japanese cartoon, Amy and Neil struggled with setting up Revolut (failed) and Wise (success), and I had to reschedule the tour with Han from Fuzhou to Beijing because her professor had announced a short term pre-thesis presentation. I had been looking forward to long evenings, talking about various things we’d been putting off, and now also Shanghai, including the Zotter Chocolate Theater, would be a solo trip for me. (I’m not sure I’ll go to the Shanghai Marriage Market in People’s Park alone.)

So I booked the hotels and trains for Fuzhou – Hangzhou – Shanghai – Beijing and was finished roughly at the same time as Amy and Neil with their account challenge.

At 6:50 a.m., everyone set off toward the Hyvä Desert. From there, Amy and Lien drove to school in another car, and Neil drove to work in his. The drive to Washington Bilingual Elementary School is long, and most of the children are dropped off by their parents. So, they create their own traffic jam, and the last 500 meters to the drop-off line at the school takes a while because everyone must wait for every single child to get out of the car, sometimes with hugs from their parents, etc.

On the way back, Amy and I had time to talk about upbringing, education, and the Taiwanese language, which is being lost among today’s “middle” and younger generations. Lien understands what her grandparents say, but Chinese is predominant at home and isn’t taught in school, although politicians also lament this development.

Amy dropped me off near the National Taichung Theatre and went to her office. There, I started my three morning tasks: Top up the Youbike card at 7/11 and print out the Loi for Turkmenistan. Wait (and write) at the Opera Cafe. At 11:30 a.m., the theatre opened to the public, and my first surprise was that admission was free.

Second, it partly resembled a department store, as you could buy not only souvenirs but also shoes and jewelry. There were also several restaurants where you could eat. The building itself is, of course, worth seeing.

At 2:00 p.m., film director Fan Ke Chin and his team arrived at “Dessert Hyvä,” the café owned by Carrie, Amy’s sister. Her pastry shop and café had been chosen to represent Taiwan’s economy. “Hyvä” is Finnish and refers to Carrie’s affinity for Finland following an extended stay in Lapland. Therefore, the Finnish ambassador was also invited, and the television segment is based on a conversation between him and Carrie. First, a makeup artist arrived, followed by the entire crew (three cameras, translator, sound engineer, director, and several others).

(photos will be added)

Amy and Carrie then explained to me a twist to the situation: The KMT (pro-China) governor was also present, and Carrie made no secret of her support for Taiwan’s independence, evident on the walls, stickers, and, not least, her “Taiwan cake.” They joked that the governor would remove her from the portrait series. But considering how complicated the domestic political situation in Taiwan is due to the divide between the pro-China and independence movements, and how anxious people are about the existential threat China has posed to them for generations, the laughter gets stuck in your throat. Many, especially younger people and parents, are thinking about Plan B, not just for the war, but also for the post-annexation period and that can even mean buying an apartment outside Taiwan.