The next morning we visited the rooftop garden where two dishes of the previous evening’s meal were grown.

The rich soil, sub-tropical climate and ample water all make Taiwan a perfect garden. Peoples toil and passion for the soil means every little piece of this island nation sprouts in green.

Each village or district takes pride in their dominant crop. This can be seen by the large replicas of the produce you often see as you enter a village. Pineapple Gaoshu, Taro Keelung, Mango Meishan, Redbean Daliao.

Every good meal is finished with a plate of fruit. A lot of effort is spent in growing it.

Any idle land is quickly commandeered and converted to garden. Often in parks, on sidewalks and spare patches of dirt between paths, someone will have cordoned it off and converted it to greens.

In the park near our place almost all the spare patches of dirt have been converted to small vegetable gardens by some older women.

(As a side note, the sign on the roller door in the background says the house is for rent. These signs are going up at an alarming rate at the moment!)

And here between the elementary school path and the road. Whose land, whose vegetables?

A popular trend has been cultivating fallow fields in flowers and then promoting people to visit them when in bloom. Daliao has done this for a dozen or so fields each of the last two years.

When concrete and pavement makes growing directly in the soil impossible, people scrape dirt into something and grow things anyway.

Having grown up on a broad acre wheat farm it is amazing to see such incredibly productive land.

Though Taiwan is small and the population large, there is no doubt the land is productive enough and the people resourceful enough that there will always be plenty of green in the diet.

But as soon as you reach the foot of the mountain range you are in a very different place. The flat populated plains change to precipitous forested ranges. The mountains are sliced by deeply cut valleys created by typhoon fed rivers.

The brief two months of Southern Taiwan’s mild winter have now past. In a few weeks the tropical rains will start and the stifling humidity will have people searching for cool relief. These last two years we have found that relief in the many pools and waterfalls accessible along the mountain range. Here are some of our favorites and directions on how to find them.

Chingtang waterfall(欽堂瀑布). This is a gem of a spot. It is a short walk up an overgrown and rock fallen path off the Southern Cross Island highway at one of the last places you can reach the main river before the road rises above the river bed. It is not sign posted which makes it quiet and secluded. Of the 5 or so times we have stoppped we’ve always had the place to ourselves. Its great for a cool swim or a BBQ. Park on the side of the road opposite the huge rock scree. Use the Google map below to help find it.

The same waterfall immediately after a typhoon

Meiya waterfall (美雅) This is one of a number of waterfalls in the Maolin National Scenic area. Not ideal for swimming and the walk up to the waterfall itself requires some scrambling over rocks since the suspension bridge and path was washed away in a typhoon a couple of years ago. One of the bridge’s main pillars can be seen under the pile of rocks below.

On one of the two cold weekends a year it is worthwhile visiting the Duona hot springs (多納) deep inside the Maolin National Scenic Area. Though not glamorous, the half dozen concrete baths have varying temperatures and there is always a friendly crowd.

If the water is not too high, walk up river a little to find hot water seeping from the riverbed.

There are a couple of other waterfalls at Maolin like this one at Lovers Valley. Not so great for swimming though.

Dajin waterfall (大津瀑布) This is close to the Maolin National Scenic Area and a short climb up an incredibly wide and well made path. It is well signposted and quite popular.  China Post published a great article on Dajin waterfall last year.

Rainbow waterfall(彩虹瀑布) is an all day adventure to reach. Firstly you need to enter the Sandimen police check point which means you will require some ID and 10yuan along with a reason you wish to enter. This is probably the last roadside checkpoint police station that remains along the mountains. I wouldn’t be surprised if it too is closed down shortly.

Follow Pingtung county road 31 to the very end. Even through the narrow laned Dashe (大社) village. Be prepared to wait as the locals park and chat on the road and aren’t in any hurry to move along.

Follow the small narrow road to the point where you are comfortable you can still drive back then follow the track on foot until you reach the river bed. Follow the river bed until you find a waterfall. From the police station it is probably 40mins drive, 20 mins walk on the track then 30 mins walk up the river bed. Not ideal after rain as you need to wade across the river a few times. Great for seclusion, swimming or a BBQ. There are a number of other great waterfalls and trails inside the Sandimen area that are well worth visiting.

Liangshan waterfall (涼山瀑布) is actually a series of pools and waterfalls with a covered BBQ area and clean toilets. The main pool is mostly shallow and safe for kids. It is a great spot and very popular on the weekends. Make sure you walk the 20 minute path from the main swimming area to the large waterfall at the end. About halfway along the trail are a series of steps that lead down to a great little swimming hole.

Anping water hole (安平) This is our favorite local BBQ destination as it is the quickest and easiest to reach from Daliao and Kaohsiung. It has a great swimming area for kids with large flat shallow areas. It is reasonably popular but we always meet the nicest people there. One guy told me you can avoid paying the 50yuan parking fee by continuing along the road past the parking area and walking down a small path. I say pay the parking and enjoy the amenities. Well, those that remain after a typhoon in 2007!

Laiyi(來義) is another of our favorites. Follow the rough old road to the very end and pay the 50 yuan parking fee. Don’t stop at the beautiful pool immediately under the KTV slot machine station, unless you have a penchant for listening to woeful karaoke. Walk up river a little and stop by one of the many pools. We have occasionally seen river tracing groups here as the river is great for tracing.  China Post wrote on a waterfall immediately behind the closed police post in Laiyi though we have never visited it.

Nanhe river (南和) is yet another of our favorites. There is no waterfall and the river can be a bit rapid. But the point we visit is the joining of two rivers with a suspension bridge over the top. There are plenty of pools and places to BBQ.

Make use of the Google map to find your way. Be warned, the Pingtung county roads are windy and its very easy to get lost. It is worth noting that many of the places I describe above were found while getting lost trying to find something else!

View Larger Map

If you have any questions, suggestions or corrections please leave a comment.

But the majority of rubbish is recycled one way or another. Between recycle trucks, local recycle yards and old women collectors, nothing with any residual value is placed in the ground.

Six days a week the yellow rubbish truck winds its way through the lanes and streets playing The Maidens Prayer or Fur Elise in a distorted polyphonic ringtone. Upon the tune the whole neighborhood scuttle out of their homes with their bags of rubbish.

The truck has two barrels to collect food scraps. The meal of some happy (or unhappy) pigs somewhere.

Each Monday and Thursday a recycle truck follows close behind to collect paper, plastics, glass and metals.

I’m not sure when these musical trucks were introduced but I do recall the days when people would throw their rubbish into communal heaps where they were later collected. Though it can be inconvenient to make sure you reach the truck on time, it is far preferable than the old corner heaps.

There is a great recycle industry here that works through small local collection yards. There are 4 such yards within a short walk of our place. Here they pay by weight. Not a lot but enough that the twice-weekly recycle truck doesn’t collect that much.

They are messy places but interesting none-the-less. People busily break up and separate out the pieces.

They are sorted and recycled into something new.

Another part of the recycle chain are the old women and men who make a pittance living collecting and transporting stuff to these yards. Here a large hoard of rubbish sits by our road waiting to be sorted. Its been waiting a long time!

The end result is that Taiwan has a remarkable recycling record. There are however some things for which there is no recycle market. It is quite common to see old porcelain toilets and basins dumped on the roadsides and wastelands.

Perhaps more people should try recycling them like our relatives in Shanshang(山上).

With the trees cut down and the smoke produced you have to wonder about the environmental impact of so much burning.  There has been some discussion about this recently with the local EPA wanting to curtail people’s enthusiasm for burning incense and money. There also appears to be a decent trade in “counterfeit” ghost money from China. Definately not the right stuff! All this money burning is a popular topic amongst Taiwan bloggers. Wandering to Tamshui provides a review of the local paper money industry. The only Redhead in Taiwan recently mused about the EPA issue while Naruwan and Fili both recently discussed it. There is even a Facebook group devoted to people against ghost money.

There are lots of ghost money currencies for different deities and spirits. A single burning usually involves some gold and silver foiled as well as large and small plain notes.

As well as money there are of course the paper houses and incense sticks that add to the conflagration.

But what I like most about all the burning is the size and shape of the furnaces. They are such a motley collection.

You can buy a standard burner from your corner spiritual paraphernalia store.

Most are a stainless steel can with holes punched in the sides.

Popular are old washing machine tubs that are about the right size with holes pre-drilled.

Then there are the bigger stainless steel furnaces with irregular holes added.

Old 44 gallon (200litre) drums make a perfect furnace. Even when they are very old and very holey.

There are the Wizard of Oz Tin Man shaped burners.

Patched burners that should have been retired long ago.

Sometime just a ring of bricks do the job of containment

When someone passes away they need a huge sum of ghost money. That is when the purpose built mega-furnace is called in.

But if you just have more money than you know what to do with, set it in a ring on a spare patch of dirt.

Somehow, despite the EPA and non-beliver’s objections I can’t see things changing anytime soon. Taiwanese will keep sending thier money up in flames for some time to come.

The open-air switchboard of a street-side food store. Here the free form wiring is starkly contrasted by the accumulation of cooking oil and street dust.

Above our kitchen sink is an added power point. It is a classic homespun addition. The extension wire consists of two short pieces joined together with colour-coordinated insulation tape. Notice the 5 degree to vertical slant on the wall enclosure. Very artistic.

At the barbers where I get my haircut a single extension lead wanders across to roof to power the fan, lights and a dangling lead is used to connect the cutters.

The local fish markets where each vendor is responsible for the space above and below their stand. Better to stick to the fishing I think.

Now here is a real Christmas tree of connections. Inside the heaven and hell exhibit at a temple. This hell-like connection is in the heaven section.

Inside a railway carriage at a children’s festival electrical power and an extra electrical appliance were hastily added to this converted railway carriage. No power plug available? No problem, just insert the wires directly. That should do it.

In a large clothing store there was obviously not quite enough light in this section. The solution, some fencing wire, florescent fixtures and some conduit. Seven fixtures are held up by a single wire strand above these shoppers heads.

When I was in Koahsiung in 1989 there was a major building fire somewhere in the city almost every week. Though fires don’t seem as regular now, wirings such as these always present a hazard.