Mystery Land Part II

Here you go Danielle, here's the rest of the Mystery Land Adventure.
So Chinese New Year was quickly approaching, by then Brad would have been working for about 1 month, and me for a couple weeks....we definitely deserved a holiday but had absolutely no plans and not much money. I was just hunting for some live music, trying to figure out if any bands actually came to Taiwan, when I saw it.....the banner offering 2 days of live music at an undisclosed location in the mountains of southern Taiwan. For the first time in my life I clicked an internet banner. The only way to get to the festival was via their shuttle bus. It was either the music festival of a life time, or a clever way to exterminate foreigners. We decided to take our chances.
2 days before we went out and bought a tent and sleeping bag.
The night before we actually pulled out a map and did the math. We realized it was a little further than we were anticipating, with the bike's speed restrictions and Taiwanese traffic we were looking at a 9 hour drive. It was too late to get train tickets and this would've been cheating anyways. We also realized that our only map of Taiwan, which wasn't much of a map to begin with, ended a solid couple of hours before the destination.

We left early the next morning, knowing that it would be a small miracle if we even made it to the festival. Surprisingly we made it to the shuttle pick-up point before dark. We only got lost once and met tons of foreigners going to the same festival on the road.

Night 1-Social Ackwardness and Campfire Mingling
It was definitely dark by the time we made it to the aboriginal mountain village and set up the tent, although we were just happy it was a field and not a gas chamber. The festival didn't start until the next day but for those with long drives getting there in the morning wasn't an option. There was a definite sense of what now? in the air.

Day 1-Let the Festivities Begin
By the next morning it felt more like a camping trip then a music festival. Daylight revealed the most breath-taking scenery imaginable. There wasn't a shower but rumours of a river sent the fest-goers out wandering. I think Brad and I were the first to find our swimming hole, but I can't really remember. It was a little slimy looking at first, but was missing the dirty stench of the Taichung rivers, which was a plus. I didn't really plan on swimming, or even touching it. But one wrong step on a small cliff changed that, once you get your feet wet you might as well enjoy it. Some other people happened upon our little hole shortly after and they had no problem diving right in (some naked). Put me and my dirty hippiness to shame. Eventually we got hungry and remembered that there was supposed to be music. The walk back turned out to be long, hot and very much uphill. Went back and stuffed ourselves with veggie burgers-I don't think anybody is going to appreciate how fantastic that was. The first veggie burgers eaten in Asia, grilled and smothered in bbq sauce...uuuuhhhh (homer drool). Brad ended up opening the show with some whimsical bearded guy, who shall henceforth be known as beard. It was a small turn-out but considering the heat and the fact that tents, toilets and stage were all in the same area this was a good thing. Most people didn't even stand up until it got dark, very chill, just a bunch of kids lying around in the hot sun listening to live music.
All in all the music was pretty amateur, but nobody cared. There were a couple fantastic bands, one funk/ska type band from Taipei called......Public Radio was just awesome. The big show of the night was Shambala or something like that, "spirtual" rappers from the U.S. An interesting choice for a rock festival, kind of comical....but I fell asleep so they couldn't have been that good.

Day 2-Woohoo and Then Some.
Day started with the discovery that there was no water (it wasn't drinking water anyways so it's not like anybody was dying, but flushable portapotties are only a good idea when you can flush....and sometimes you just wanna brush your teeth). We headed to the river and tried not to think about the walk back. We had a couple nice swims in our underwear, for some reason it hadn't crossed my mind to bring a bathing suit. We met more people at the river, some old, some new and swapped stories. As usual we stayed until we just had to have a veggie burger. The music didn't make a lasting impression, the rappers were the big show again but nobody seemed to care that much. By the second day everybody's reservations had dissolved and everybody seemed to need to get a little more partying out of their systems before they went home. It was like one big happy family. If you spend your days teaching kids, sooner or later you've gotta let loose and just about everybody there was an English teacher. When the music ended Brad, our new friend Phil, this guy who was touring from Africa and a couple Aboriginal teenagers ended up jamming. It was one of those out of this world experiences for everybody; African drumming, guitar and this haunting Aboriginal chanting. Sadly all good things must come to an end. Nobody was paying any attention to time but it got light really soon after we went to sleep....the tent was baking.

Day 3-Ouch
Moral of the story-careful what you wish for. After cursing the heat of the sun, I dozed off and woke up to rain falling on the tent. Seemed appropriate. The last two veggie burgers had thawed and then frozen into a blob, which they grilled up for us anyways. We were invited to go further south to a beach for a couple days, but it was raining and we could feel it in our bones that the adventure was ending. On the bus ride down, nobody spoke, compared with the excited chatter on the way up the mountain. About half way through the drive home we decided to quit for the night. We found a motel just off the highway, which turned out to be gorgeous. the bathroom had a big jacuzzi, the bed was the first soft bed I've seen in Taiwan. We slept for about 12 hours in that bed that made our way the rest of the way home.
Sorry, a little long. It was just a really fun adventure, it seems like this is the sort of thing that keeps the expats in Taiwan for years. Soon we'll be heading to Spring Scream, a much bigger music festival down in the south.