Sun Moon Lake 🌞🌜

My last stop on the west coast of Taiwan is Taichung. Taichung is the starting point for getting to Sun Moon Lake. On the first evening I first explored the local night market. As always, I walked there barefoot, got something to eat and then sat down somewhere and enjoyed my meal. I have often attracted strange looks because I walk around barefoot but what has never happened to me is that I became the attraction of the evening. I was just sitting there eating when a local spoke to me in Chinese and unfortunately I had no idea what he was saying but 10 minutes later the whole place where I was sitting knew about it and one after the other came over and admired my feet. But thank God when I got back to the hostel no one was interested. The next day I set off early for Sun Moon Lake. The plan was to be on the bus at 6 and arrive there at 8. Unfortunately, that didn't work out because this time I asked the bus driver if he was going there and of course he didn't know a word of English and only knew the names of the stops in Chinese and Google Maps only knew the English ones. So he told me to ask the man in the office but unfortunately he didn't know the English names of the bus stops either. While I was trying to communicate with him, my bus had already left. So I waited for the next bus, but then I had to change and it wasn't that easy to find the connecting bus. But hey, 3 1/2 hours later I finally made it to the lake. To be honest, it rained heavily until 10 so I wasn't that offended that I didn't arrive until 2 hours later than planned. First I had breakfast by the lake and then I had to make a new plan because of the weather. I actually wanted to hike up the highest mountain in the region but because it was already covered in a thick layer of clouds when I arrived, that didn't happen. So I looked for a new hiking route where I could also look out over the lake. A few hours later I was standing in the middle of tea fields at a weather station with a view over the lake. I then took the bus to the other side of the lake and from there I hiked to the Cie'En Pagoda. To get to the top I had to climb 1000 steps. But they were definitely worth it! From there I had the perfect view over the lake. From the top I waited for the next rain shower and then set off again for the next town. There I got dinner before taking the bus back to Taichung. This time I took the right bus! I spent the evening in the hostel. The next day I actually wanted to explore the city a bit but it poured with rain all morning so I used the time to do a bit of travel planning. In the afternoon I did walk around the city a bit. But well, there isn't that much to see here in the city and so I went back to Taipei for my last days in Taiwan!🫶🏼