My Own Back Yard

Several weeks ago, on mother's day weekend to be precise, I took a short walk in my own back yard. The air was cool and crisp and the walk was leisurely and serene. It began quite normally, in fact, with me getting lost in the labyrinth of apartment buildings and shops, occasionally stopping and asking for directions. Fortunately, my time spent aimlessly walking the streets of Neihu was significantly shorter this time due to a charitable gift presented to me by one of my students. Knowing full well how much I enjoy hiking in the poisonous snake infested mountains of Taiwan, my student gave me a map of the hiking trails around my apartment. The gift, I have to say, has already come in rather handy.


I discovered several tennis courts and outdoor swimming pools, so if I should ever require a good play followed by a good soak, I now know where to get my fix. But on this particular day, the swimming would have to wait. I found the landmarks necessary to get me to the hiking trail and, had I not gotten lost before, I would have made it from door step to wilderness in five minutes flat.


My back yard is frequented by a fair number of Sunday walkers. The entrance to the trail is a wide expanse of grass and mountains. A vast number of visitors were already congregating for a quiet summer's evening. I quickly passed their noise gawking and continued on to direction where a growing number of trekkers were heading.


The trail fell down below a small hill and followed up a stream. The stream wound back and forth, past some grazing water buffalo, and through some less than elegant, but more than functional, farms. Before long, I had bypassed the majority of open land and was now in the covered forests of Neihu, lying at the base of Yangmingshan National Park.


The beginning of the trail was flat and comfortable. The humidity index was fairly low, so one would worry about having to tolerate a heady sweat. In addition, the low-lying trees offered enough protection from the sun at this point to produce a mild, chilling atmosphere for climbing through the dense thicket.

The climax of the hike was when I reached, you guessed it, more stairs. But these stairs brought most people to what they were looking for: the Yuan Chueh Waterfall. Cascading over a cliff side, this was by far the least impressive waterfall I have seen thus far in Taiwan. Wulai and Silver Stream both offer far more impressive waterfalls to check out. However, there were secrets to this waterfall that did escape my eye at first. Do you notice anything special? Click on the photo to enlarge.


That's right- carved delicately into the face of the rock to the right side of the waterfall, you can just make out the presence of a beautiful temple overlooking the expanse of falling water. Such a charming and secluded location for religious worship this place was. And the best part was, I didn't have to walk more than 20 minutes from my apartment, in the city, to get there.

From your friend living in city jungle, and the jungle jungle, Michael.