TAIWAN
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” - Lao Zhu
The longer I live in a country the more I get to understand the mindset of the people, and after spending 2 months in Taiwan being enveloped by its food, people and culture, I can say it truly is a remarkable country with remarkable people.
Just coming back from Australia with the Most Human tour, I got flung straight into Taiwan at what felt like an exciting square one, unsure of the currency, smells and food, I had to once again, figure it all out.
Landing in Taipei, I had one night to scour the streets in search of a new camera, as mine had recently been stolen in Australia during the theatre raid… :( I couldn’t have landed in a better place though as it was basically Camera Porn City, every camera, in every shape, everywhere. Excellent.
Equipped now with a Fuji X-T5 (again, thank you <3) I quickly left the capital (The Big Tofu?) and met up with my good friend Mai from Chiang Mai. I heard about the Rainbow gathering from her and planned the rest of Taiwan around that.
A few days at my friend Uri’s place in Dulan, a little surfing town on the east coast.
Rainbow Gathering Taiwan 2024
I didn’t take many photos at the gathering as its generally a technology free space but wanted to capture my tent, a home where I lived in for 1 month. Next to a stream with a waterfall nearby, surrounded by mountains on an aboriginal spiritual land, I felt very lucky to live here.
Rainbow is a community of people from all over, coming together to live like family in beautiful locations all around the world. We cook, gather firewood, go for food missions to town and sing songs. Really felt like an older way of living, in harmony with environment and each other.
There was around 60 people on average and 120 on full moon. Very small one as I’ve heard they can be upwards of 2000 people.
Not all sunshine and rainbows..
Maybe I was over confident bring expensive technology with me camping in case any freelance work came in. Although I left it in my friends car, my 4K OLED screen had inadvertently smashed and was only able to finish the small job using my friends iPad.
Maybe I should have taken the technology free idea more seriously..
Life on two wheels
After the rainbow my friend Lougee and I scooted to all the beautiful nature spots around Taiwan. Often camping at wild hotsprings and forests.
Green Island
an island, off the island
Around the
South Peninsula
Kaohsiung & Tainan
Stopped by a few cities on the east coast.
My favourite thing while travelling has been teaching people all the weird and wonderful noises you can make with the body. Often feel like a messiah spreading the hand flute gospel.
Fenqihu Old Town
Alishan Forest
Famous high altitude forest in the misty sacred centre of Taiwan. It had a scattered history with Japanese colonial rule logging thousand year old trees to replant Cedar 100 years ago, leaving only the gigantic stumps as a reminder.
We loosely based the journey around wild hot springs, it gave us a destination, a way to stay clean and relaxed and occasionally a way to cook noodles using the hottest geothermal pool with our metal pots. Earth cooked noodles hit different.
End of the 3 week bike trip with Lougee, finishing where we started, Taimali, the closet town to the rainbow gathering.
I had been living in a tent for close to 2 months now often rising and falling with the sun and with complete awareness of the moon cycles. Some days being able to navigate purely with moon light and others pitch darkness. Felt very connect to the environment in Taiwan.
Xindian District, Taipei
My Taiwan experience was made very special due to the connections I was able to form at the rainbow with Taiwanese family all over the country. I met so many artists, musicians and passionate people and being able to step into their lives and experience the country through their lens gave me a perspective I would have never known. Thank you Lyly and Cailin for hosting me for my remaining time.
