The last stop for us in Tainan and Anping is the Anping Tree House just a few minutes on foot from the Anping Fort. Here the entrance fee buys us entrance both for the Anping Tree House, the main attraction, and the former Tait & Co Merchant House which is now a museum. We enter first the museum which is spaced over two floors with some reasonably interesting exhibits.
We especially like the exhibits related to the British presence here, we like to learn new things about the history of the places we visit.
We learn that Taiwan was, and we know still is, a hotspot for cultivating tea that was then sold across the British empire. And not only tea of course, there were also deer that were hunted almost to extinction likely for meat and fur.
There are also other exhibits related to the merchant house including tools like the very important weighting scale and other goods that were traded in the area.
Next we visit the gift shop and buy a few souvenirs before walking to the more scenic and famous part of the site, the Tree House. It is a former warehouse that was abandoned with the banyan tree now surrounding the house and creating some very scenic sights.
We explore the abandoned warehouse, it has been quite nicely stabilized and it really is worth the visit. There are many other tourists here but they are quite spread out so we can have the various rooms to ourselves as we explore it.
We also think it is quite a scenic spot for a 3D photo, this warehouse seems almost intentionally changed and worked on to make it as beautiful as possible.
The trees are growing through the roofs and are mingling with the wooden beams creating some scenic sights that can be viewed from the convenient overlooks.
The most scenic and famous sight is a door surrounded by banyans growing from the masonry. We really enjoy this spot even though it is difficult to find it without tourists. But we manage and take a few photos and enjoy the spot before moving on.
The whole building is like a labyrinth with stairs going seemingly nowhere or to some viewpoint but without any connection to other stairs. Seemingly like a madman’s house but therefore fun to explore.
One of the stairs actually does go somewhere though. It leads to a bridge that goes away from the building and over a road to an overlook of the nearby lagoon and river. And then it is time to return to the car following the outline of Anping Fort from the outside with a moat protecting it from invaders on this side. Exiting the now very full parking lot is easy, and we make a waiting car very happy as we start on our way towards the Jacana Ecological Park.
