From Xitou the last place we want to visit is the Sun Moon Lake, a famous lake in Taiwan. We have to decide what to visit on the lake and in the end we decide to start with the Ci’en Pagoda because it will allow us to get an overview view of the lake. It takes longer than expected to get there as the GPS takes us via one lane roads and busy towns, possibly the fastest route but also the most exhausting it feels. And when we finally arrive in the parking lot it starts to rain quite seriously, not fun. But we made it here so a little rain will not stop us, or anyone else really.
After climbing some of the stairs it stops to rain, of course, so we decide to return to the car and leave our raingear and start the climb again. On the first stretch there are some views but nothing breathtaking, we really hope that the views higher up are better given the many stairs we have to climb.
We see the tower far above us and it seems hopeless but one stair after another we make it and are greeted with something we looked for throughout Taiwan, thrash cans. While toilets are plentiful, trash cans are quite scarce and we are not sure where we are supposed to take the trash really when on the trails.
The pagoda is quite impressive, it looks old even though it is relatively new being built by President Chiang Kai-shek as a memory to his late mother in April 1971.
We climb in the pagoda a few levels but not to the top, the views are good enough half way up and there is no reason to overexert ourselves. Also there might be another bout of rain coming in so we decide to hurry back to the car.
Going down is certainly easier even though we feel the 570 steps as we clamber down while stopping from time to time to look for birds.
It seems to us that we hear a rare bird and try to find it for a while before finally discovering it is a Taiwan Barbet, just singing a different tune. It is the last Barbet we see during our visit so it is still special but not as special as another lifer of course. And then we reach the bottom and it starts to rain again so we are lucky we made it in time, we have one more stop planned on the lakeshore before driving back to Taipei and hopefully the rain will stop by then.
