Tourist Tsunami
Dave says:
Green Island is awaiting a tsunami. It’s a small island lying 30km off the south east corner of Taiwan and right in the middle of the typhoon path. The tropical greenery, dormant volcano and rather shabby tourist town are getting ready for the big one. Unlike weather tsunamis however, the locals know exactly when this is one is going to hit: every Saturday from now until October.
We happened to arrive on Monday and the town looked as if it had recovered quickly from the last storm to pass through. The thousands of scooters were all lined up in a row and the restaurants that could seat a hundred diners at a time were neatly awaiting the next onslaught. As with most Asian countries, workers do not get a great deal of vacation so they try hard to make the weekend work for them. Ed informs us that a five day work week is comparatively new here so perhaps they have a lot of pent up weekends away to exorcise. For us it was peaceful. So peaceful in fact, that most of the shops were closed and a good deal of the restaurants were empty of both patrons and supplies. Taiwanese tumbleweeds rolled down Main Street.
On the upside though, all the tourist attractions were completely devoid of tourists but a little short on attraction. Green Island is home to one of only three natural salt water hot springs in the world and we had the whole place to ourselves, all day. The average Taiwanese is a bit of a wuss when it comes to the weather. They don’t like to get sunned or rained upon and umbrellas are used like force fields against both. Combine the absence of local tourists with the impracticability of taking an umbrella to a hot spring and you’re left with just the mad-dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun. We both got a little sunburned though which definitely makes us look like the stupid big-nose westerners. The other big draw of the island is the limestone cave. Thinking big we headed there early to avoid the crowds we’d seen in the tourist brochure. Seeing small though we noted that the combined size of the coffee stand and small tacky souvenir shop were about five times the size of the cave. Again, we were the only visitors and even the mosquitoes felt lonely and snuggled up to my ankle for comfort and a snack.
All this would change however! We headed back into town for a fruit juice (fruit syrup from a can, ice from who-knows-where). As we sat enjoying our sugar-fest we heard the roar of Harleys . In actuality it was just a lot of 125cc scooters as right in front of us passed a Hells Angels chapter of bikers. Nah - it was a convoy of about 25 scooters all being ridden by old people. Not one of them was under 65 and most of the guys had their wives riding shotgun, holding on for dear life but with a wide semi-toothless grin poking out from their sunhats which in turn were poking out from under their helmets. We laughed. We laughed all the way around the corner until we saw they had parked outside our hotel and were in the process of checking in. The previous night we had the whole hotel to ourselves now we had to share with fifty 70 year-olds hell bent on having a good time. We knew that getting to sleep wouldn’t be a problem, old folks barely make it past 7pm but, just like babies, they can’t understand why screaming at 6am is both socially and morally wrong.
As events transpired, it was not the oldies that woke us bright and breezy the next morning but the hotel’s PA system announcing to the oldies now was the time to get up for the day’s organized activities. Wakey, wakey , rise and shine (only in Chinese). We bumped into them again later that day at the visitor’s center. They were all in the activity room, far from active, fast asleep. Then their tourist bus tooted them awake - time to climb aboard for the next attraction.
And so, we left the peaceful Green Island on the vomit comet of a ferry thus called not because the crossing was rough but because so many people had previously thrown up in the cabin it smelt a little like the bathroom at our dearly missed Comet tavern in Seattle. Green Island was fun but more fun because we just about had the whole island to ourselves.