The Hillside Temple — First Attempt

On the top of my apartment building is a nice little rooftop garden with picnic tables, trees and grass, and even a karaoke room. It’s a pleasant place to go on a quiet afternoon and read a book in the sun. It also gives a nice view of Fengyuan City and the hills and mountains on the edge of town. One of the most tantalizing things about that view has been a giant temple nestled towards the top of the first set of hills. Since the first time I set foot in the rooftop garden, I have been determined to find my way up to that hillside temple.

Our first week in Fengyuan, Nok and I tried to walk to it, but were met only with impassable jungle. However, after discovering the network of trails at Chungcheng Park, we were confident we would be able to find a way to the temple after all. So a few weeks ago (I’m pretty late on posting this), we set out on our first real attempt.

The view from the rooftop garden. I took this picture today, and unfortunately there was a haze in the air that prevented a clear shot of the temple or the much larger mountains beyond. The hills begin just a few kilometers from our apartment.

After arriving at Chungcheng Park, we headed up this small road that appeared to be heading in the direction of the temple. We paused to take pictures and eat squid next to this weird little shrine.

A shot of the shrine from further up the road. The forest around the shrine was thick and tangled with vines.

We headed off onto a tiny “trail” as soon as we spotted one. This section was incredibly steep as we climbed straight up to the top of the hill.

Our puny trail soon fizzled out, but we were lucky to find this incredibly overgrown path nearby.

Also on the overgrown path, I instruct Nok on how to take my picture. She didn’t listen. This path reminded me of the many old, overgrown logging roads strewn throughout the Maine countryside.

We soon came into a clearing, where we were greeted with this lovely view of Fengyuan City. From the hilltop, I could see our apartment building, but I can’t make it out in this photo.

This quiet little valley was the view from the other side of the clearing.

See that little temple peeking out through the trees? We were near, and I thought we’d reach it shortly. Sadly, this was about as close as we were able to get to it on this trip.

Like so many other promising trails in Taiwan, this one soon fizzled out and we found ourselves wandering through this old abandoned orchard, with Fengyuan visible in the distance.

We wandered through the old orchard for over an hour, just searching for a way out.  Seemingly solid paths like this one would instantly turn to overgrown jungle at almost every bend.

We came across the lovely purple trees after rounding a rather promising corner, but were soon confronted with yet another dead end.  Fengyuan is in the background.

So near yet so far.  Lost in that maze of an orchard below, the temple seemed to be taunting us.  This was taken as we finally discovered the way out by following those power lines.  The temple had managed to elude us on that day, but Nok and I would be back.