David on Formosa

I have just spent ten days accompanying John Seed on a trip around Taiwan. John is an environmentalist from Australia well known for his efforts protecting rainforests around the world and also as a philosopher of Deep Ecology. I met John at the Taoyuan Airport on the morning of 28 March. We then took the high speed [...]

I took the opportunity to do a bit of local tourism today heading out to Dajia (大甲) in Taichung County.  The first place I stopped was the Wenchang Shrine (文昌祠), a beautiful little temple with neatly kept grounds. Next stop was the Dajia Matsu Temple (大甲鎮瀾宮). The temple is one of the busiest and most [...]

The Dalai Lama arrived in Taiwan on a China Airlines flight from Delhi late last night. He was welcomed by Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu before taking a specially chartered high speed train to Kaohsiung. Given the short time frame between the Dalai Lama’s invitation and his arrival in Taiwan it is not surprising there have [...]

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is set to visit Taiwan next week to provide comfort to the victims of the Typhoon Morakot. He was invited by DPP city and county chiefs in Southern Taiwan. President Ma Ying-jeou subsequently gave his approval for the visit. In December last year Ma rejected the possibility of the Dalai [...]

Thousands of Thai people gathered at the Taoyuan Stadium today to celebrate Songkran, the Thai New Year. The festival is also known as the Water Festival and often includes riotous water fights. It was a beautiful sunny day for the event in Taoyuan, although the water throwing was rather tame in comparison to what goes [...]

After the first day of the Lunar New Year passed uneventfully I joined the mass exodus from Taipei to places further south. I met a friend at Taipei Station a little before 9:00 am and we were able to purchase a ticket to Taichung on the High Speed train for 11:00 am that day. There [...]