David on Formosa

Members of the Atayal community of Hagay (哈凱部落) protested outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei today. They called on the government to provide permanent housing to replace the temporary housing they have been living in for ten years. They also called on the government to take responsibility for the impacts of the construction of the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

On my bike ride across the Northern Cross Island Highway I passed by the turn off to Lala Shan (拉拉山), just after Baling (巴陵). On Saturday I returned to the area again, this time via motorcycle, and visited Lala Shan. It is just as well that I didn’t make the detour on my bicycle. While [...]

I set off at six o’clock on Monday morning to ride across the Northern Cross Island Highway. This road, which Taiwanese call the Bei Heng (北橫), begins at Daxi in Taoyuan County and goes across the mountains to Yilan. I stopped to eat breakfast somewhere on the road between Xindian and Sanxia. Once I rode [...]

I've ridden the HSR, MRT and TRA, but there was still one train system in Taiwan that I had yet to ride. It was the skytrain at the Taoyuan International Airport. I was at the airport today and had some free time so I thought I would take a ride and take some photos too.  [...]