Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Buddha's Money

There was nothing outstanding about this statue of Buddha, but found the tradition of laying money at his feet interesting.

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Steps to Temple

Even after reaching the main waterfall, there is still a ways to climb up to the temple via these stairs.  Or you could drive it using a road that leads up to the back.  Not sure how far up the mountain all this is, but it must be pretty close to the top.

The next series will be photos captured from this place that offers a magnificent view of the mountains on either side of the valley.

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Waterfall Shot #4

This one is posted by request.  Sun wasn't shining at the moment, but I stuck with a faster shutter speed anyway, which preserved the water blobs, as I call them, as if they were frozen still.

This was a more obscure fall, the same one featured in yesterday's post.  It was captured from a couple hundred feet above the main fall (posted two days ago) that serves as the attraction that draws the tourists to this area.  There is a Buddhist temple way up there, and it is from that vantage point that this shot was taken.  Imagine it looks much more impressive with a little more rainfall fueling the current...

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Waterfall Shots #2 and #3

This is much more typical of the type waterfall shot that we're after.  The afternoon sun was shining bright, so at my preferred 1/10th sec shutter speed it was very difficult to get a picture that was not over-exposed, as I didn't have a density filter.  This is actually at the very bottom of the fall, where shadow and dark rock combined to make this one possible.

Wider shot below of same from a different angle:

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Waterfall Shot #1

Now for the falls themselves.  Actually there are several.  Once you make your way up the 500+ steps to the first major flow, here's what you see.  It had been unusually dry for several weeks before our arrival, so this isn't nearly the volume of water that you'd normally see.  But it was interesting and kind of pretty nonetheless.

Being a tall waterfall, it's possible to observe something at work here...the simple effect of gravity.  The water at the top isn't yet going very fast, so the water appears as the series of blobs that it is.  However, close to the bottom, when the pull of gravity has accelerated its descent, with an exposure time of 1/200th of a second one can see the drops as silky lines, as if the shutter speed were slower in a typical, artistically-crafted waterfall shot.

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, More Steps

More steps further down the trail.  Would say that it's a young man's game with the 500+ steps leading up to the falls, but I saw plenty of oldsters negotiating the climb with no apparent trouble.  As for me, I took advantage of every lookout and bench along the way...

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Tower of Steps

This is the tower of steps on the way to the falls.  I was pretty sick the first time I tackled it (by myself), so barely made it up then.  Later on, after the kids arrived, I was feeling better and it wasn't so difficult.

Closer shot below:

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Beginning of Hike to the Falls / Vance's Hillbilly Elegy

Within an easy walk from Chenjean's village is a very picturesque waterfall.  It was a tourist attraction when she was growing up, and her earliest memories include selling little trinkets to the tourists breezing through town on their way to the falls.  For a time her mother served them meals in what amounted to a tiny restaurant, complete with tables and chairs set up on their front patio.

Then one of the myriad hurricanes hit the area hard enough to wash away the infrastructure leading up to the falls, effectively cutting them off to visitors.  It took a long time - decades in fact - to plan and build what you'll see in this series, but they did a good job (pic here of construction equipment during that period), and the throngs of visitors have returned to the little village.  This year we were there in March, so the weather was good enough to entice wave after wave of these tourists, deposited by bus mere feet from Chenjean's front door.  Once again, most residents have taken to selling trinkets and food from their front patios.

The photo above is looking back toward the road leading into town; below is a view from the foot of the bridge toward the falls showing a tower of steps in the background.  This was just the beginning, as there were more than 500 steps leading to the attraction.

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Just finished reading Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance.  What a book!  Glad to see someone coming into the top federal level that has some real character.

Speaking of Trump...good gosh, he's not even president yet, but already has expressed his desire to:  1) take back the Panama Canal; 2) make Canada the 51st U.S. state; 3) purchase Greenland from Denmark; and 4) rename the Gulf of Mexico!  God knows we need a wall, but this is something else.  And he's already acting as president, pushing foreign leaders to treat him as though already sworn in.  This is going to be a very interesting ride...

Taiwan 2024 - Perfect View of Chenjean's Village

For the longest time I've struggled to get a decent picture of Chenjean's village, and finally found it.  Took a hike by myself up a road until it ended close to the top of the mountain.  Then, on the way down, I saw the perfect view.  Trouble was, it was from the patio of a house that was currently occupied.  It was a large patio that extended to about 50 feet from the house, so I thought What the heck, I'll just walk over there and take the picture.

And that's what I did.  Making my way down a semi-lengthy driveway, I passed an open window from which the sound of a radio could be heard.  Nobody yelled at me, and I didn't get shot, so I continued onto the property.  Positioning myself on the far edge of the patio I snapped a few, including the one you see above.  This was fairly zoomed in; the picture below shows what it looked like zoomed all the way out:

Curious as to what my perch looked like from the town looking up, I took the following two pics.  Looking closely at the first one you can see the banana leaves that are in the foreground above:

From the same position in town I zoomed all the way out:

Taiwan 2024 - Temple Dedication #

I'd seen this sort of thing many, many times in our travels to Taiwan, and always thought it was associated with a funeral taking place nearby.  Because of the dedication, however, it's easy to see the reason for their placement, at least in this case.