Today we explored the coal mining district of NE Taiwan. This was a day trip since there are coal deposits all through northern Taiwan running right up to the city of Taipei.
A little history. Coal mining didn't start in Taiwan until 1918. The Japanese greatly expanded coal mining when they occupied Taiwan and exported the coal to Japan (along with camphor trees).
Today there's a narrow gauge railroad called the Pingxi line that runs on the same tracks that the coal trains ran on. The Pingxi line goes to northeast Taiwan towns like Shihfen, Pingxi, and Qingtong. Our plan for the day was to take the local passenger train from Taipei Main Train Station to the beginninig of the Pingxi line in Ruefang and casually explore the area.
The trip from Taipei to Ruefang took less than an hour and the first leg of the narrow gauge line took twenty minutes to Shihfen. The trip to Shihfen runs through a beautiful river valley that winds between lines of small mountains. It looked like parts of the some mountain were blown off years ago but we think all Taiwan's mining was done underground.
Shihfen is known for its waterfall and the Coal Mining Museum so we started walking and found the museum first. The part of the museum near the road isn't very promising--a bunch of gigantic, rusted hulks of a coal washer/sorter lies rusting near the road but it did get better. When you get past the rusted hulks you go up a long steep path and you're at the site where they dumped the coal carts onto a conveyor that took it to the washing building. Once you're here you get on a little train consisting of cleaned out, original coal carts being pulled by an original battery-powered, mini-locomotive.
Coal mining here was dangerous like everywhere else but it was also almost all done by manual labor. Men drilled the coal, filled the carts, and got the carts to the surface where women pushed them into place on trains and handled the dumping. There are even picture of five or six women pushing a full-size train car down a track.
The train takes you to the mine entrance but you can't go more than twenty feet into the mine. We were told that for safety reasons you aren't supposed to even have a light in there.The young guy giving us a tour told us that he went one thousand feet into the mine without a light and was a big hero for doing that. I think this may have been the location of an alleged coal cart mishap involving my sister-in-law Amy. The place didn't look familiar to Sally.
We made it to the waterfall about fifteen minutes after leaving the museum. Shihfen Falls is the widest falls in Taiwan and pretty high. Unfortunately some clever entreprenuer bought the land you need to stand on to actually see the falls so we had to spend $80NT each to get a view but it's really a beautiful waterfall so I'm glad I paid the fee.
I wanted to try another town so got back on the train after having some snacks and headed to Qingtong. The triain was not all that crowded since it was Monday so getting a seat was easy.The problem with this particular tourist attraction is that people swarm these towns on weekends and the businesses are all open but things are quieter on weekdays so many stores close.
Qingtong was dull. Most things were closed on their old (market) street and the only attraction we found were some dorms built by the Japanese for Japanese miners that were brought to teach Taiwanese how to mine. They were shooting a film of some sort in a local teahouse but you couldn't get close enough to see what was going on.
We made it back to Ruefang early so we searched for dinner. Sally did not understand the menus in the local restaurants but we picked a place and she did order fried rice (Taiwanese style), beef noodles, and some soup that she worried might have something to do with insects. In fact, it was clam soup with a bunch of fresh clams in it. The noodles and rice were good but the clam soup and the clams were delicious.The restaurant owner remarked that she thought we were locals since we like the local flavors so much (we ate it all).
Tommorrow to Tainan and Mazu's birthday.
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