Our driver, Mr Hong, picked us up from Fuward Hotel in Tainan at 10.00am and took us to the finishing point of yesterday’s walk – the 7-Eleven on Highway 17 near the Nankunshen Dai Tian Temple. Just up the road from this spot was a “must see” museum which housed the work of the “Eastern Picasso” – the artist Hung Tung (洪通). After being shown around the museum by the very friendly curator, and having viewed many of Hung Tung’s works, we felt that “Eastern Picasso” was rather a misnomer. Hung Tung’s work is indeed abstract and does adopt a one-plane perspective but his work features a peculiar folk-art style quite different from the Cubism of Picasso. Hung Tung was born in 1920 in Tainan’s Beimen Township and was orphaned at any early age. He was illiterate and worked for a time as a spirit medium in a Taoist temple. He started painting at age 50 and produced over 300 artworks but never sold any of them. His work eschews Western trends and takes inspiration from Taiwanese folklore, Daoism and mysticism. He passed away in 1987 and would later become regarded as a forerunner of the Taiwanese Nativist art movement.
After the museum visit, we then walked along Highway 17 in a southerly direction, taking a right turn onto the smaller South 15 which would eventually lead us into the South West Coast National Scenic Area – Beimen Recreational Area. After entering the picturesque town of Beimen we crossed a bridge over the Yong Long Channel (永隆溝) and noted the Beimen Farmer’s Association Building on the left and the Beimen Isle Christ Church on the right. Another building of interest was the former residence of Dr. Wang King-ho (王金河故居). Dr. Wang studied at the Medical School of Tokyo, and after returning to Taiwan, treated residents of Beimen District and surrounding areas after an outbreak of blackfoot disease.
Black Foot Disease (烏腳病) became widespread in the 1950s along the southwestern coast of Taiwan where the water supply was contaminated with arsenic. The accumulated arsenic led to a vascular disease that caused black, mummified gangrene, primarily in the feet. Missionary Lillian Dickson moved to Beimen in 1960 and opened the Mercy’s Door Free Clinic, which was funded by her organization Mustard Seed International, with Dr. Wang as head physician. He was awarded an Order of Brilliant Star by President Chen Shui-bian in 2007. The topic of blackfoot disease reminded us that we had visited the High Heeled Church (高跟鞋教堂) on Day 28 – which was built to help fulfill the dreams of girls suffering from blackfoot disease and wanting to wear high heels.
After leaving Beimen town centre we wandered into the Beimen Recreational Area in which we saw numerous art installations which had been arranged alongside the small walking paths. The first of these was a collection of four house-shaped constructions meant to represent a salt farming family, called “When the Sea Returns”. There was also a large sculpture called “The Graceful Visitor” depicting a Black-faced Spoonbill extending its wings to embrace the land that has welcomed it.
As we passed “Jellyfish Lake” we saw another installation called “Mother of Life” depicting the mangroves, the mother of the ecosystem, nourishing the earth with their fallen leaves. We then walked past the Salt Lake (鹽湖), the original site of the salt drying areas called the Hui Lu Saltern(回滷鹽程). Salt production in the area ceased in 2000, and the whole site was renovated and transformed into a recreation area. We ambled along the Salt Country cycle path and continued our walk through a pass under Highway 61.
After about half an hour walking on country roads we arrived at a small temple and beyond that an amazing sight: rows and rows of small pyramids of salt sitting in formation in an extensive salt-drying lake, their reflections clear and sparkling on the surface of the water. This was the renowned Jingzaijiao Tile-Paved Salt Fields (井仔腳瓦盤鹽田) – the oldest tile-paved salt fields in existence in Taiwan. Originally established in 1818 the fields consist of many individual square plots lined with pieces of broken pottery in order to prevent salt crystals from adhering to the dirt at the bottom of the pool.
Adjacent to the salt-fields there is the Keliaozai Xin An Temple (蚵寮仔興安宮) at which can be seen baskets of salt laid out as offerings to the deities on tables at the front of the temple area.
We continued walking down the South 15 highway and soon we could see hundreds of solar panels on both sides of the road which had been installed in fish farming ponds. Taiwan has an ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and solar power is a big part of that. Hundreds of fish farms in Southwest Taiwan have been converted to solar in just a few short years. However, some fish farmers claim that the new solar farms can destroy existing aquatic habitats, and there is a concern that prolonged exposure to corrosive chemicals or submergence after damage could release trace amounts of heavy metals from the panels.
The South 15 Highway led us into the village of San Liao Wan where we saw a traditional puppet show – Bu Dai Xi (布袋戲) being performed for the benefit of the deities at the Dong Long Temple (東隆宮). Martyn also spotted that there was a large colourful wooden boat stored in a building opposite the temple. This looked like a King’s Boat (王船) which is often used in religious processions.
We joined Highway 61 once more and strode across the bridge over the Jiang Chun River (將軍溪) and then southwards, passing the newly built Aquatic Processing and Logistics Operations Center(將軍智慧水產加工及物流運籌中心). We soon arrived at a well-known tourist spot – an installation known as the Tree of Life (生命之樹). This is a huge white metal sculpture in the shape of a fan in two separate parts – each featuring the shape of a tree within its pattern. It was built on an abandoned fan-shaped salt field in 2023 and subsequently won the Gold Award at the London Design Awards and the Silver Award at the NY Architectural Design Awards. To get to the Tree of Life we had to walk out on a thin land platform that juts out into the body of water and connects to the installation. We took time to relax and enjoy the beauty of the artwork and the sunset. And we weren’t the only ones. In contrast to some of the neglected tourist areas that we had passed through, this attraction had plenty of visitors!
After the Tree of Life, we began on our final leg of this day’s walk. We crossed over the Yan Feng Bridge (鹽豐橋) and passed through the Qing Kun Shen District on our old friend Highway 61. The last leg of the walk would be a long, hard slog down this highway. Luckily there was little traffic and we were all in a happy mood, cracking jokes about our final destination – the infamous Salt Mountain of Chi Gu (七股鹽山). Infamous because it is not really a mountain at all but a large pile of salt. The description of “hillock” would be over-generous. However, it does attract thousands of tourists every year. As the “mountain” hove into view, Tim exclaimed “Regardez! La montagne de sel!” It was a moment full of mystical wonder. To gain access to the car park we started to clamber over a fence, before Martyn, the Yorkshire Wizard himself, simply unbolted the gate and let us all in.
To our utter delight we found that the restaurant was still open – and that they sold salty ice-cream! As the delicious salty-sweet ice-cream slid across our dehydrated taste-buds and down our parched throats we all agreed that this was the best ice-cream treat we had ever experienced.
After finishing our ice-cream cones we made our way across the car park to the salt “mountain”. Our driver, Hunter Hong, arrived just in time to take lovely group shots of us posing in front of this magnificent mound.
Hunter Hong had located a great outdoor restaurant for us in nearby Chia Li Town and dropped us off there. We feasted on a wide variety of delicious Chinese and Taiwanese specialities, including one of our favourites – small fried fish in batter. The beer promotion girl was happy to keep supplying us with bottles of Taiwan beer for the duration and we got through quite a few! We reflected on how much we had enjoyed walking for two days in a row and hoped to arrange another two-day walk in the future.
Our driver came to pick us up again and took us all the way back to Chiayi HSR station. With our whistles nicely wetted, we sang a selection of classic tunes (with Tom Jones well represented in the mix) all the way to the HSR station. More liquid refreshment was procured for the journey and then Rich, Elaine and Martyn headed back to Taipei, and Tim took the much shorter journey back to Tainan.
End of Day 30. By DJ Timmy Tim.
Total Distance Walked Today 23.2 km.
Total Distance Walked in Total 613.8 km.
