Sun Moon Lake

Dinner last night proved to be very successful.  I walked down the local streets looking for a stall that had photos and descriptions of their dishes.  I then used Google Translate to roughly tell me what the dish consisted of. 

The stall owner was trying to tell me something in Chinese.  "Oh, you want to know if I'd like rice with it?  Yes please!"  Sweet and sour pork ribs with pineapple and vegetables.

An easier day today riding around Sun Moon Lake.  The lake gets its name from one half being the shape of the sun and the other the moon.  In Taiwan they drive on the right and it therefore seemed logical to ride around the lake in a clockwise direction.  This would place me on the lake side of the road.

Top red arrow is Shuishe, my starting point.

Almost immediately after leaving my hotel there was a small hill and on the crest of the hill was my first temple for the day.

Member of the Falun Gong religious movement were standing around the outside of the temple handing out leaflets.  Subsequently I realised they were attempting to give them to mainland Chinese tourists.  Falun Gong members in China have been (and are) persecuted.  However they are not in Taiwan.  It was interesting watching the Taiwanese tour guides trying to chase the Falun Gong members away from their Chinese tour group.

Eventually I reached Ita Thou which I visited last December during my previous trip (right red arrow in the above map).

Continuing on I reached Xuan Zang Temple where I stopped for several photos and to buy a bottle of water.

Looking across the lake to Shuishe

Last time I was here I missed visiting Ci'en Pagoda.  Probably for two reasons.  The first is because I'd already had a long day cycling and was focussed on reaching Ita Thou.  The second reason is the pagoda is obscured from view when approaching from the SW.

Today I cycled up the steep approach road to discover a car park.  Visitors must walk the last 400m up a series of steps.

 

 The pagoda is located on Sha Ba Lan Mountain near Sun Moon Lake. and is 46 metres high.  It was built at the order of Chiang Kai-Shek in memory of his mother in 1971.  Construction was difficult as there was no road around the lake at that time.  All the construction materials had to be shipped across the lake and then carried up the mountainside.

Needless to say I walked the seven storeys to the top for photos of the surrounding countryside.

Down at the base of the mountain I could see what appeared to be another temple.

Off to investigate.

Xuanguang Temple was built around 1955.  Some of the remains and relics belonging to a famous Chinese Buddhist monk named Xuanzang are enshrined inside the temple.

And for Jenny of Romany Rambler this is what the inside of the temple looks like.

I kept on cycling eventually reaching Shuishe at 2PM.  No breakfast so I started looking for a late lunch.

Almost managed to get the two temples and pagoda on the mountain in a line.