Day 27 - Stray Dogs And Tears On The Way From Budai To Xuejia, The Long Walk South In Taiwan
Day 27 - Stray Dogs And Tears On The Way From Budai To Xuejia, The Long Walk South In Taiwan
Today was a tough day of walking.
It was already very hot early in the morning, when we left Budai and walked through the local morning market.
The tourists’ fish market was not yet open.
We walked by many fishermen’s houses, where fishing nets and mountains of oyster shells decorate the front entrances.
On the river we saw several oyster barges, with a few fishermen processing the oysters that they had grown on long strings.
They placed them on a conveyor belt that separated the clumps of oysters into individual shells and cleaned them of barnacles.
The local market had vendors selling breakfast foods, and I looked at each one, thinking that maybe we should take something with us.
The walk today was mostly on a long stretch of road that paralleled the highway, with no places to buy drinks, food or even to sit and rest.
Any other road would have added many kilometers to our walk.
We had with us some dumplings left over from yesterday’s dinner, and two rice balls, as well as some crackers.
We didn’t have enough water to last the day, but I hoped we would pass by a local store.
I noticed that the stores selling betel nut for chewing were also selling water, and these stores do not show up on any map, but they do line the roads.
Betel nut chewing is a widespread practice in Taiwan, first introduced to the Han population. It is estimated that over a hundred billion New Taiwan dollars are spent annually on this drug, which has the colloquial name of "Taiwanese chewing gum".
On our walks, I often see the red color spit of the betel nut users on the roads.
We walked for two hours on the side of the road that paralleled the highway, when I realized that there would be no shops of any kind for a very long stretch.
We had to get off this road and detour to a village, in order to get some water for our hot day of walking.
On the side of the road, I saw a parked scooter.
A half naked man emerged from the canal.
It looked like he was bathing in the murky waters.
He smiled at me with a toothless red smile and gave me a thumbs up, as I walked by him.
He must’ve lost his teeth because of the caustic lime and beetle nut chewing habit.
Right before we got off the road, we saw a procession of cars and trucks, accompanying one young man who was walking with a statue of the goddess Mazu on his back.
The cars and trucks were full of people, and there were many boxes of bottled water on the backs of the pickup trucks.
We only had one small water bottle left and I thought how easy it would be to just ask them for a bottle of water.
But as a pilgrim on a spiritual journey into greater empowerment, asking is not the same as being given something that is freely offered.
We want to be self reliant and if anything, to be the ones who give.
We have so few real needs, be it physical or emotional.
Almost everything we ask for in life is something we WANT, not really something we need.
If they had offered us a bottle of water, I would have gladly accepted.
But asking for a bottle of water wasn’t really necessary.
We still had one small bottle with us and we were about to leave the road by the highway, and walk into a village where we could get water.
They all gave us a thumbs up, and some people even clapped in encouragement, but they didn’t offer a bottle of water.
As we left the road, we found a temple shrine with benches in the shade and sat down to rest, eat our breakfast and drink the last bottle of water.
The village had a small market on the road leading to the temple.
I suggested that we buy an apple for Jules and a dragon fruit for me.
Jules said that he didn’t want to carry anything more, since we still had so much more to walk in the sun and the heat.
I felt upset at him.
An apple is not really much more weight to carry, and I knew that he was expressing his fatigue from walking in the extreme heat.
What he was actually saying, was that he had no appetite and would rather not eat at all, than carry a heavy backpack full of provisions.
I felt the same, but I still got upset.
The feeling I got was that he wasn’t trying to enjoy the walk, but rather just wanted to get it over with.
But there was no way to get it over with quickly. We had a long walk ahead of us.
The only thing that makes the daily grind into an interesting journey, was stopping along the way to see the local village markets, temple celebrations, to taste the local produce and to mingle with the people.
Jules corrected his demeanor and apologized.
We bought an apple and a dragon fruit and kept on walking.
We walked by many packs of stray dogs, who were barking loudly at us.
Sometimes they were sitting in the shade of a shrine that I would have loved to rest in, but seeing them growling at us, we just kept moving.
The stretches of long roads with no end in sight were so disheartening.
We had no shade on either side of the road, so when we turned a corner and saw another long road with nothing but weeds on both sides and no shade, I almost felt like crying.
The only reason I didn’t shed any tears, was that I was too dehydrated and had no spare liquid in my tear ducts.
At one point, I dropped on the asphalt my charging cable.
I bent over to pick it up and my fingers touched the asphalt.
It burnt my fingers, and at first I thought that I had gotten stung by a bee or an insect.
But then I realized that it was just the boiling hot asphalt.
I bent over again to confirm the heat of the asphalt, and again felt it burning my fingers.
I finally realized that we were so tired because we were walking for many hours on boiling asphalt, with only the thin rubber of our shoes separating our feet from the extreme heat below us.
It felt like walking on sizzling coals.
I tried to think about something else, because we still had a long way to go before we arrived in town.
I thought about the fact that I had a choice of what thoughts to keep in my mind as we walked.
I could think about the difficulties and discomforts of the accumulated days of walking, about my feet and how they were throbbing, or I could think about the spiritual journey that I was doing now and about the lessons that I have learned.
I chose to think about the latter.
We need strong bodies in order to do the hard work of awakening, transforming and enlightening the world.
It is not enough to have lofty ideas about our spiritual nature and the fact that we are pure energy, but to live with weak bodies that are frequently sick, often tired and achy.
But the fact that is unfolding before me on this pilgrimage is that I am frequently achy, often tired and fatigued, and not doing so well in managing the heat.
We finally rested in the shade of the only place we found that had no dogs.
It was the grave of a wealthy or important person, because it had a temple like structure with a roof and a shrine.
It was old and not maintained, and some of the wall decorations were either stolen or had fallen down.
But it had shade and a marble bench that we sat on.
We ate the fruit that we bought and rested for awhile.
We bowed to the spirit of the dead in gratitude when we left.
Finally we arrived in town and walked straight to a convenience store.
We got a seat, got water and ice tea, an ice cream and to my delight, black peanuts.
Black peanuts are a breed of rare, heirloom, black-skinned peanuts, with a sweet taste.
These rare heirloom peanuts have a similar outer shell as regular peanuts, but inside the peanuts are wrapped in a black skin.
I have seen pictures of these peanuts grown in North Carolina in the USA, where they have been grown since the 1800’s and were called African Peanuts.
We passed by some fields on this pilgrimage where they grew them, but the farm stores were always closed.
We arrived at our guesthouse in Xuejia and were greeted warmly by a mother and her son.
They showed us the different types of rooms they had available and gave us instructions on how to open the doors and locks.
The town of Xuejia offered a lot of street food and stalls selling fruits.
After showering, I left to do our laundry and Jules stayed to rest in the air conditioned room.
Our host was super friendly and texted me that she noticed that we didn’t go out to eat dinner.
I told her that we had no appetite after walking all day in the heat.
I reassured her that we had eaten some fruit and peanuts and that we were fine.
She left a package of snacks for us, just in case we were hungry at night.
Needless to say, we didn’t feel hungry at night,
We felt only tired, and slept through the night.
With love,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 34,922
Daily Distance - 25 km.
Total Distance To Date - 423 km
