Lantern Festival in Pingxi

We are back in Taipei for our flight to Okinawa.  Our original plan was to do the Huangdidian hike, and even elected to stay in Jingmei for easy bus connection.  Then the Pingxi Lantern Festival got on our radar again when we picked up some maps from tourist information.  Overcoming our mixed feelings, we went ahead.

• We scraped our Huangdidian plan, did some different hikes.  Trails were slippery wet.  It dawned on us that this is why they even allow the balloons.  The valley is really like a cloud forest.
• There are very few places in the world in which we would risk such a "large crowd" situation.  All the road closures and shuttle buses were even more impressive than we expected.  All day there were more than 100 buses running between Taipei Zoo to the festival.  There was also a separate route to Keelung.  The Pingxi Railway was running on double schedule.  Everything was very organized and orderly.
• My main reservation about the balloons is the trash they turn into spread all over the surrounding landscape.  A festival poster I saw detailed reclamation programs and rewards, and convinced me to go to festival.  When we were walking around, we saw evidence of collection all over the place, though less than sufficient by my standards.
• The amount of hope and earnestness of the place even moved my usual cynical self.

Waiting in front of our hotel for the bus to the Taipei Zoo. In Taipei I'm not so restless waiting for the bus since most bus stops have a digital display of real-time expected arrivals.


The action in Shifen is on the railroad tracks between trains (yikes!) which heightens the experience. Here's a 3-photo sequence of a couple launching their sky lamp/lantern. Note that the fuel is fake paper money soaked in kerosene.






Hope and earnestness.


While some people are launching, others are decorating.


It's a busy beehive of activity on the tracks punctuated by short, impatient lulls when trains come through.














The supply of sky lanterns seems infinite.


And so the countryside nearby is littered with their carcasses even though the locals "harvest" them non-stop.


Moto with a collection of reclaimed bottom bamboo rings.


It is a beautiful sight when the sky is full of lanterns.


We did 2 short hikes. One up, up for a view back to Shifen. And the other to the next village, Wanggu, to a waterfall.


The lanterns are white dots against the green forest (below left) in this photo.


Wreckage.


A quiet temple below the expressway.


A couple shots of the free shuttle buses bringing folks into Shifen.




Video.


The Wanggu Waterfall.


On the way back to Shifen the sky is filled by lanterns and Sun-Ling has a close call. Check out the video below and wait until the end to see a bamboo ring harvester in action with his pole.




In the early evening there were 10 rounds of mass launches at a venue about 1km from the RR tracks. Very cool. Seemed to us that it was mostly tour groups launching lanterns.









Video:


GPS track of our route.