To avoid the high hotel rates of Hehuanshan, we spent the night in Puli before and after. Puli is a small town in the foothills; there is no train. It was surprisingly bustling with many nurseries, vegetable farms, and orchards in the surrounding areas, and a large Buddhist monastery right to the north. The real treat was Puli's traditional Lantern Festival display. We had to go there both nights and have our fill. It's a real good thing we decided to overnight in Puli!
View from our guest house window.
The tall building in the distance with an eye catching crown was our constant landmark while in Puli.
On our way to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant we passed this outdoor funeral dinner next to a Buddhist temple.It would be the first of several funerals we saw while in Puli. Hmmmmm
A very tasty dinner at the veg resto. No buffet this time - à la carte.
Puli was bustling even at night. Here's a night nursery.
One entrance to the Lantern Festival.
Most of the "lanterns" are made of synthetic fabric stretched across a metal frame. In the old days they were paper and bamboo.
Being located next to a canal gave the festival room to be a bit non-traditional, not to mention the reflection effect.
Video:
Link here.
Curry dishes are popular in Taiwan. Here's a potato & noodle curry. Average.
The day we left Puli to go back to Miaoli we rode the 7 kms out to the Chung Tai Shan Monastery on the guesthouse loaner bikes and back. Wikipedia says the monastery was founded about 30 years ago and the buildings, one of the largest monasteries in Taiwan, were completed in 2001.
We were amazed by the amount and variety of commercial agriculture we saw on the ride out to the monastery like this sugar cane.
The monastery's temple can be seen from miles away.
Two if the main buildings at Chung Tai Shan are the temple (L) and Museum (R).
The main Buddha image in the Temple.
The temple had the usual 4 guardians. My fav is always the one holding the
View south from the temple.
3 comments:
Nice Buddha!
I went to the Chinese lantern festival in Cary this year. Those pandas looked awfully familiar.
@Kathy, so glad to see you back online. I was really impressed with Puli because they have half the people of Cary and the whole thing is free.
Glad to be back! The Cary event was definitely not free!
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