Hiking with handbags

So we have everything: Passports, re-entry visa, clothes, trainers, underwear, toiletries, towels, a picnic for the plane and a sense of adventure anything else is superlfuous or can be bought.  So we though!

Embarking on our hiking adventures in Taroko Gorge we realised that we had left behind one vital piece of equipment:  a back-pack! Great!!!

So, what has my pink leather handbag experienced? Travelling to lands and heights that no handbag has been to before I dragged my girly companion up into the clouds in Taiwan to view a mysterious pond surrounded by green lush vegetation. Carrying my water, bamboo rice, guava and camera my bag and I perched in the long grass gazing at the secluded beauty which would have once been home to aboriginal tribes. Giving our legs a longed for rest after a steep hike of over 2000 metres we ventured (me and my pink friend and Felicity and her purple one) a little further to view settlements left by the Japanese during the occupation.

Walking in the clouds, far away from civilisation we carried on walking as the rain began to fall in the humid clouds. Reaching the white, small brick houses we saw remains of a fridges, beds and electrical appliances. An eerie feeling descended upon us as we gazed upon this secluded ghost hamlet and we wondered how the Japanese succeeded in hauling these heavy goods to the top of a steep mountain. Venturing forward to see what the next house had in store we saw a sight which made us turn, walk back down the mountain, briskly but quietly.

Over 2000metres high in the sky, we found a bed, a mattress, water, magazines; signs of inahibtation in extreme weather. Too many films made me presume the worse, who decided to live up here and why? After a joint decision Felicity and I decided that we had seen enough, reached the peak and should head down but neither of us mentioned the bed, the signs of life in the misty surroundings. Walking back, handbag securly fastened under my shoulder we headed down till Felicity had declared safety at what was the old settlement of a tribe. Still not at ease I declared I was no longer scared of someone following us but scared os who we may meet on the way down: what goes down comes up no? Say we meet the dweeler on his way back “home”. Calming down and realising that yes, I shouldn’t assume that my life is a film, haunted by memories of those such as “The wrong turn” (after all, we hadn’t yet died hitchiking) I calmed down and we decided our spot for our picnic. Arriving at our decideed there he was, the man who was going to kill us, the man who was going to hack us up on the top of a mountain where no body knew where we were. No phone, no help, no one to hear us scream. There he was, standing there with a sythe! Turning aroud he began speaking to us, talking and starring, unable to understand, his words were just sounds falling on confused ears. “Sorry, we don’t understand, do you speak English?” (Why are you holding a sythe?) blank stare, incomprehensible words, forming, floating, flying through the clouds. “English?” No…..”Japanese? Nihongo o shabemasuka?” and there it was, the magic word, the phrase that got two English girls on the top of a Taiwanese mountain speaking to a man in Japanese.

Far from death on a mountain the 18th March 2008, Felicity, our handbags and I hiked, got scared, spoke Japanese and like monkeys, smashed open our food on a rock to get to the yummy contents inside some bamboo.

Really, who said you shouldn’t talk to strangers?