We spent a wonderful morning with our friend Junior up in the mountains about an hour or two outside of Kaohsiung. Way back when we first came to Taiwan the school sent the new staff on a day trip up to Sandimen, one of the centers of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan, and today we went back to that region to the Maolin National Scenic Area.

The mountains in Taiwan are pretty impressive since they rise out of the plains at not much higher than sea level and reach over 3000 meters in the center of the island. What that means is when you drive into the mountains it's one switchback after another and pretty soon you're several thousand feet up. Driving (or sitting in the passenger seat) around here is not for the faint of heart. But, boy-oh-boy is it beautiful.

Junior has a favorite spot to stop for local pork barbecue and steamed rice. Unfortunately we arrived too early for the sweet potatoes to be ready.

The rice is steamed inside bamboo stalks with millet and spices and it was delicious. Lee and Junior didn't care for it so I got to eat it all. The pork was also delicious, especially with the chunks of onion and garlic. Part of what made it taste so good was the location. We hiked a little ways from the car and were rewarded with a lovely waterfall and swimming hole.

 I assure you that's not a dead body I'm watching over, just our friend enjoying the cool water. There were a few other people who made the hike in and they were dumbfounded that we were actually in the water. The Taiwanese do not swim. They don't even seem to wade very much, although a few people we saw did stick their toes in. We, on the other hand, explored a series of swimming holes downstream that felt like no one had ever been to before. It was magical.