Dispatches from the countryside, beyond the dense urban cores, amidst the long fields and low buildings. See also: agricultural, landscapes, and mountains.
Renoir Resort Club (雷諾瓦俱樂部) is a surprising find in Guānzilǐng (關子嶺), the most famous and well-developed hot springs town in Baihe, Tainan. I went to stay there one night in the spring of 2014 to have a look around—but I didn’t expect to find an abandoned club next door to where I was staying. I probably should have known; this is Taiwan, an urban exploration utopia of sorts. Sometimes you will get lucky and discover someplace cool without even trying.
One fine morning in February 2014 I decided to go out riding. I had seen photos of a beautiful cliffside temple next to a waterfall in Xindian and it looked to be within easy reach of my place in Jingmei. I set out for the highway leading to Pinglin, passing through the sprawl of southern Taipei under the warm winter sun. The roadway began to steepen as I reached the outskirts of the city. Struggling against gravity—but enjoying every minute of it—I ascended into the hills before taking a turn onto Yínhé Road 銀河路 (the literal translation of which is “silver river”, better known to us as the Milky Way).
I discovered Kampung Numbak using Wikimapia, a mash up of Google Maps and Wikipedia, while staying at 1Borneo, a megamall on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah. After finding it online I decided to pay Numbak a visit. There was something very strange about the juxtaposition of Borneo’s biggest mall and this impoverished village of 5,000 a stone’s throw away.
At the beginning of February I spent several days near Tuaran, a town outside of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia. Here are a few photos from my adventures there…
I met up with an old friend to hit the road in search of adventure today. And so we crossed the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge to the North Shore. We stopped in some random industrial area just off the Dollarton Highway then proceeded to Cates Park before entering Deep Cove. I figured it would be picturesque. Instead it was kind of dull and vaguely unwelcoming. We forged ahead to North Woodlands, which I only knew about from messing around with Google Maps. Turns out this remote community was even less welcoming than Deep Cove—virtually every vantage point was blocked by private homes. We snapped a few photos from the wharf and called it a day.