Travel to Taiwan Matsu (8)
let’s continue travel to Taiwan’s Matsu
If the sight of the old villages gives one something to think about, crossing from island to island gives one a physical workout.
Matsu’s ferry boats are tossed around on the choppy seas, and any visit to the uninhabited islets, for fishing or bird-watching, entails a bracing encounter with the wind and the waves.
Every year the Matsu Rock Fishing Association runs a contest, to which top anglers from around Taiwan are invited. We chanced upon Li Chin-hsin, chairman of the Penghu County Coastal Angling Association, who explained that Matsu’s location near the mouth of the Minjiang River, where fresh water from the river mingles with salty ocean water, gives it an abundance of the types of fish favored by coastal anglers. Additionally, the fact that the sea is so deep just off the coast, makes for an anglers’ paradise. Even if you don’t catch many fish, a day spent standing with a rod at the edge of the waves is a great way to chill out.
If bird-watching is your thing, you need to remember to bring your binoculars and camera.
Matsu is just off the coast of Fujian, as is the island of Kinmen, but unlike Kinmen it has no wetlands, and therefore has a different set of bird species-both resident and migratory-from that island. In 2000 the county council designated eight uninhabited islets as protected areas for terns. Visitors are not allowed to set foot on these islets, but they can approach by boat, cut the engine, and observe the birds through binoculars. The gulls soar above while the people bob about on the waves-all part of the same natural continuum, all sharing in the wonder of creation.
If there’s time enough, you can carry on across the sea to the isles of Tungyin and Chukuang, and see the lighthouse which has witnessed the comings and goings of sea traffic for the past hundred years.
The Tungchu Lighthouse, which dates from 1872, has been listed as a grade two historic monument. Originally it was commissioned by a British company to aid the navigation of the merchant vessels that began to converge on the Minjiang estuary following the Opium Wars. It is a round column 19.5 meters high, made of white granite, with lush grass at its base and several European-style buildings alongside.
The lighthouse stands there like a young girl in white, poised on a green shore against a backdrop of deep blue ocean. It’s a lovely sight to gaze upon, and it provided the perfect finale for our tour of Matsu.
The trip brought us into contact with nature, with key military areas, with religious places, and with history. On a visit to Matsu, living history, in a succession of different scenes, seems to pass before one’s eyes.
Nowadays the Taiwanese are avidly recovering what they can of the vanishing culture of their homeland, and are rebuilding, one brick at a time, the structures of their past. So why not take a trip to Matsu this summer, during the months from May to September when the weather is at its finest. Matsu is sure to leave you with a lovely, and lasting impression.
