I misspent some of my youth in Australia, and now whenever I hear mention of Bali an old, typically satirical Australian pop song called I've Been to Bali Too plays through my mind.
The song refers, of course, to the Indonesian island Bali, but Taiwan has its own Bali, just a short ferry ride fromDanshui. Unlike its Indonesian namesake, Bali, New Taipei, has no tropical beaches, multi-storey hotels or package tours, but it does have its own quiet attractions.
We visited Bali on one of our holidays to Taiwan before moving out here, and hired bikes at the rental shop near the ferry terminal to ride along the beach bike path. We also visited the Museum of Archaeology, which introduced us not only to interesting information about Taiwan's ancient settlements, but also the value of receipts.
After the Taiwanese Government introduced a receipt number lottery, to encourage shoppers to ask for receipts from shopkeepers who would otherwise cook their books to avoid paying tax, receipts took on a special value. They could be worthless, or they could be worth anything up to millions of dollars, depending on whether they bore a lucky number.
On entering the Museum of Archaeology, we were told that the entry fee was three receipts each. Cue total confusion. Did she say receipts? Yes, I'm sure she said receipts. Doesn't she mean they give you a receipt when you pay? And so on, for a long, puzzling moment until a kindly Taiwanese lady helped us out by donating from her own carefully hoarded stash.
We revisited Bali last weekend on a trip with my son's Taekwondo class and spent the day at the adventure centre. We were there for the paintballing, but other visitors were taking part in more daring, high rise activities.
I was happy to catch up on some reading while the boys and men enjoyed fulfilling their basic instinct to fight each other. First the older boys went off to do battle in an arena filled with oil barrels. Then the Taekwondo coaches made themselves targets for the youngest team members to take their revenge upon.
Apparently those paintballs sting on impact, so understandably the coaches lurked at the back for a while before pride overcame them and they ran forward to capture the flag. The littlest Taekwondo students showed no mercy and fired heavily. So much payback was concentrated into just a few minutes of paintball fire. The coaches must be masochists as well as sadists because them seemed to enjoy the pain as much as they enjoy inflicting it.
Later, the coaches and older students could pretend they were really at war by battling in teams on rough terrain. The appeal was evident from the excitement of all the other students and parents who watched the fight. Okay, I'll come down from my detached, ironic viewpoint and admit it was fun to watch.
As soon as the battle was over the younger boys illegally slipped under the fence to collect unused paintballs as trophies. We now have a small tub of paintballs at home that will no doubt gather dust in a corner for several years. My son had a whale of a time.
Part of the day's package was a cook-your-own barbecue. You can imagine what happens when you let adolescents loose with charcoal and firelighters. Needless to say, half an hour later we were still without any sign of a flame and the assistants had to come to the rescue of our blackened, over-excited children with a butane torch before we finally had our barbecue underway. When we had sampled the half burned black and half raw sausages the younger boys produced, we decided enough was enough and roped in some older teenagers to help out with the cooking. Once they stepped in, food was eaten as quickly as it was cooked and by the end of the day not a scrap remained. Even the food poisoning sausages had disappeared.
Heading home, I found I must be turning Taiwanese because, like the rest of the coach, I fell fast asleep. Yes, I thought to myself as I drifted off, I've been to Bali too.
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