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coming up on this episode of welcome to Taiwan we start in doofen one of Taiwan's most scenic towns however it turns out to be overrun with tourists and seemingly impossible to enjoy so about five minutes into walking around we've already given up but never fear we will show you how to escape the crowds and find incredible views just like this who talked about a place at lunch and then it's off to the middle of the island for our final and most challenging feat of this series as we battle the elements and altitude sickness in an attempt to climb Snow Mountain we're saving the
best till last on this one so sit down and relax because this episode is going to be next level and we're back welcome to the last episode of this mini series in the last episode we were in Hualien and we had so many adventures in me it was one of the best places we went to then we've come up north today to a town called jiufen you've been here before yes it's my second it's a bank holiday so it's super busy and we have a friend here Alex he's come back but why do you
recommend youth in what is this place and why should people come well first of all if you tell people back where you come from that you went to Taiwan the first thing they're gonna ask us oh how is Joe fen already right so you just kind of have to see it's just an old town cobblestones tea you know it's king sexy views yeah look at this we've got like ocean views and Islands thing we're gonna try and find a place to get some beers and watch the sunset but first just walk around and enjoy this little cute little town and then later after doofen we're
gonna head into the interior of the island for our biggest challenge of the series so far well we're gonna attempt to climb the second tallest mountain snow mountain so loads of adventures to be had in this final episode are you pumped that was goofin is known for its steps and narrow alleyways and it's gorgeous mountains and sea views this town in the north of Taiwan was at one point a hub for the Japanese during the gold rush so lots of the statues and museums that can be found here really showcase the big influence the Japanese head on this place on a normal
day this popular place is quite enjoyable but because today was a public holiday for everyone taijuan it was kinda impossible to enjoy something as simple as just walking around exploring this place is cool very cute very busy well these tiny little nooks and crannies think about how many rice recycled parts go to the bottom cuz he just asked to mouth the whole time just a quiet little street here and doofen yeah it's it's it's it's an attack on the senses it's very nasally noisy space then yeah it was packed and we were starting to regret coming all this way just to be squashed like sardines on every path there is
have you ever seen anything so busy every time I come here so much so that Damien just said screw it and he bought us some beers and we just sat on the gutters and let the masses pass us by so about five minutes into walking around we've already given up way too busy ching your chairs good health guys good to see you again Alex with all of the delicious food and cheap beers on offer at 7-eleven we put together a plan we wanted to find a quiet spot to watch sunset and actually enjoy goofin so just like a well-organized expedition we split up to divide and conquer I went to get the food and the snacks and the guys went to get the beers and we reconvened in the old gold mine tunnels
and came out to a lovely little spot and look at this there is a little cute couple taking pictures there but mountain views all of the craziness in that direction quiet peaceful little temple here and a viewpoint great place to have a couple of beers and enjoy sunset with the lads perfect time to have this peanut butter ice cream with cilantro they basically have a giant block of peanut brittle and they like shave off flakes you saw right yeah and they wrap it in this I don't know what this paper is but this is Taiwan classic I think you're gonna love it
no you don't like more really no do not like cilantro I do but not in that no put jam in there put chocolate sauce in there take one more bite take a good thing a good bite where does like lots of peanuts the sunset was glorious and we really enjoy this quieter side of town honestly jiufen is beautiful so just plan a way around the crowds and you'll be sure to enjoy this town even more than we already do the sunset beers turned into a few nighttime beers because jiufen actually has some really cool little hole-in-the-wall bars and when you find one that lets you play your own music as well
as serving cheap local brew well that's just a recipe for a good night so you're walking down Joe Penn old Street and you hear some beautiful music coming from a pub and you think what is that what are those dasa tones early next morning we dusted ourselves off and tackled our hangovers head on with a mission to climb the tallest mountain in the area at peak called teapot Mountain so we thought we got to the top but not quite there's this rock summit by look at it that we need to get past which wouldn't be that difficult if it wasn't for this queue of people have you ever seen that Instagram of the queue for Everest this is kind of that
vibe this is this is one of the many ways that smartphones have ruined everything so you go oh yeah if you're claustrophobic you won't like this okay I've got lost we've got separated somehow but this isn't the top that's the top up there this Trek is not for anyone a scared of heights it's pretty
gnarly especially when you're coming across here one fall slip and you down Boosh good night how do you look really comfortable me and also Patti discovered something else we didn't know about this that's that's where we're actually trying to go who talked about a place to have lunch right can you believe this place down there you can see the museum that was the rock that we climbed through and we came up here and up at that crazy wall with the rope all the way to here exactly absolutely incredible teapot Mountain here in jiufen can't recommend this enough it was fun it was challenging it was a little bit dangerous but a good adventure right
and what an amazing view to end with from here I think we're gonna head down this has been a good practice for our big mountain tomorrow yeah this is just a wee Hill compared to Snow Mountain I mean look there's the ocean we can only be about a thousand meters high right now and we're gonna be up nearly 4000 meters tomorrow or attempting to anyway so we're gonna head down say goodbye to your friend Alex he's going back to Taipei and then we are gonna go climb Snow Mountain tomorrow are you pumped he has to get back to work I wish I could come with you I gotta work oh well
the next day and after a lion and a lazy morning in doofen by the time we got a bus into the middle of Taiwan it was already late in the afternoon and we still had a few hundred kilometers or so to reach the start of the trail for Snow Mountain local transport here is amazing however once you get into the Central Highlands there's no trains and the buses are very seldom so our only option was to continue by hitchhiking and even though the surroundings were stunning each car that was picking us up was only going 5 or 10 minutes up the road at
a time so things were not looking good for us in terms of getting to the star of the trail in time for our permit which only allows us to climb Snow Mountain the following a day the plan is there is no plan we just want to try and get to the town where this beginning of the trail is before dark and yeah wish us luck are we gonna do it we're gonna do it but ever we ever really have to do something about our town time management yes oh well sleepyheads
got a ride so he's not going all the way but they're going all the way but it's going like you have the distance they think like have the distance from here to be yelling yeah darling okay that's better than nothing well welcome to the middle of nowhere in Taiwan what a right that was that guy was too and beyond that smoking [__] driving like a maniac there's literally no towns or villages
at all for another hundred kilometers and look at the traffic situation here it's not exactly ribs wrong way but doomed oh my god it's been 20 minutes and no cars come and it's getting cold can we break the record the longest wait we've ever had is two and a half hours this is what I love the most is just having this sense of like where are we what we're doing this is great you know nature hitchhiking but poor Damien's not very well I don't feel he's coming down with something it's got a headache he's got like a painful what is it
like a nose infection I don't know what it is it's just too many noises oh so he's Morales down we don't have any beers and we don't have any food mosquitos biting my leg anyway let's manifest positive vibes no matter how positive we remain still the few cars that drove by just didn't seem interested in picking us up and the light was fading really fast are you giving them a good big smile because nobody wants to pick up a miserable bastard I've got to give it you biggest like amazingly with the last few minutes of daylight we got a ride a couple of Tunisian
brothers who were driving around the mountains on a wild camping adventure of their own they drove 50 kilometers before we saw a place that had rooms but unfortunately when we went inside it was fully booked and we just had to use it as a shelter to heat up some noodles and to make a plan because right now we were stranded in the Taiwanese Mountains with no place to stay and no camping gear we had seen a police station on the way so we decided our best option was to go back and ask for help with any luck this police officers would have a place we could rest until
we continued to explain that we really messed up and we're completely lost but the police offered us some tea and snacks while stay called around to hostels and guest houses to find us a bed for the night unfortunately everything was full and just when we thought we would have to sleep outside in the cold dark forest the Taiwanese police came up with a solution yeah the lady working at the station turns out to have some friends who run an organic tea plantation further up into the mountains and the family had kindly offered to let us stay for the night the Taiwanese hospitality was turning out to
be amazing and even when we arrived at the family's house we were greeted with a tea ceremony and a little taste of their amazing organic tea hmmm interesting smell taste it yeah it's crispy that's true I like it put some salt on it and I'm buying it and welcome to a tea plantation in Taiwan didn't think I'd say that did you have any clear there's a tea plantation vibe here no I know your milk tea but I didn't expect to military to come from Taiwan itself I know they only have one acre of land and they take it super seriously and there T is a Michelin star T and they were showing us all the certificates that they've got and
I jokingly well I wasn't jokingly I said oh can i buy some and they said it's very expensive as if to say you can't afford this since we were probably we look like such tramps don't when we're hitchhiking like you know they probably think we don't have any money or something but they don't know that we're just looking for an adventure and we found it look at this place what's this we still have to get to snow mountain today because um the thing about snow mountain is you need a permit and it does take a little while to organize we're not even in you know in
a County or district of Taiwan where yeah we're in the far away we're far away why it was worth it was we can double back wow this is nice yeah waking up here in this countryside paradise was certainly completely unexpected but certainly very welcome the family even gave us a ploughman's breakfast of eggs cheese apples and of course plenty more of their organic tea Veta are the lovely lady from the police station even invited us to go check out the tea plantation itself and even though we were really far from where we needed to be we couldn't say no because well this was one of the most beautiful places we'd ever seen
make it rain make it rain along gold we got to see their organic fertilizers and plant foods as well as getting to learn how to pick the tea leaves by hand what we love most about the budgeteers is showing you guys that there are plenty of adventures out there for everyone and the only way to access them is by getting out there and looking for them peeking tea and hanging out at this beautiful farm had never been part of our plan but hey neither had been stranded in the mountains being cold and hungry the night before either the point is that if you stay in your
comfort zone you'll always experience life the same way but by getting out there and setting your sails for adventures you'll always create lifelong memories and learn much more about the world we live in Lita had to drive home and luckily the road she needed was kind of in the direction we needed to so we jumped in and took in some more of the incredible Taiwanese mountain roads thank you so much like that thank you so much for your help yeah enjoy your treat we just came back from the tea plantation sorry the hitchhike our way back to Snow Mountain took a while but eventually got picked up in this kind of pulled garbage
but you know that's that's the first one for the series a copy Jesus beggars can't be choosers right yeah we never knew hitchhiking in Taiwan was going to be so easy and so beautiful and so adventurous yes hitchhiking in Taiwan yeah life was good I don't think you can beat hitchhiking in the back of a dirty old truck driving through incredible scenery with your new best mate this is definitely my happy place for sure we knew we were making good time as well because within a few hours and a few more truck rides we finally made it into the national park we dumped our bags at the police station and we started to make our way to the start of the trail
everywhere we go oh my god I didn't expect this in Taiwan there's nothing here that you can compare it with because most of the time when you're traveling you compare everything like in life you compare everything but I can't compare this with anything I've ever seen in my life I can any compare it to you know beautiful face okay do want to go up this mountain so you can look at Matt Bodi to help Sika Hut that's our first rest point that's two kilometers seven point one is where we sleep ten point nine to the summit
never we hear it quicker cabin [__] you see car chica cheetah tell me what's wrong thank you quick Snickers bar break and a wee little bit of tea yeah just chocolate and sugar and peanuts and energy all the good stuff from here it's three more k2 where we're going to sleep and we've picked the perfect time of day really like coming late in the afternoon perfect weather Sun coming through the trees beautiful forest area we've just gone through some more forest to get through yeah we're carrying these little backpacks with a you know some peanuts in it and these guys are carrying these
things they mean just lift that up to show you that we're not trying to show you that I spot her wild Damien grazing on an apple he searches for a mate yet cannot find one Dameon we made it yes they mean we made it and there was a few slips along the way I stacked it a few times two times yes in the dark admiring the stars in the view but Damian was there to
pick me up so thank you anyway it's very pretty up here and we it's about what seven o'clock eight o'clock doing Cemetery 7:30 the Hut is packed and everyone's getting an early night half of the people seem to be waking up at 2:00 we're gonna wake up at 5:00 get a bit more sleep yeah so we're gonna enjoy this delicious meal you get a meal when you get to the top how good is that and a sleeping bag so we're gonna stuff our faces get some sleep and attack the summit tomorrow I know that's why I put chili all over it anyway was just like
yeah the next morning we woke up to some bad news I had slept just fine but Damian had been up all night with a terrible headache and he felt like he might have a minor case of altitude sickness okay so we ate a later breakfast and just waited to see if Damian started to feel any better yeah I woke up with a severe headache but I didn't want to let petty down and since I had clamped much higher peaks in Nepal and Morocco I knew I could do it so at least I was gonna give it a try however even after just 15 minutes my headache got even worse and I started to
feel really nauseous as well so I couldn't even walk anymore so I arrested in the grass beside the trail and hope that my body would start to adapt to this altitude of around 3,000 meters at last I started to feel a bit better it's still bad but good enough to push towards the summit I knew we weren't far and making it to the top would be a great achievement so I summoned up all the strength I had to continue on goddess with Damien powering through we were lucky that the penultimate stage of the climb was the black forest shaded from the Sun and with more oxygen around us Damien was able to take it slow and
recharge his energy levels the forest itself is ridiculously beautiful much more flat and full of unique plants and animals and it wasn't long until we got a super lucky encounter so we're in the Black Forest Damien's feeling a little bit better and we've just seen desert what is it I think it's it's called a mint month yuck Monty act just like it's a special kind of deer okay it's just down here pretty cool experience to see that amazing wildlife I'm here in this beautiful forest amazing we could see the summit up past the treeline and so we mustered up the last of
our energy supplies to hike up the steepest and the hardest part of the climb all right we're officially out of the Black Forest which is a real shame because it was absolutely stunning but now we're here in this open sort of rocky area now but over there you can see a blanket but yeah this is the last person out to the top boy liebe can you believe this is Taiwan this is one of the highlights this is one of the best things I've ever done anywhere if you come into Taiwan make sure to get permit for snow
mountain and this is the peak season the time we filming this is October so October November and then in December January starts to snow all of this will be snow isn't that amazing okay this is how the Taiwanese tell the kids that their lunch is ready some cheap what salsa come on last bit you can do it I'm doing this all for you subscribers this is the thing about mountains there's no middle there's no certificate you just do it because it's a challenge and it's better than sitting on your ass I think
we're at the top they mean last few steps together come on let's do an Instagram ready turn around oh my gosh you look so beautiful oh there's the top yes I thought you weren't gonna make it damien shui Mountain three thousand eight hundred and eighty six meters I think this is any time for a high-five but just wow very good let me show you around look at this down there it will be Taiwan obviously down there will be Taipei in that direction in Hua Lian and down there Ilan and down here very exhausted
Brussels some muscles are the muscles from Brussels yeah as you can tell with the lower oxygen levels and pure exhaustion we couldn't string a proper sentence together but that didn't matter because we had done it and there was nothing else to do other than just soak up Taiwan's insane and natural beauty one last time and reflect on this incredible end to an incredible trip ah Damien give me one more high-five or fist bottom what we doing I already don't think there's a better place to end this series than right here a top mount snow mountain the Taiwanese name is Shui Xiu son you came to Taiwan two years ago and you mainly did
the west coast by yourself and together me and you we've mainly done the East Coast if someone was coming to Taiwan and they only had two weeks which coast would you recommend East Coast well depends what you like if you don't like nature if you don't I like hiking if you don't like you know that kind of stuff yeah don't do the east coast to the west coast but if you are into hiking and adventure and all that stuff yeah come to the East Coast Taiwan's been a really big surprise and my battery's blinking so I'm gonna call it a day here just want to say a
big thank you to everyone watching it I hope you really enjoyed this miniseries thank you to everyone in the budgeteers crew for supporting a channel and for enabling this series to happen I'm gonna use some of the support you guys have given us to fix half of my camera gear which is broken - in this trip and come to Taiwan what a trip Damien thank you again it's been great to travel with you it's been a pleasure and hopefully we'll get to travel again soon and now that you've traveled with ties and me Lena you got to do a trip with this boy at some
point anyway peace out safe travels and thanks for watching this miniseries of the budgeteers
