Fo Guang Shan, Wanjin, and Kaohsiung

On the next day of my tour to the south, I left my hotel in Tainan at around half past seven. I had seen everything I had wanted to see, so I made ready to leave for my next stop: Gaoxiong. Once I got to the train station, finding the right train was more confusing than I expected it to be, but luckily, I found a member of staff who was able to direct me to the right platform.

I decided that after a whole day of urban travel, I would do something completely different. When I arrived in Gaoxiong, I found a bus leaving for Fo Guang Shan, a famous monastery complex about forty minutes northeast of the city. The bus was to make two stops: one at a station called Fo Guang Shan Museum, and another at a station called Fo Guang Shan. Naturally I decided to go straight to Fo Guang Shan, a decision I started to question when all of the tourists left the bus at the museum, leaving me to continue along with only one other person, apparently a local.

It turned out that Fo Guang Shan actually consists of two large complexes: Fo Guang Shan Temple and the Buddha Memorial Centre. As far as I gathered during my visit, the former of the two – and the starting point of my own tour – is less frequented by tourists, for reasons not entirely clear to me. Though it is somewhat of a hike up to the top of the mountain, the sights are incredible. Most impressive perhaps, is the main hall, which houses three enormous Buddha statues as well as several thousand more idols inside its walls. ‘The Great Buddha Land’, an outdoor section of the complex, is home to not only a forty-metre-tall golden Buddha, but another four hundred eighty life-sized Buddha statues.

My first view of the golden Buddha at the Fo Guang Shan Temple

Rows of stupas, each honouring a deceased person

The Buddhas at the entrance of the Great Buddha Land

Two views of the largest Buddha at The Great Buddha Land

Two more views of the same

Another view of the Buddha

The last view (I promise)

The main temple at Fo Guang Shan (it is not permitted to take pictures inside)

The entrance to the main temple at Fo Guang Shan

The House of the Golden Buddhas

A very lifelike rhinoceros statue

Apparently, New Year's decorations are still in season

Admittedly, it took me a while to figure out how to descend back towards the Buddha Memorial Centre, but I was glad that I had started at Fo Guang Shan Temple, since the climb was much simpler and more pleasant than the winding asphalt path to the main attraction. The centrepiece of the Buddha Memorial Centre is a massive golden statue of a seated Buddha. Leading up to it are eight pagodas, and directly in front stands the museum itself, built as an intriguing combination of features lifted from the Mahabodhi Temple in India, and a traditional Buddhist stupa.

The Buddha Memorial Centre as seen from the Fo Guang Shan Monastery

An inner room at the Fo Guang Shan Monastery

Another view of the golden Buddha statue

More of the same, but with different things in the foreground

A statue at the Buddha Memorial Centre

The roof of the museum at the Buddha Memorial Centre

A different view of the same

Another view of the golden Buddha of Fo Guang Shan

More New Year's decorations

The Buddha statue above the museum building

The Buddha statue as seen between two of the pagodas

The Buddha statue as seen between six of the pagodas

There were only a few more tourists at the centre than at the temple, which struck me as strange since it was a holiday and the weather was sunny. I figured that the coronavirus scare must have cut participation in all sorts of leisure activities by a significant margin. I ate a good vegetarian lunch while tracing my next steps.

I originally intended to ride the bus back to Gaoxiong and from there head off to Wanjin, but as I was waiting for the bus, I opened my phone to find that Wanjin was actually not that far away. While I would be saving a lot of money by going back and forth between the city, I would save a lot of time by simply getting a taxi to Wanjin and figuring out how to get back to the city once I was done in Wanjin.

It took a bit of explaining and help from another local to convey to my taxi driver where I was trying to go and why the place was interesting at all (on a side note, my taxi driver had the longest nails I have ever seen on a human being, but that did not seem to interfere at all with how he held the steering wheel). Wanjin Township is famous for its Catholic church, which holds the distinction of being the oldest surviving church in Taiwan, the current structure dating back to the year 1870 when the original building was replaced by a larger and more durable church on the orders of Dominican Friar Francisco Herce.

Unlike any of the other churches I have seen in Taiwan, the Wanjin Basilica is a heavy-set building, devoid of pompous details and decorations. Perhaps that does not sound particularly attractive in theory, but in person, the church is strangely impressive and has a certain irreplicable charm about it. I imagine that a church like this would probably fit in quite well somewhere in the Filipino countryside, which is why it felt so otherworldly in rural Taiwan, especially when juxtaposed with a veritable horde of Taiwanese tourists on bicycles.

The altar of the Wanjin Basilica

The interior of the Wanjin Basilica

The exterior of the Wanjin Basilica, view from the left

A statue of Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominican order

The statue of Mother Mary in the garden of the basilica

The exterior of the Wanjin Basilica, view from the right

The exterior of the Wanjin Basilica, view from the centre

Detail inside the Wanjin Basilica

The Wanjin Basilica, with the mountains of Eastern Taiwan rising in the background

After some bumming about, I located the bus station, or rather a signpost with a couple of departure times for unclear destinations. I could have waited for the inevitable arrival of a bus, whose driver I would have asked for the destination, or go inquire of the locals. I decided for the latter. Since I did not see anyone standing around, I went to buy a lemonade from a nearby stand. I asked the owner whether the bus for Pingtung, the nearest city with a train station, would leave from the stop behind me. She confirmed it was, so I resumed waiting.

Sure enough, a bus soon came hurtling down the street and came to a grinding halt before me. I hopped on, making sure to ask he driver whether he was indeed heading for Pingtung, and off we went. Except for one man who boarded about four stations after me and rode for another four or five stations – all the while maintaining a good-humoured Minnanese conversation with the driver – I was the vehicle’s only passenger.

Trains back to Gaoxiong were not difficult to find – it still fills me with awe (and embarrassment for my own country) to see how well-organised, clean, and modern a provincial train station like the one in Pingtung can be. I got back to Gaoxiong at around three o’clock, which left me plenty time to explore the district where I was staying. I had reserved a room in Zuoying, which is not only where the high speed trains leave from, but also the location of the famous Lotus Pond, a body of water surrounded by strange, carnivalesque temples. It took me about two hours to walk around the pond at a leisurely pace, while also popping in and out of the occasional temple at its banks.