Snake Kiln in Shueili - 水里蛇窑

On the way to thesouth end of Sun Moon Lake, after the town of Shueili, ( 水里 ) there's a place called the "Snake Kiln". We've driven past it many times, but never stopped. This time we decided to stop the car and go see what it was all about.

The Shueili Snake Kiln ( 水里蛇窑 ) gets its name from this long earthen
tunnel that serves as a kiln to make pottery. Many parts of this kiln
were reconstructed after the JiJi earthquake. It is reportedly the
oldest kiln in Taiwan.


A fire at the bottom of the tunnel, three separate stoking
boxes heat up the kiln and the fire is not wasted as it is used a
long ways in the tunnel before reaching the chimney at the end.

An old time wagon used to carry the pots to market.

Pot Wall. Pottery is everywhere outside and inside the Snake Kiln Museum.
Pipes, bowls, all kinds of pots and live demonstrations are available.

The walk from the road up to the Snake Kiln area is pleasant.
Even if you don't pay the entrance for the museum, its a nice
place to stop off for lunch. We stopped and enjoyed a yummy
plate of fried up Mountain Pig . I guess they re-use the skulls
as decorations. That does it for the stop over at the kiln. Now
we know what's on the side of the road!

Trip to Checheng

Just south of Sun Moon Lake on the road to Jade Mountain National park is the town of Shuei-Li. North of Shueili on a lightly travelled road is the terminus of the Ji-Ji railroad line formerly used during the Japanese occupation for logging. Originally we had planned to drive up to Yu-Shan national park, however after taking one look at the dark menacing clouds up that way, we took a left not knowing where we were going and ended up in the little town of Checheng. The locals are busy there building a logging museum and other attractions for tourists. A fine time was had by all.

First up on the trip was a stop in Shuei-li to visit the river and watch some rafters:


And also some river rescues



After that we continued to drive onto CheCheng and saw the little tourist railroad town including this little tea-house on the pond:

Pond at Checheng:



Resevoir behind Town:



After driving around the Resevoir, we came to this washed out section of the road, which is a common occurence in Taiwan:


The strangest thing in this case were the steel I-Beams in the road, presumably
to keep out the bigger trucks from driving on the weak road:

Well, those are all the updates for our trip to Checheng, tomorrow is double 10 day, Taiwanese "independence day" even though the "country" is still not really independent. More updates coming soon on the recent photo trip around our town to the plum drying factory, the lantern array and the small budhist