November 16th

November 16, 2021

Longtan

Last Tuesday I met up with Ralph, but our 9:00 rendezvous proved too early and I was a bit late. We're not riding together today, which is just as well as it's 10:30 when I walk out the door with my bike and then have to get the elevator back up to the apartment as I've forgotten my camera.

Just around the corner I see a chair next to some plastic stools outside a locked up shop unit and it seems worth a shot and when I take one the screen warns me the battery is very low, so I change it for the spare only to find it hasn't been charged.

We'll just have to see how many shots the pair can take before they completely die on me.

Stools and a chair just around the corner from home

My vague goal is to ride to Longtan, have a coffee, then see about cycling up a decent climb through some tea fields. It's been a while since I went that way and the exercise will do me good.

There are a couple of brief stops en route to Longtan. The first is to take a photo of some planters outside a backstreet home. Two of them are actually toilet cisterns - one has been mounted to the front wall. The second stop is not long after I've cycled across the intersection with Route 66, when a rice field has a bit of photogenic colour thanks to some flowers growing in it.

The sun comes out and while there's a decent amount of cloud, my yellow top feels too much and I wish I'd worn short sleeves. My cotton hat comes off and goes in my bar-bag.

On the edge of Longtan there's a row of simple houses with a couple of businesses spaced among them. Cycling by quite often, I've noticed a nice traditional wooden bench in a small shop, and there are usually a few people sat down at a table. It's a scene I've wanted to photograph for quite a while, but obviously just pulling up and snapping away is not the way to go about it. Today the wooden benches are empty, so I brake.

A tall fridge is behind the counter and the young guy serving opens the door and below all the beer are a few soft drinks and I get a bottle of Super Sapu and sit down on one of the painted benches at the front of the shop. Super Sapu is a green colour and marketed as a sports drink. Its flavour is hard to describe.

There's a room at the back and a few people are sat chatting. Once I'm sat at the table it's not long before they come to see who I am. You don't see many foreigners here.

I'm sweating and the cold drink and wooden seat are welcome.

The young guy can speak English quite well and I soon find out it's his mother who owns the shop. He's 25, but she only looks about 40 and they'd pass for siblings.

He tells me he's waiting to do his mandatory military service, which I think is a 10-month stint now. It used to be two years. There's recently been media discussion about reverting back, what with the threat from China becoming more pronounced.

The young guy translates, and his mother can understand some basic vocabulary.

An older man who clearly likes a beer or two is sitting opposite and asks me various questions. He's Mr Wong and is just a couple years older than me and he wants me to have a beer with him, but I tell him it's too early and he ends up buying me another bottle of Super Sapu.

There are also two elderly women. One is 81 years old.

This little place seems like an ad hoc community centre.

They're all inquisitive and friendly and Mr Wong is a bit of a character. He lives across the road.

Another man appears and I find out he's 61 and is clearly another local character: when I take his photo he bends a leg around the back of his neck and puckers his lips, then demonstrates a few English phrases, including 'very good' and 'fuck you'. He gets a can of Bar Beer from the fridge and he and Mr Wong engage on in a bit of irreverent repartee, which no doubt has been going on for years. He says he wants to buy me a steak, but I decline.

Mr Wong, 68, on his third can of Taiwan Beer

Sixty-one-year-old man with one of his legs bent around his neck

My stop in the shop lasts over 30 minutes and it's gone noon when I arrive at Louisa, where I get a stool near a window and have a veggie rice burger with my cappuccino and watch the world go by for 20 minutes or more.

It seems too late to cycle up into the tea fields. My momentum, what little of it I had, has died and instead I ride to the nearby traditional market, but it's all winding down and I get back on the bike and head down some side streets in search of chairs to photograph.

I come across a Japanese era building and take a shot, then head under the elevated highway and spot graffiti on the huge concrete support columns and then see a chair that's locked to a metal drain cover. Bingo. It's a folder.

I cycle along the road out of Longtan that I went down the other way a couple of weeks ago then get to the usual set of lanes that take me back towards home.

My eagle eyes spots a chair half-concealed in a doorway of a house and there's another outside a neighbor's home, so I get two chairs in one stop. The first one I photograph is a battered wicker one that's been badly repaired, while the other is more like the type you see here in cafes.

A large flock of sparrows sweeps and dives across the narrow road and the birds makes quite a noise. The whole experience brings to mind Hitchcock's classic The Birds and it's hard to know what's driving them to fly around in such a tight group. They land on a pylon nearby and I take a quick snap before they fly off.

The camera battery dies as I take a self-timed shot riding down a narrow lane on the edge of Longtan, but its replacement allows me to take one. It does the job for another self-timed photo at a field of tea. It's doubtful the crop is high quality, as the elevation here is low.

The search for chairs goes on and sure enough there's one set back off the road that's been placed outside a simple house and it's probably an old school chair. It looks like it's on its last legs and someone has nailed a piece of 2 x 1 across the front to keep it from collapsing.

Ten minutes later there's a modernist chair on a pedestal - very 1960s. Made of some type of plastic, it's seriously faded from being left outside in the sun for who knows how long. Maybe it was originally red, or deep pink. It seems like someone has had a go at spray painting it, without much success.

It's been a shorter ride than anticipated, but the entertaining stop at the little shop made it an eventful one. I'll have to call in again.

Today's ride: 22 km (14 miles)
Total: 879 km (546 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	4
Comment on this entry	Comment	0