Betel Nut

Ted and Siobhan buying Betel Nut

My final day in Taipei, Siobhan and Ted still asleep. I am not fully adjusted to the time change so I spontaneously wake in the wee early hours of the morning. Ted asleep on the floor, Siobhan next to me in the bed. They have a tiny apartment. It’s really a room with a bed. The kitchen is an outside balcony. They have been wonderful hosts taking me around the city, encouraging me to have many Taiwan experiences. It has been great. The neighborhood they live in is referred to as the “Combat Zone.”  By day it is full of street vendors and harmless loose dogs running around. By night it is lined with women of the evening both straight and transvestite. Clubs with sensual English names come to life like Tulip and Jade.

We went out walking in the peek of the action. The sex industry is alive and well in Taipei. Many of the workers are from Malaysia. 3:00 a.m. the area was still alive and thriving. Old ladies with noodle stands, vendors selling dumplings and fried fare on a stick, who says the Minnesota State Fair invented food on a stick? I have seen much more creative things on a stick here, in Taipei than I ever did at the fair. We wandered the streets feeling oddly safe. In such an area one would expect more crime, but strangely there seemed to be none.

Out of curiosity we purchased a sort of nut like substance called “Betel nut.” Many of the bus and taxi drivers chew betel nut. Many of them have brown, rotting teeth from chewing it, but we thought one time wouldn’t cause too much damage. The experience was akin to chewing tobacco. My throat filled with syrupy saliva and I had to keep spitting, which is socially accepted in Taiwan. Ted said his legs were starting to feel numb, but I just felt nauseous. I may have either had to swallow or chew more of it to reap the psychedelic effects. Neither of which I was willing to do.

By morning light, the toothless, young prostitutes asleep, a farmer’s market appears with fresh fruit and vegetables unlike anything I have ever seen. People out walking with their dogs following dutifully without any leash. I start to question my memory of the night before. Were these the same streets I witnessed the dark side of the sex trade?

Mystery food on a stick



Ted eating quail egges