The paths snaked their way up the mountainside village with serious intent, paved and signposted and out of character with the generally crumbling buildings and very humble, tiny cottages dotting the hillside. There were telltale paw-prints embedded in the concrete at regular intervals, directing the visiting curious through the maze of mountain walkways. The most spectacular vision was not the layers of mountain on the far side of the train tracks shrouded in blue mist, nor the cubist train bridge, but rather the delightful presence of hundreds of cats of all sizes, shapes and colours who imperiously sat, nudged and meowed their way in and among everything in sight!
We'd taken a circuitous route to Houtong Cat Village, a tiny community perched on a mountainside in the former gold mining hills near Jioufen on the northern coast. After being devastated by the loss of mining for both gold and coal, many of the residents moved away, young people moved to the city and the town gradually fell into disrepair. A kind resident of the town started to feed a pride of stray cats who grew and reproduced and other townsfolk also became feeders. Eventually this became a focus, visitors flocked and businesses all cashed in on the cat fever. Everything here has a cat theme, be it roadside food stalls, souvenir shops, even restaurants and cafes. Could it be true....everyone's a winner?!
The route to get there was noteworthy. After butting our way through Sunday traffic to the freeway, we found Freeway One choked with traffic trying to negotiate through the feng shui nightmare of spaghetti looped roads near the Grand Palace Hotel. Once beyond, the traffic freed up a bit, and we traveled north-east for a spell onto the 62. Here we passed the infamous spot where a landslide annihilated 13 cars a few years back, traveled through tunnels and overpasses until we exited down the ramp to Ruifamg.
Ruifang is notable for being a small country town on the riverside, which may have once been quite charming, but currently suffers from excessive traffic in impossibly narrow streets and nondescript buildings featuring ugly roller-doors, festooned with knotted electrical cables and bolted-on neon signs. Once escaped from the claustrophobic confines of Ruifang, the road narrowed and meandered through lush hills, hugging the river on one side and in the shadow of precipitous cliffs on the other. Truck sized boulders stood proudly in the riverbed and the water rushed and spilled over and around them, while we writhed our way further up into the mountain wilds. Eventually, we emerged from the ambrosial landscape and crossed a one-way bridge over to park near Houtong Station before setting off across the railway bridge for the village proper.
It was a very special time and the cats were everywhere you looked! So calm and approachable, they meowed to be patted and didn't seem to mind the incessant misting rain nor the crowds of people fawning over them. They tolerated the little kiddies and walked and sat on every surface. We wandered and patted and spied and photographed till we eventually took advantage of one of the new businesses and had delicious coffee and waffles in a reclaimed stone house. It, incongruously, had a resident dog, who had eyes for our waffles and annoyingly breathed hot, doggy breath on my exposed leg during the meal!
As you can imagine, Cassy voted this the highlight of the weekend, although we had been out and about on Saturday as well, visiting the Shinkong Mitsukoshi for a meal at Chili's then a viewing of "Bridge of Spies" with Tom Hanks. It was really entertaining and we loved spotting some of the spots in East Berlin, perhaps around the area we stayed in Kreuzberg....it looked just as cold anyway!
Photos: cats galore!