Road to Namasia?那瑪夏的路開了?

Every day I hear a different time frame for access to Namasia. Usually one two two years, sometimes never but rarely anytime soon.

My wife has just been talking to her brother Vaji who is still in Ming Chuan. He says the first road will pass through the Alishan range, but not as I expected via Alishan’s Cha Shan (which already has limited road access). Vaji says the road will go up from the Labinia area and connect with 178 (which follows the eastern shore of Nanhua Dam) via an ‘old route’ . I considered 178 from Guan Shan over the Alishan range and into the Namasia Valley near Holy Mt. Zion, but this (very small) farming road is usually the first to go and then there are two Nan Tzu Hsien river crossings to contend with.

Vaji says they are working hard on the route and it should be open in 3-4 days. I hope he is right. If I can get a truck in, I can start hauling stuff out.

There are lots of rumours. One particularly frightening one was if the villagers accept the free government houses (which I wrote about here) they would have to give up their land. This can’t be true, but shows why some aren’t coming down from the mountains, they just want to get clear answers and guarantees before comitting to anything.