travel tuesdee - i talk to the trees

i could fill a thousand blogs with stories and pictures of the trees i've seen. of towering trunks along the highways in thailand, wrapped in the saffron robes of monks; of sadhus sitting lotus in the twisted banyon roots of india; of green boughs shading lovers' chairs in mexican courtyards. but of all the leaves that i have seen, it is these trees that i remember most:

these crummy lifeless photos do no justice to the forests of Alishan, Taiwan, where the trees are too tall to photograph, and the shades of green too many for any lense to comprehend. walking amongst these giant 3000 year old majesties, i wept in awe.

sadly, all of the largest and oldest of these trees are dead. what was once a great cypress army is now a great many benches and end tables. the few that were left alone have all since passed from diseases brought in by the foreign species planted in their place. but twenty eight ghostly giants remain here, in this forest. and though dead themselves, they are host to much life. clad as they are in glorious green robes, they remain, as they have, for a thousand times longer than i. lifetimes 3 milleniums long, now halted, stand in ghostly reminder of the capabilites and the follies of the human race.

woah. rambled on there didn't i? :)

here, watch this: