Second stop: Lengshuikeng Hot Springs
As we were on the way to our main itinerary spots, our tour guide Xiao Hei explained to us that we were to make a small stop at a place to “rest our feet”, so to speak. Well, I’m intrigued. I looked at the Klook app, and as it wasn’t there, I’d call this a small treat then.
But it rained hard, as I predicted. Not too hard, but at an inconvenient amount.
Once we got to a carpark, the tour guide tried to park at a convenient location, went first out, and grabbed several big umbrellas from the back of the car. He then assisted us in alighting the car, handing out the umbrellas to all of us. Once we all were out, he went ahead of us to direct the group to what was a small shed-like structure in front of what I guessed at first was a rest house facility.
Turns out, we were at a place called Lengshuikeng. It is, from what I heard from our tour guide, a popular resting spot for people that hiked or toured any of the high areas in the Yangmingshan National Park, especially the tourists from either the grasslands earlier or Qixing Mountain nearby (from the signboards, there’s a trail leading down to this place). And as the weather prevented us from seeing more of the place, we were only to be here for the covered shed with an outdoor hot spring pool for our feet.
Well… sorry to say, I wasn’t able to enjoy the hot spring’s warmth. Only my hand did – I dipped my hand into it, and yeah, it was the right temp for a hot spring. Hot, but not too hot. The reason was because I wore kinesio tape on both of my feet earlier, and I wasn’t keen on removing them for 15 minutes of foot bathing time. So what did I do during my time in there? Pictures. Rain was coming down hard. Can’t take more pictures of the outside place.
The water wasn’t clear nor potable due to the minerals in the hot spring source (brown-ish) but the water and the temp made up for it. It had that slight hot spring smell too. And the visitors clearly loved it. Especially the elderly who came for the tours, they sighed in relief when they dipped their feet in the hot spring pool.
Well, for me, I was just content to seeing the place briefly. I asked my tour guide if this place was in the itinerary, because I might have not noticed it. He said this was the “Yangmingshan cold water pit” portion (Lengshuikeng does translate to “cold water pit”), but due to the bad weather, we have to make do with what we could with the area. Which I have no problems with. Comes with the territory of tours – weather can be a bitch. Make do with what we could.
Once 15-20 minutes were up and the rain had slightly gone down in intensity and wind, our tour guide beckoned us to go back to the parking lot and have our lunch in a place he promised had “local food fare”.
Well, something warm this time!
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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