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Updated Thursday, December 20, 2007 0:00 am TWN, By Trista di Genova, The China Post



	What will soon be the Ho Hu Recreational Area is where Koxinga and his armies landed on Kinmen. It is being transformed into a recreational area, and by next summer there will be surfing and ATVs. More Photos (2)

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Exploring the Unknown Kinmen

General Chiang Kai-shek vowed but never managed to take back the Mainland—visitors can see his 1952 rock inscription on Kinmen's Mount Taiwu: "Wu wong tsai Ju" ("Do not forget Ju"), a reference to a Warring States period battle in which 37 states were recovered.

Interesting places to visit with memorabilia from this era are "The Mao Bar" on Mofan (Model) Street, and Maestro Tseng-dong Wu's knife-making workshop in Chin Ning Village. Wu transforms steel propaganda shells into knives.

Chiang's army defeated the invading Chinese Communists in a decisive, seldom-analyzed conflict, the Battle of Guningtou on Oct. 25, 1949, in which over 7,000 PLA invading soldiers were captured. The story is told through film, artifacts and murals at Kinmen's Guningtou War Museum; however, Chinese tourists are forbidden by their government to visit this.

At the Mashan Observatory Broadcast Station, follow a tunnel system that leads to a bunker where for NT$10 you can peer through a viewer at waves lapping the rocky shore in China—at this point, the Mainland is only two miles away (about 2,100 meters).

To learn more about Kinmen's fascinating history, watch the new Discovery Channel show, "Unknown Kinmen," which airs Dec. 23 at 9 p.m.

Getting Around

Package and group tours are offered through Kinmen County Tourism Development (www.kinmen.gov.tw) and Chin Chi Hsiang Travel Service (082-328855). For the more adventurous, it's easy to travel solo for about NT$6,000 for three days, plus an NT$4,200 return plane ticket. At this time, however, passage to Mainland China is only available to Kinmen residents by special permit.

Car rental at Kinmen Airport ranges from NT$300-2,700 a day, based on NT$1 per cc. A "Mr. Bird" sightseeing tour bus can take you around the 150-square-km island one day for NT$160, two days for NT$280; on weekends, reserve in advance (082-332-814). It's possible to rent a scooter, which will range from NT$300 to NT$500 a day (082-323-390, includes airport pickup) and makes for a fine, smooth ride around the converted tank roads encircling the island.

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