Having
finished up our tour of the west coast of Taiwan and getting to see the
spectacular Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival, it was time to move on eastward to our
final piece of Taiwan. During what we
thought would be our final week (it wasn’t) we hiked through the beautiful
Taroko Gorge, almost lost my drone a few times, had the worst day of our
vacation thus far in the most beautiful place in Taiwan, and got stuck in
Taipei for a while due to a visa snafu.
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| Mountain tops in Taroko Gorge |
The
day after visiting the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival, we boarded a train going
southeast for Hualien. We had heard that
Taroko Gorge had some of the most beautiful trails in Taiwan so we wanted to
check it out. We had also heard that the
same area had been hit by a fairly large earthquake earlier that month and were
unsure about the safety of hiking through the gorge, but fortunately the park
began reopening the trails just before we arrived.
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| Rocky riverbed along the Shakadang Trail in Taroko Gorge |
Our
plan originally was to head to the gorge right from the train and find a
camping spot for the two nights we had set aside for this leg of the trip. There is camping in the gorge, and its cheap,
but the transportation to the gorge, on the other hand, is not. While weighing our options we found out that
there was a hop on hop off bus that left from Hualien with a one-day pass that
was cheaper than a taxi to the gorge, so we scrapped our camping plans, found a
hostel across the street, and waited till morning.
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| Cliff covered path on the Shakadang Trail in Taroko Gorge |
The
hop on hop off bus turned out to be a great idea. The timing between the buses was almost spot
on with the time it took us to do each trail, which meant we had very little wait
time in-between. Our trip into Taroko Gorge took most of the day, and we ended up walking three trails, seeing the
Eternal Spring Shrine, and going to the beach.
One of the trails that we wanted to hike ended up being a permit only,
multi-day trip, so we had to scrap that one.
And the Eternal Spring Shrine trail was also closed, but we were still
able to see the temple from the road. Overall,
Taroko Gorge was beautiful and the trails were great.
The Shakadang Trail lead us
along the river, through over hanging cliffs, and down dirt paths through the
forest on an easy but beautiful hike.
The Swallow Grotto trail, though not actually a trail, took us through a
tunnel in the mountain with openings to the gorge outside, where we were able
to see the power of the river below as it continued to cut its way to the sea. While the Lushui-Heliu trail lead us through
the forest, over a suspension bridge, threw a dark tunnel, and along a cliff
over looking the gorge and forest below.
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| Lushui-Heliu Trail in Taroko Gorge |
It was a great trip and we were
able to get some great pics and video of the entire area; though not without
it’s scares. After hiking the
Lushui-Heliu Trail, I decided to fly my drone through the gorge to get some
video. Focused on a draw bridge I began
panning up, unaware that there was a line for a cable car above me until it
passed just in front of my camera (you can watch the unedited video here). Then as I was trying to film the Eternal
Spring Shrine, my drone had a 'Flyaway’ and flew full speed (33 mph) straight
at the shrine. I was fortunately, after
a lot of sketchy maneuvering, able to get it back. Needless to say, I was a little shaken up about
the two events.
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| Shoreline scenery on Green Island |
The day following Taroko Gorge,
we boarded another train to the south.
We were headed straight to Green Island, so we thought. Arriving at the train station, we boarded a
bus with a friend we had made on the train and headed to the port to catch the
ferry over. Upon arriving at the port,
we were informed that there were no more boats for the day so we would have to
come back the next morning. The problem
with this was that there were no cheap, even relatively cheap, hotels by the
port (that we or our friend could find anyways). So, as we sat at the bus stop, hoping that
there were still buses, we decided that we would just find a place to set up a
tent. We crossed the street to the 7/11,
ate some food, and found out there was a campground not to far outside of town,
so we walked there and set up camp.
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| Windy road across the mountain side of Green Island |
Overnight a storm rolled in and
although it didn’t bring in any rain, it did bring a lot of lighting and
stronger than normal seas the next day.
The next morning from the port, the sky was clear and the water looked
as calm as you would expect an ocean to look.
We knew the trip was a quick one but had heard from locals that the
ferry ride was hard. As we boarded the
ferry all we could do was hope for the best, but we got far from it. The boat ride has to be one of the worst I
have ever been on. The boat was rocked
to and fro over waves that were easily taller than the boat. In the end we were amongst the few that
survived without throwing up.
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| One of the guard towers at Green Island Lodge Prison on Green Island |
Upon arriving in Green Island, we
tried to ignore the constant badgering of two old ladies trying to get us to
stay at their hotel or rent a scooter from them and made our way to our hotel
on the other side of town. Once settled
in we made our way back into town to pull out money from the ATM to find out
that the ATM didn’t take international cards (on an island geared fully towards
tourism….really!). So, we thought that
perhaps we could pull out money from our cards at 7/11, or at the very least use
our cards to buy food there. Again, it
seems like this was the only 7/11 in the country that didn’t accept credit
cards. Next, we decided to just exchange
the few U.S. dollars that Jade had on her (I had left mine behind in Taipei
thinking I surely wouldn’t need them) at the post office. This turned out to be an even more
infuriating experience. The lady behind
the counter, after taking our money to exchange, decided to help other people
first. After denying Jade’s passport and
asking if she had a different one, I gave her mine, which I guess she found
acceptable, and proceeded with the exchange process. Taking her time trying to compare the bills
to a picture of a $100 bill on the wall (we didn’t have any $100 bills…), she
finally decided they needed to scanned instead.
After scanning all of the bills, she then returned a few of the bills,
stating that she couldn’t accept them.
At first, we thought it was possibly because they were low denomination
bills, but quickly realized she had accepted some of the same bills. Tired of and extremely frustrated at this
person, we accepted what we could get and left.
We later found that a hotel down the street will allow you to charge
your credit card for money, but with a 20% fee!
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| Pacific Ocean crashing against the rocks on the shore of Green Island |
Having traveled on the worst
boat ride ever and dealing with the money issue and post office lady all in one
day, we thought we had meet our quota for a bad day. This turned out to be far from the case. That evening, when we went out to find food,
we found that the town was all but a ghost town. It was the off season we knew, but this was
crazy. There was no one around and
almost all of the restaurants were closed.
After finally finding a place to eat we started are walk home when we
were hit with a down pour. By the time
we made it to the hotel we were soaked from head to toe. Miserable, we dried off and decided we would
do some work, but again, little luck.
The wifi was only downstairs in the lobby and the attendant was hard at
work sucking all the bandwidth playing StarCraft. Trudging through uploading photos, my work
was cut short when the attendant decided he was ready for bed and told me I had
to go to bed too…
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| Zhaori Hot Spring on Green Island |
The following day, determined
not to let the previous days frustration win, we packed up our bags and moved
to the hotel owned by the old ladies from the day before; who we also rented a
scooter from. I had never driven a moto
before, but how hard could it be? After
a little touch and go I finally started to get the hang of it and we were on
our way to explore the island. Having
planned to write a blog post the night before about why you should never
consider going to Green Island, I was finally seeing what it had to offer and
it was beautiful. Driving around the
island was amazing and seeing the landscape of Green Island ended up making it
one of my favorite places in Taiwan. We
toured the old political prison, took in the views of the ocean crashing
against the sheer cliffs, and ended the day with a dip in one of the few salt water
hot springs in the world.
The following day we took the
ferry back to the mainland, still horrible, but not as bad as before, then
boarded a train for Taipei. We had
planned to leave for Vietnam two days after arriving in Taipei, but it turns
out that the Vietnam visa process takes much more time than we had
thought. We applied for our visas, but
it being Friday evening, we would have to wait till Monday for the three-day
application process to begin. So, we
bought our plan tickets to Vietnam for a week later and spent another week
milling around Taipei.
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| Mural on the wall of Bbaoan Temple in Taipei |
Overall, Taiwan was a great
experience and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to get away. It’s a very developed country that is doing a
lot of things right; even better in many ways.
Not only that, but the transportation system is on point; allowing easy
and fast access to the entire country. We had planned to spend only about two
weeks in Taiwan, but in the end, 1.5 months later, we were finally moving on to
our next country, Vietnam.
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