Taiwan Part 3 — Taroko Gorge Thursday
I wonder which seat I should be in…
Anyway, we continue with the fantastical trip to the Taroko Gorge. Jeff and I saw some really amazing pictures of this place in some tour guides (of course they’d be amazing if they were in tour guides, those advertising jerks), and had decided we had to go to this gorge.
So, early Thursday morning, we venture off to Taipei Main Station on the first of 7 or 8 different forms of transportation we’d be taking on this trip that wasn’t the MRT — a cab. Turns out MRT isn’t open at 5:30am…
Cabs, by the way, do not operate like they do in the US. I mean, sure, there’s a fare and everything, but there are a few key differences:
- You can bargain with cab drivers. When we went to Wulai (note, I spelled it incorrectly originally, as I called it Ulai before), the cab ride was supposed to be 600 NT. Evan, our most excellent translator, also bargained that ride down to 400 NT without a fault. Therefore, I love cab drivers in Taiwan.
- They don’t really follow road rules and are far more aggressive than cab drivers here, which made driving a super radical experience (seriously)
- Their cars don’t have seat belts, which made the above point a little more frightening, but still fun
- They love chewing tobacco (or something akin to that) that made their teeth red and, as Megan emphasized, disgusting
- They were friendly and initiated conversation (which to me seems like a major difference, since they were *all* super friendly)
Anyway, with that in mind, we took a cab to Taipei Main Station to get our very complicated train route and tickets sorted out. The plan for the weekend trip was as follows:
- Thursday (today’s post), Jeff and I would go to Taroko Gorge by ourselves to a very ritzy hotel called The Silks and trek through the valleys and ridges belonging there via a normal train
- Friday, we’d all leave for Taidong, and we had to orchestrate it in such a way that Jeff and I were in Hualien by 9:00 am to catch the same train as Evan, Megan, Jenny, and Dylan (friends of Evan and Megan, who both work at the same school as Megan) — we had to get a cab from Tsinchiang to Hualien at 7:30.
- From Taidong, we’d ferry over to Orchid Island / Luyan on what is supposedly the most nauseating boat on the planet with a 90% probability of vomit (9 in 10 people vomited the last time they took this ferry)
- On Monday, we’d take a train to Kaoshiung to meet up with Morgan and hang out there until evening, and then take a bullet train back to Taipei
Note: That was the plan.
Anyway, with everything sorted out with the trains, we board for Taroko and are witness to some nice scenery on the train ride to Sincheng, the closest city to the gorge. We get there utterly confused about how to get to the Taroko National Park. We see some cabs, and therefore choose to cab it again (did I also say how awesome cabs are? Well, they’re awesome in Taiwan). Talking with the cab driver was amusing — “Taroko Park? *points to map* Taroko? Yes?” “Yes, Taroko… want Tsinchang?” “No, Taroko” “Okay, you sure?” “Yes, Taroko” “Okay, Taroko”. We get there “Taroko Park?” “Yes, perfect” “It’s over there” “Oh okay go there” “Okay”. He drops us off “Xie xie!!!!”
Now at the Taroko National Park, we have a fun time figuring out our next mode of transport: the bus to Tsinchiang. We enter the visitor booth and are pleased to find somebody who we can speak with reasonably (though, admittedly, I wished I could speak Mandarin instead, as I always felt guilty making the locals speak English due to our incompetence in their language — thankfully, they didn’t mind and some enjoyed practicing). We found a sign that mentioned the next bus to Tsinchiang, which was in the middle of the gorge and home to the hotel at which we’d be staying for the night.
While we waited for the bus to arrive, we venture up a rather steep climb while sporting 60 pounds on our backs respectively. Nice views, but holy crap much harder when you have a duffel bag with a bunch of your clothes around your torso.
Eventually we get on the bus and head to Tsinchiang. Really fantastic views, all the more exciting with the prospect of getting bikes to ride around the entire gorge. We met a guy named Serban from France who works in Singapore, nice fellow. I asked him a lot of questions about France, and I think that’s the next place I’d like to go after talking with him, specifically Nice.
Anyway, the gorge! We arrive at the hotel, or rather resort. It was pretty spritzed up, and I thought “Shit, this is going to be expensive”. Oh well, we had it booked and so we brought our luggage in — the room was right by the gorge’s river, which was awesome. They also had bike rentals (for a cost), so we rented them and biked back along the road from which the bus took us. Got a lot of amazing sights and pictures. We also got on a little silver cart thing that you could use to zipline to just above the raging river below — it looked pretty makeshift but I ended up trying it anyway. Reaction: Hooooly frack, that was amazing. Adrenaline rush? Yup.
Continuing on, we get a lot of nice views along the gorge, and the biking was a lot of fun going on the way back to the national park (where we caught the bus). I really enjoyed seeing how much of a mammoth the gorge felt and that I was just a tiny speck inside of it. I also enjoyed all of the traffic jams we were able to get around because we were on bikes, and watching enormous tour buses trying to get by.
We get to the end of the bike ride to see this temple and waterfall combo. The bike ride was really enjoyable, and I was happy to get to the temple — 18km from the hotel. I can’t explain it as well as photos would, so I will defer the entire description to the album when we get it posted.
The ride back wasn’t as enjoyable. I haven’t rode on a bike for long distances on inclines for quite some time, so I was stupid and tried biking uphill on the way back on a pretty high gear. Suffice to say, I fried my legs and got extremely tired. On top of that, we hadn’t eaten for quite some time, and I hadn’t hydrated myself properly before the biking. Eventually I started to gasp for breath as dehydration and hunger started to kick in, on top of other excrements starting to come out in sickly fashion (eeeeew, you’d say here). On top of these problems, we didn’t bring any water (I thought Jeff had some but he actually didn’t — whoops). So, to be on the safe side, we called the hotel to see if they could pick us up — we weren’t too far from the hotel but I really didn’t want to risk seriously hurting myself due to lack of hydration. I am very grateful to the folks of that hotel for picking us up and bringing water. That part of the trip taught me two extremely important lessons:
- Life, as it is, is pretty good, and worse things could definitely happen to me
- People are generally genuinely good
The bus ride back to the hotel comprised me mostly saying “Dwei bu chi” and “Xie xie” numerous times to the folks of the hotel. Some of the kindest people I’ve ever met (though, probably biased opinion since they basically saved my ass).
We get back to the resort where I treat myself to a very welcome shower. That shower was quite possibly the best I have ever had in my life. Same with the bottles of water. As usual with fancy hotels, all of the little things were provided which made it extra nice.
We then eventually went for a 10 course meal at the hotel’s restaurant for 880 NT (little less than 30 dollars). Again, really ritzy place that I figure would be about 50+ in the States for a meal of that size and fanciness. Was pretty good, but nothing stood out as spectacular.
After that, we headed up to the roof where there was one of those swimming pools designed so you can see the horizon (in this case, the horizon was a view of the gorge) and some hot tubs. Basically, that night we pampered ourselves to the max. Oddly enough, the pool didn’t really ever go that deep — about 3 feet (even though it was an in-ground pool). I was told the reason is that Taiwanese people don’t really know how to swim and are prone to drowning, hence why the pools are shallow.
Oh well, the hot tubs, pool, and lounge chairs were awesome and much appreciated.
Then we slept on BEDS. I really appreciated having a bed at that point — cots on the ground just aren’t the same. You don’t realize what you have until you don’t have it, as they say.
Eventually we woke up (yes, that means it’s now Friday, but I figure I’ll keep hotel related stuff in one post), and went to all-you-can-eat-included-in-cost-of-rooms breakfast. Tasty stuff again (Taro buns!), but nothing spectacular.
Either way, the entire hotel cost, per person, about 2000 to 2500 NT if I recall, and that’s including the dinner and room upgrade (which was free). That’s about 50-60 bucks, and that was for a resort in an extremely secluded area. Pretty good if you ask me.
Next up, Taidong, and the day the PLAN CRUMBLES. *Dun dun dun*
