Taiwan Trip: Day 3 (22/07/2013)

Early morning at TianGong Temple

We woke up pretty early on that morning – around 6:00am – to take our shower as the temple's old watchman told us the night before he would close the toilet access at 6:30am so that early worshippers wouldn’t see two bare-chested foreigners passing by with their towels… The cold water and blood-starving mosquitos fastened our awakening; we then enjoyed the peacefulness and breathtaking views offered by the early morning hours of the temple and nearby Turtle Island.

Breakfast at 7/11

Having made our donation to the old watchman with quite ceremony (you pay what you want for the night), we hit the road heading south and quickly found a large 7/11 to have breakfast. We felt like truck drivers on an umpteenth trip. We stopped at Jiaosi (礁溪), a nice little town famous for its hot springs and nearby Wufengqi waterfall (五峰旗 大瀑布). We stopped at the information center looking for directions towards the waterfall. The first receptionist was eager to help but with English abilities even worse than ours in Chinese, she called upon her colleague who then called upon her superior. Talking with locals always leads to funny situations! We eventually managed to understand the directions thanks to the 80% Chinese/20% English discussion.

Wufengqi Waterfall

We got to the site and first hiked a few minutes to reach a protestant church perched on the other side of the hill. With the temperature, humidity and heavy bags on our back, that was enough to ruin our clothes for the rest of the day. At 11:00am. Better get used to it anyway! We then went to see the waterfall itself that was quite stunning. The highest layer is perhaps about 30m high. There is a small natural pool that allows you to soak your feet. There weren’t too many tourists so we could fully enjoy it. We actually talked to a young Mainland Chinese – she came from Xiamen – who was doing a two-week study trip in Taiwan.

Driving on Highway 9

We had our lunch at a McDonald’s (yeah you may blame us but it’s always a pleasure to pay only €3 for a full meal and extra burger) in Yilan (宜蘭). Driving through the city was a pain in the ass but the road then became beautiful between Suao (蘇澳) and Nanao (南澳). Simply imagine driving between the light blue Pacific Ocean on your left and majestic greeny mountains on your right. We then gained some height as the road became mountainous, which allowed us to get better views, even though driving along mad truck drivers overcoming you in the turns and fat polluting buses required us to show the utmost of our nascent piloting skills.

Views from Highway 9

First drive within Taroko

That did not last long however as the road became flat again and bordered by ugly industrial plants. We nonetheless drove relentlessly as we wanted to reach the National Park of Taroko (太魯閣國家公園), home to the famous Gorge, before dusk. So that’s quite tired, bored and dirty that we eventually made it to its entrance. But we were quickly rewarded: the first kilometers felt dreamy as we were driving through the park alone, taking the “gorge-ous” views of dramatic cliffs, impressive peaks lost in the clouds, tunnels carved right into the rock and rivers raging beneath our feet, the sceneries being completed with a surreal rose-yellowish sky.

Our wooden cabin for the night!

We reached the small resort of TianXiang (天祥) right at the center of the national park and looked for an accommodation. We were driving slowly when four dogs suddenly came hurtling towards us with gaping mouths! Frightened like hell, we floored the gas pedal – well more accurately tried to, but in these very cases, you tend to mix the accelerator with the brakes and the clutch... Louis engaged in a chassé-croisé with the biggest of them while I tried to scare another one with useless and frenetic kicks. We managed to escape from them and later grunted together about how dogs are dangerous and masters irresponsible. We eventually set camp at the Catholic Hostel which was just okay. It was old and desert, its large size and nighttime emphasizing the feeling, but did the job. The wooden cabin that served as our bedroom was acceptable in terms of cleanliness. We might not rate the showers with the same grade but at least got hot water (at times). We then had a rather expensive snack-dinner at the nearby Youth Activity Center that offered insane accommodation prices. We went back to our hostel and washed our clothes by hand like washerwomen – hey, it’s part of the hostel charm – before setting for a deserved good night sleep.

We drove about 200kms on day 3