Taroko Gorge 太魯閣國家公園

(Just a quick train ride over...)

This week, I took a day off and went on an expedition to a beautiful area of Taiwan called Taroko Gorge. One of the sisters in my hall, Ashleigh, had a friend named Jane visiting from other parts of Asia, and they wanted to go see the Gorge. Somehow or another, one of the young men in our hall, Linquan (his English name is Spike, which is awesome), found out that they were going to be going to Taroko and wanted to go with them. His mother didn't want him to go by himself, just him and the two sisters, because she was afraid it wouldn't be fun for him, so I was invited to come along- and of course, I said yes!

Taroko sounds like a Japanese name, and I thought it was when I first heard it; it's actually an indigenous Taiwanese word (as in, one of the tribes that lived here before the Han Chinese moved in) that means "Beautiful". It's near the eastern city of Hualien- a much smaller city than Taipei, at only 600,000 people- so in order to get there, we took a train.

Vistas from inside the train

We met early on a Tuesday morning at Taipei Main Station, and after we'd gotten breakfast, coffee and tickets sorted, boarded the train. It wasn't a high-speed trip, as much fewer people commute up and down the east coast than they do on the west; all told, it was about a two and a half hour ride over to Hualien.

Since Hualien is so much smaller that Taipei, they don't really have anything like Taipei's public transit systems we could use- most people there have their own vehicle, or they simply don't go anywhere, much like in America. Happily, the father of one of our sisters happens to be a taxi driver in Hualien, so after a few quick phone calls we arranged to rent his services for the entire day. It wasn't even that expensive- only NT$2400 (which is like $65 US) for the whole day! He acted as a tour guide, too, which was a nice benefit as we didn't really know what to look at most of the time.

Our first stop, naturally enough, was food. Our driver (Mr. Ding 丁先生) knew a good baozi place nearby and took us there without delay.

Ashleigh, dressed in a camouflage hat to blend in better

Prepared with greasy pork baozi and delicious passion fruit green tea, we started up the road to the actual gorge. Mr. Ding explained that he would show us a bit of the countryside first; there was a village near the main road where the modern members of the Taroko Tribe live that he wanted to stop by, then we would continue to see some of the coast, and afterwards we would enter the gorge proper.

The village was interesting, in both the good and bad senses of that word. Mr. Ding, like many Taiwanese people of his generation, is still a little bit racist against the Aborigine tribes of Taiwan, which colored his explanation of their livelihood a bit; despite that, it was nice to look around their village a bit and see the differences between the culture they still preserve and the more mainstream Taiwanese culture of Taipei.

Village nestled in between mountains

Actually, most of the artifacts of their culture we saw seemed to be very superficial, and took the form of government-sponsored art projects and centrally planned "aborigine" designs on the roads. Most of the people we saw still living in the village were fairly old, with just a few kids running around; I would guess their culture and language will be gone in one or two more generations at most.

Nice backdrop for a selfie, though. Also: meet Jane!

After we drove through the village for a little bit and really awkwardly said hi to some kids, Mr. Ding, true to his word, took us to the coast. The coast on the east of Taiwan is gorgeous:

The mountain just... ends!

Looking the other way

Sadly, we didn't go down the the beach just yet... I've mentioned it before, but Taiwan's east coast is a bit unusual. The continental shelf is really close to the land, which means the fishing is excellent, Taiwan has some protection from tsunamis, and also because of the undertow it can be really dangerous to swim out too far.

The road we took along the cost reminded me much of California's Hwy 1, with lots of curves, bends and dips. Although this road didn't have as many spectacular bridges, it made up for it was a series of excellent tunnels. It was only mildly spoiled by all the traffic on the road- Mr. Ding explained that up until very recently there was only one road you could take between Hualien and Taipei, and this was it. Although Taiwan recently opened a new one, there are still only two possible routes, so there's bound to be traffic. I would have loved to drive it myself...

Also, this is Mr. Ding posing on a rock.

Mr. Ding was really happy to have us in his car, and took many pictures with the three foreigners (and one Taiwanese kid) he was escorting around. We're probably going to be in his advertisements or something. He couldn't speak any English, so it was fortunate our Chinese was good! Spike's English is pretty good, too, so sometimes he helped us out by translating tricky phrases- like when Mr. Ding tried to explain that that overgrown concrete structure over there was in fact a WW2 Japanese bunker used to get Kamikaze pilots drunk before they left for the last time. That was hard to understand.

After we left the coast, we finally arrived at the Gorge proper. After a certain point, we began playing leapfrog with Mr. Ding- he would drive us to a place, we would all get out, walk a trail or bridge, etc., and he would get us at the other side.

Jane knows how to emote

Although the views are spectacular, ever since a few years ago the Gorge has become a bit unstable- rocks fall nearly every day, and it's worse in typhoon season (which is now). Happily, Taiwan has put an office near the mouth of the most dangerous section of the Gorge (called the Cave of Swallows) where they lend out helmets for free, to protect against falling rocks.

From this point on, we were mostly on foot, and the scenery became even more amazing.

Entrance to the Gorge proper

In some areas, the walls of the Gorge rise steeply from the river to heights of greater than a kilometer- just smooth, worn marble all the way up.

Oh, and here's a picture of Linquan/Spike, finally:

See, he does exist!

This area is called the Cave of Swallows (燕子洞) because of the thousands of swallow nests along either side of the gorge. I don't believe we really understand why so many swallows like it in this gorge so much- maybe the wind funneled down its length brings lots of tasty mosquitoes? I tried to get a picture, but they didn't want to sit still for me.

This section of the Gorge, actually, was dug out by Japanese troops during WW2 to facilitate bringing supplies to their airbases in eastern Taiwan. Most of the rock making up the gorge is marble of one kind or another, which makes it beautiful, with a shiny, deep luster that doesn't come out well in pictures; it also makes the walls of the gorge not very strong, and when the Japanese tried to use dynamite to build the road, it caused huge rockslides that killed many people and undid all of their work. From that point on, every singe tunnel along this road- and there are many- was carved out by hand, with picks and chisels.

Looking down at the powerful Liwu River

Light through the tunnel

Eventually, we got through to the other side of the tunnels, to find Mr. Ding waiting for us. He wanted to take us to another part of the Gorge a few kilometers further up the road, but first, he pointed upriver and pointed this interesting thing out:

See the face?

He said that "sad Indian face" shows that when the natives of Taiwan were forcibly removed, even their Gorge became sad. Maybe he isn't all that racist, really, it's just habits.

In any case, we were driven a ways up the road, and stopped here for a brief time:

Does not do it justice.

Where Mr. Ding pointed out a few more rocks that looked like sad faces, and one rock he swore looked like a turtle.

At one point, he also pointed out that the sky through the Gorge looked like Taiwan. Maybe he's just really good at seeing shapes?

Anyway, from that bridge we set off on another hike. The start of the trail was next to a mountaineering school, but since it was disappointingly closed, we started off completely unschooled in how to mountaineer, relying instead on our raw talent and nerve.

Off we go!

...after a quick photoshoot, that is.

The noise was beautiful and deafening. As we kept hiking up the mountain, it began to rain, which made the frogs very happy and the river run faster. We only had two umbrellas between the four of us, so we attempted to shuttle our way together without getting too wet... it didn't really work out in the end, but was really, really funny.

Before that, though, Spike and I climbed a tree

It was a beautiful hike. Next time I got to Taroko, it's going to be a hiking trip, and if we can I'd love to camp out there for a night or two. It's just a gorgeous location.

As we kept going, there was a much smaller, person-sized tunnel for us to get through:

The sign said "You need a flashlight!"

The cave was cool, but too short. Still, it set me up for this:

The light!

The trail changed suddenly after we had gone through the cave. Where before we were climbing up a steep dirt trail through a jungled mountain, we were now edging along a narrow, slick rock path, sticking close to the cliff face and ducking under precipitous overhangs. Although there was a railing in most places, we passed one place where the rocks underneath the rail had given way, letting it fall to the river below... I didn't want to have to trust that it would catch me.

Looking out from the cliff trail

The most dangerous part, I think, was that it was raining so hard there was a small river coursing down through the middle of our trail. (It really wasn't that dangerous, though, you can calm down Mom.)

Do those smiles say "danger" to you?

After about an hour, the rain started to abate, and we were able to make better time as we began to descend the mountain. By this point, we were all pretty wet, but Spike was absolutely soaked- he just couldn't bring himself to stick with my umbrella, he had to run ahead and behind and through the mini-river in the trail. Although it was raining, though, it was very warm- a little over 90 degrees, in fact- so it was more like a shower than anything after all that hiking.

It also made all these tiny waterfalls appear

The trail neared the river, and we were almost back. At this point, Mr. Ding called me worriedly, because we'd been gone far longer than he figured we would be- I thought he said he was afraid we'd been caught in a rockslide! I assured him we were fine and were almost back, thank you for your concern- and then he corrected me, he didn't want to be caught in a rockslide on the way home! The Gorge is always weaker after a rain, he said, and he wanted to get out of there before we could become trapped. This was a serious concern- on our way up to the Gorge, we passed one section of road that had its outside lane sheared off and collapse to the floor below, taking a jagged bite out of the highway. There were already police there with road flares, directing traffic, but if it hadn't even been raining and the road collapsed, we all knew this was a serious concern. We picked up the pace.

...but we still stopped for pictures, because, c'mon.

When we finally caught sight of our taxi waiting for us, it was a bit of a sad moment. Sure, we were wet and stinky, but it was a great hike in a beautiful corner of the world. I'm totally going back next chance I get. One last picture before we left the Gorge:

Okay, we can go.

As Mr. Ding took us out of the Gorge, we passed a cliffside that was mid-slide, justifying his worry. Happily we didn't have any problems ourselves, and we got back onto the coastal highway to Hualien without incident. (Possibly more happily, I got to sit up front where I could dry off a bit, instead of being crammed in back being steamed.)

To finish off the day, we went to the seaside once again, to a real beach this time, where we listened to an aboriginal man play music and ran in the surf until dark.

He also took pictures with us- Hualien gets way fewer foreigners than Taipei

And then, as the storm came in earnest- I held my umbrella completely sideways, like a Roman soldier, and it was actually really effective- Mr. Ding returned us to Hualien Station, with many smiles and thanks. After another two-hour train ride, we arrived in Taipei Main Station and parted ways.

So, Taroko Gorge! If you're ever in Taiwan, you've gotta come check it out! It truly is a wonder, equally grand as the Grand Canyon, although in a very different way. I need to do this kind of trip-blog more often!