yestravel

Cliffhanger, indeed! I have never come across anything quite like that. We did experience an earthquake and later an aftershock while in Taipei. Thanks, I hope you enjoy the remainder of our trip.

Crellston, Thanks! Taipei was really our least fav place on this trip. I loved the East Rift Valley and Taichung. But every place we went offered something enjoyable and it was always fascinating. Hope you get back to explore more of Taiwan, in 3 weeks we saw a lot but there was much we didn't get to.

yestravel

October 18 -- Day 2 in Taroko Gorge
Yesterday was cloudy on and off with only peaks of sun so we were happy to wake up to blue skies and sun!
Our plans for the day were simple…another visit to the spectacular Taroko Gorge . Pictures do not capture the grandeur of this place. I’m glad we had 2 days to uncover all its hidden beauty. I know people do day trips from Taipei and I would think that would be hurried and brief at the gorge.

We were controlled time wise for our entrance and exit times into the gorge by the road closures resulting from the recent typhoons. That meant we had to plan when to enter and what time to leave. Had I known about these road closures which didn’t happen until a month or so ago, I might have tried to stay right inside the park beyond the road closures. We happened upon the Taroko Village Hotel which might have been perfect. Not sure where Silks Hotel is relative to the road closures. Our hotel was about 15 minutes from the entrance to the gorge.

Some trails are outside the portion of the park with the road closures and that was to be our first hike prior to a road opening. I’m not one to break rules in foreign countries, but…. we parked and planned to do the Shakadang Trail and we were greeted by a construction closure sign. Geez, it’s not listed on the park website as closed so WTH? Apparently lots of Asians were also baffled. We could see people way below us on the trail. So we climbed over and under the chain and hit the trail so to speak. We were walked along the trail beside the river for a bit until we were greeted with a construction vehicle blocking the trail, but we at least saw some of it .

Next on the list was the Lushui trail where we ran into a woman we had seen yesterday. She warned us the trail got really sketchy and narrowed up ahead so we decided to pass. Plus it’s a trail through woods which is my least fav type of hike to do.

Onward to Baiyang Trail which was an easy, flat trail & had fantastic scenery! It was more of a stroll than hike. You go through a series of tunnels and there are caves and waterfalls. The trail was built in 1984 by the Taiwan Power Company. We followed our terrific hike by a little more park exploration in the car before heading back to make the next road opening.

It was a glorious day and having sun all day made everything look different. We even saw tops of mountains engulfed in clouds yesterday.
Entrance to Taroko Gorge

Male lion again guarding a bridge with foot on a ball as opposed to Female lion who has her foot on a baby lion (photo in previous post)

Red is an [size=13px]auspicious[/size] color in Taiwan meaning good luck and prosperity

Oops, trail closed--should we venture on it anyway & be careful not to bump our head???

More steps to reach the trail

Along the Shakadang trail - careful ot to bump our head


We went through lots of dark, wet tunnels on the Baiyang Trail

marble walls



I think we made a wrong turn and ended up on Easter Island!

Gorgeous Gorge!

Changuan Temple at the beginning of the gorge

progol

Fantastic photos - and love your captions!

The picture signs are a hoot!

tripplanner001

Thanks for the excellent report, yestravel. Looks like you and gottravel had a succession of highlights. I too enjoyed Yehliu. I hadn’t made it beyond the Taipei area but am particularly eager about what you have to say about southern and southwestern Taiwan. Taroko Gorge would definitely be up my alley too.

travelerwife

Do you have a way to contact guide Eric Liu that you can share? thank you.

yestravel

He’s on WhatsApp +866935227828. Tell him Dona and Alan from DC recommended him.

tp, Thanks, I esp loved the East Coast. Dont miss the gorge

KarenWoo

Just came across this report! Wow!!! I love your commentary and photos. Everything is so interesting. I showed Eddie some of your photos, and he is envious. He has always wanted to visit Taiwan. At our ages, I hope we stay healthy long enough so that we are able to visit before we become too feeble or worse. What is the fried food at the night market? Is it squid? Ed absolutely loves eating at night markets.

We hope to visit more Asian countries in the near future, such as Taiwan and SE Asia. My only concern is that in 3 trips to China I have had intestinal problems during 2 trips. UGH!!! Not fun at all. I relied on Cipro. So that's my only hesitation about returning to Asia. Does anyone here know if there are some Asian countries that are "safer" in this regard? Better hygiene? Cleaner?

Yestravel, what other Asian countries have you visited? Any favorites?

progol

"Does anyone here know if there are some Asian countries that are "safer" in this regard? Better hygiene? Cleaner? "

KarenWoo,
Japan!!! It's as clean a place as you'll find! And it's a wonderful country! We haven't been to Taiwan, but we have been to Thailand and set foot in Cambodia and Laos. Japan is absolutely beautiful and you can't find a place that's cleaner or safer.

HappyTrvlr

I agree, it’s Japan!

yestravel

Hi Karen! Welcome aboard.. I hope you get some Asian traveling in.
We have been to Thailand, Myanmar, Laos,VN, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia and now Taiwan. Think I got them all!😎
The places I had stomach issues were One night in Taiwan, 1 buffet in BKK and Japan. Purportedly Taiwan has high food safety standards. But I also got sick this winter in Israel after eating all kinds of food in Egypt and Jordan,
i think Japan was my fav, but I think each country offers something. Have enjoyed each country.

yestravel

October 19 -- Finally hitting the road, but this time my driver is Alan…we are on our own. We left around 10:30 AM to resume our around the island journey. We have two weeks left and at the rate we are going we will need two months. Since this is a new country, everything catches our attention and much fascinates us. We constantly stop, stare, read about some place, & take photos, so it’s slow going. It took us over an hour to meander around the outskirts of Hualien. And then within the next hour we were in the tropics…very [size=13px]Caribbean[/size] like weather.

Our destination today is Taitung, down the south East coast of Taiwan. There are two routes one can take, the coast road or the East Rift Valley. Being a mountain ocean kind of woman, the choice was a no brainer -- Highway 11 that runs down the scenic coast. We drove thru some backroads of Hualien first then came across a most interesting container store - a Starbucks.

The route is about 125 miles and it took us about 7 hours, so you can imagine how many stops we made. Driving was easy, little traffic and good road. I say road because it was rte 11 the whole way so we couldn’t get lost, We went thru tunnels and over bridges. We passed by temples, villages, parks, scenic overlooks and artist colonies, all the while hugging the coastline.

The coast road was lovely, but I didn't think particularly dramatic or spectacular. The photos show what we saw along the way. It was a leisurely day of easy driving arriving late afternoon into Taitung. We took the rec of friends on the hotel and I'm baffled as to why they would recommend it. It was outside of the small town and in an industrial area. Odd, but thankfully little traffic in Taitung so we could easily get around.

Taitung was one of the last regions of Taiwan to be settled. Today, 1 in 3 people in Taitung are aboriginal, more than any other county. Their presence is displayed in public art. That evening we had a good meal at an indigenous restaurant. Like all cities in Taiwan, the city is lit up at night with neon.

Graveyard outside Hualien. Christian and Buddhist/Taoist graves are intermingled.

Starbucks container store. We didnt love the coffee in Taiwan so a Starbucks was welcome for a caffeine break.

Starbucks Container store - The store was constructed of standard international shipping containers of the twenty or forty foot lengths.

Indigenous art, Tropic of Cancer Landmark.

Henan Temple, Yanliao.

Tropic of Cancer marker

Easy driving along the East Coast of Taiwan

Rest stop, near Fengbin.

Rest stop, near Fengbin.

Rest stop, near Fengbin.

Sanxiantai. Platform of the Three Immortals.

Indigenious art

Indigenous art

KarenWoo

I enjoyed the description of what you did on October 19. The footbridge at the Platform of Three Immortals is very interesting. That must have been a surprise coming across the Starbucks container store. Very strange looking building.

What kind of food were you served in the indigenous restaurant?

yestravel

Karen -- What kind of food were you served in the indigenous restaurant? Nothing particular special or different. We had some chicken dish and a seafood dish. It was fine, but not memorable.

Oct 20 - Taitung

We decided upon Taitung for a stopover on the way from the Taroko Gorge to Kaoshiung because it had a couple museums we wanted to see and some nice parks.
We started our day going to the Art Museum. It had lovely grounds and a gift and coffee shop which is a good thing, as it was in between exhibits and was closed. It was reopening tomorrow. On the grounds there were several sculptures and they built wooden platforms that you could climb to be in the treetops-pretty cool. We enjoyed local iced coffee as it’s pretty hot here. Temps around 28 and humid.
Undaunted, we headed to a park that was supposed to have good views, some temples and trails. It had a significant staircase to get to it. I thought I should take it slow and my knees should be fine, finally having recovered from the 1,000's of steps in Jiufen. I went up maybe 10 steps and thought I saw the top, so I continued a bit more and suddenly realized I had not even seen the top. At this point it was a no go. I motioned to Alan to forget it and he looked quite relieved. At this point it was time to regroup. The East Rift Valley had intrigued me & I figured let’s drive it for an hour or so. We can return and see the other parks and the National Museum of Prehistory later in the day.
What a great idea going to the East Rift Valley turned out to be! It was a spectacular setting located between the Central and Coastal mountains and once again tons to see. We barely made a dent in seeing all there was to see. In between the jutting mountains was an emerald green plain with vegetable fields and rice paddies.
Our first stop was Bunun Leisure Farm run by the Bunun tribe. No people around, but some interesting wood sculpture. Over 100 local villagers are employed here. Moving on, going thru Luye and stopping where we had a good bento box for lunch. Rice here is reputed to be some of the best. The scenery was just jaw dropping in every direction. One more stop before we needed to turn around and that was in the well known Chishang. Both these towns feature some great looking bike trails which take you through the lovely rice paddies. We would have loved to spend more time, but the afternoon was slipping away and we really wanted to see the Prehistoric Museum. We turned the car around and headed back taking detours through some villages.
After our rushed explorations of the rice fields of the East Rift Valley, we returned to Taitung to visit the National Museum of Prehistory. After one of a series of Apple Maps misadventures, we arrived there a little over an hour before closing. The museum covers the history of Taiwan - geologic as well as human - prior to Chinese immigration. It’s excellent, covering everything from plate tectonics and ice ages to the tools, textiles and burial practices of the indigenous peoples. A temporary show covered the broader recent history of indigenous Taiwanese as well as the broader history of related indigenous peoples throughout the Pacific, covering both prehistory through the modern era.”
Very well done and one could spend hours absorbing it. Loved it.
In the evening we went to Tiehua Village (The Railroad Art Village) with quite the effort for parking, but we found a space. It was a cutesy arts and crafts venue with musicians playing. Very festive. It was a bang up evening in more ways than one. I rushed to go into a Thai restaurant but unfortunately the spotless glass door was not open. OMG, I got a huge knot on my noggin! After a very good meal of crab curry and steamed fresh veggies we wandered a bit more and headed back to our great parking space. HA! We got a parking ticket for 20NTD. Anyone do that conversion? It's equal to 62 cents! We’ll pay it tomorrow at a convenience store before we leave town. (NOTE - we found out that this is your fee for parking, not a parking ticket per se.)
Taitung I think is one of the under-appreciated towns. It's quite laid back, no traffic, actually eerie driving on a highway with no one else, and plenty to keep you occupied. Check it out for more than a night should you visit Taiwan.
Woke up to the mountains

Scultpure at Art Museum

Bicycles to ride through the rice fields

Bento Box - Rice here is reputed to be some of the best.

East Rift Valley - so green

rice! East Rift Valley

Roadside attraction - East Rift Valley

Road side statue in the East Rift Valley

Flags everywhere

East Rift Valley

National Museum of Prehistory

National Museum of Prehistory

National Museum of Prehistory

National Museum of Prehistory

National Museum of Prehistory

Grounds of National Museum of Prehistory

National Museum of Prehistory

Not a fan of Taiwanese food so far. I was very happy to have some Thai food.

tripplanner001

The East Rift Valley looks and sounds awesome. Were you there on or around Oct. 10th? I wonder if the flags could be from the Double Ten National Day.

yestravel

it was fabulous. Sorry we didn’t have more time. Yes, we arrived in Taiwan on Oct 11 and we assumed all the flags were from the holiday.

yestravel

Oct 21 - After only 2 nights and 1 full day in Taitung and vicinity we were on the road to Kaohsiung. I wish we had one more day in Taitung as there were several places we wanted to visit but time did not permit.

The drive was pleasant, nothing terribly exciting. This was custard apple territory and everywhere there were signs and displays of them. We had discovered them in Taipei so of course, we stopped and bought one.. should have bought a couple. They are also known as sugar apple or Buddha’s head fruit. The flesh of this ultra sweet, custard or pudding textured fruit literally melts in your mouth. Delicious!

The [size=13px]other[/size] noteworthy site we ran across this by sheer happenstance on Rte. 9 on the drive south from Taitung in Dawu township. Oddly it was a high school though we would have never guessed it given its appearance, check out my photos.

It got a a little trafficy as we were on the outskirts of Kaohsiung. We had our first difficulty with google maps getting onto the correct highway, but we finally made it into the city, checked into our hotel and drove the block or two to return our car. We wandered around the neighborhood near our hotel and once again were entranced with everything we saw. The distractions are manifold, endless. We had some delicious VN food for lunch.

Custard Apples everywhere

Vendor selling custard apples

Dawa

School bldg in Dawa

School bldg in Dawa


Exhibition Center

Kaohsuing




View of Kaohsiung at night

Kaohsiung at night

Getting ready to enjoy our custard apple that night

yestravel

Oct 22 - Kaohsuing is the third largest city after Taipei and New Taipei City. It is located in the Southern part of Taiwan. It is the island's largest industrial center & home to the country's largest port. The area of Kaohsiung was originally home to the Siraya Taiwanese aboriginals. Today its thought to be a port city & artist town.
I was really looking forward to our 4 nights in Kaohsiung, but unfortunately it just didn't work out. Stay tuned to find out why Kaohsuing and I didn't get along.

It was our first full day in Kaohsiung and I liked Kaohsuing. I loved the gorgeous skyscrapers with the older buildings mixed in. We planned our day and headed out. We'd go to Pier 2 and then take the ferry to Cijin Island where we would bike around the small island.

It took us forever to walk like 10 minutes to the light rail because as usual we were gawking and photographing as we walked. We did have one issue. I had read about the metro and light train and how to pay etc. Got to the lite rail and went to pay, oops, they only took coins which we didn't have. I doubted anyone would do anything so we hopped on the next train. (Note: second rule breaking in Tawan). No one said a thing and the woman next to me was very interested in America and what I thought of Taiwan. I had a similar conversation with a server last night at dinner.

Our first destination was Pier 2 Art Center, “The center features several collection of abandoned shipping warehouses on the Kaohsiung Port, near the entrance to the port and opposite the northern end of Cijin Island. Most of the current warehouses date to the 1970s.”
The old warehouses were repurposed for art galleries, stores and cafes and bars. Lots of street art and outdoor art. There was a crafts type Fair running down the center of 1 section. It’s an immense area and we only saw a small portion. After several hours We decided to move on and take the ferry to a small Cijin Island , But it was HOT! Really uncomfortably so. I even went local and bought a parasol which helped a wee bit. (I will add that on the walk to Pier 2 I immediately started coughing, coughing repeatedly & coughing really hard. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Was I relapsing back to the respiratory issues I picked up in Taipei despite being pretty much okay for the last days?)

As I have said, it was miserably hot and humid, so between the coughing and the temps we figured we'd best skip spending more time outside at Cijin Island, thinking we'd go early in the morning instead.
We decided to go somewhere indoors so we walked about 15 minutes to the Alien Art Center. The ALIEN Art Centre is listed as "a stylish museum that features contemporary art installations." Now I like art, almost all art. I’m not wed to any one style or era, but I just don’t get contemporary art some of the times. This was one of them.

By now it was hitting upon 4:00 and finally cooling down, but we were HOT and wanted to go back to the hotel and shower and change. We decided we needed to change our timing for sightseeing. Typically we leave around 10:00, return around 4, then go out in the evening. It seems to be hottest in the am and starts to cool off in the afternoon. Tomorrow we will leave earlier and return to our room midday and go out 4ish when it cools down.

This would be a case of one of the best laid plans yada yadya yada.

On the way to Pier 2

Pier 2


Me and my parasol

Pier 2

Pier 2

Pier 2

Pier 2


Pizza typically is a good stanby for a meal when traveling. Not so much this time.

Dont know what to do with your old pots and pans? Paint them and call it art -- Alien Art Center

Halloween is big in Taiwan -- on the train

yestravel

Before I continue with this TR I want to check in and see if this is helping anyone since there have been no responses. Thanks

HappyTrvlr

Yes, your report is interesting and very helpful as we have thought about a trip there. Along for more! Thanks so much for taking the time to write this.

progol

It’s a wonderful report! I love the photos - it’s got such a distinct and (as you say) fascinating culture! Or cultures! I love the indigenous art - so different. And the quirky art!

Taiwan does look amazing and it’s a place we’d love to visit if we can manage it someday.