Day 6: Hualien and Taroko Gorge

Our tour bus - or so we thought - for Taroko Gorge arrived at 7:45am, a good 15 minutes early. That was no problem because we were already waiting eagerly in the lobby. We drove down what seemed like endless back alleys in Hualien, stopping here and there to pick up passengers. Then, around the time when I thought the bus should be turning north to Taroko, it turned in to the bus depot. The driver said something in Mandarin and everyone - except us - filed off the bus. Thankfully a couple of people knew enough English to explain that we were changing to a bigger tour bus. Ah-so!

The drive to the Taroko park entrance was quiet. At the park entrance we were allowed off the bus for 20 minutes to check out the park headquarters and the interpretive center. There wasn't a lot of English signage so we were back at the bus before anyone else.

Once everyone was back on board the driver turned the bus around and we headed into the park along the only road. Our first stop was the Bulowan Recreational Area. It was basically a parking lot with an interpretive center that showed a 20-minute movie (entirely in Chinese). Simone and I looked at the map and saw a trail to Swallow's Grotto that was listed as a 15-minute one-way trip. "Sweet!" we thought. The guide at the interpretive center also confirmed it was only 15 minutes long. So, we headed off down the trail.

When I say "down," I mean we walked down a steep trail and then down even steeper stairs. We kept going down and down and down and down until we'd passed the 15 minute mark and were nowhere near the bottom of the trail. We realized we'd been misled by the English map and the guide at the interpretive center, and decided to abort. We took one final picture and then began the hike back up the "trail" to the recreational area.

I had to stop several times to catch my breath and get my heart rate down. I'm not in the greatest shape right now but I swear that it wouldn't matter how fit you were, the oppressive heat and humidity would challenge anyone climbing that trail. So, I just put my head down and climbed until we finally reached the trail entrance and the recreational area again. We got there just in time to board the bus and move on to the next stop on the tour.

That next stop happened to be a pull off on the road - just above Swallow's Grotto. So, ironically, we did make it to the grotto after all. We took lots of pictures (probably too many) but it was hard to get a good shot of the shallow pools and steep riverbed walls that formed the grotto.

After "exploring" the grotto we headed to Tianxian, where we sat down to a set lunch prepared by the staff at the Youth Activity Center Hostel. The set lunch consisted of white rice, two or three plates of (typically limp and bland) Taiwanese boiled greens, grilled chicken, sweet and sour pork, steamed white fish, soft tofu, soup, and orange watermelon. The steamed fish was surprisingly good. I have avoided eating fish in Taiwan because it's usually deep fried and of suspicious origin. Strange that I had to travel all the way to Taroko Gorge to get good fish!

After lunch we drove to the Tunnel of Nine Turns. Unfortunately you can no longer walk through the tunnel. We could only take pictures of the tunnel entrance from a recently-constructed viewing platform. From there we drove here and there stopping for pictures and short walks. Our final stop was the Eternal Springs Shrine. The weather had turned by then and it started raining. I took as many pictures as I could without getting my camera lens and camera body wet. I walked a short distance through the covered tunnel to the shrine before turning around and heading back to the bus. To be honest, I wasn't that keen on walking to the shrine and spending a minute taking pictures before having to rush back.

We thought the tour ended with that, but on the way back to Hualien the driver turned the bus into a parking lot behind a factory. It turned out to be one of those food factories that had a shop in front where staff hawked packages of this or that special Taiwanese food. We looked around but weren't that interested.

Again, we thought the tour was over but the driver stopped at a beach - Chishingtan Beach, to be specific. As we pulled up I noticed the distinct outline of our hotel just a short distance away. Mom, Simone, and I consulted and decided to walk back to the hotel from the park instead of taking the tour bus all the way into town and then catching the transfer bus back to the hotel. The walk was excellent and only took about 20 minutes. We were probably happily showering and freshening up in our room before the tour bus got back to town.

We decided to head back to the Salt Lick for dinner and caught a cab there around 6pm. It happened to be the same driver/cab that took us there the night before. The driver was a smiling older gentleman with limited English but a great enthusiasm for communication. Oh, and his spotless cab had the most pleasant lemon scent - it was so distinctive that we nicknamed it the Lemon Cab. On the way to the Salt Lick he pulled out his iPad and showed us pictures of the people he drove around Taroko Gorge that day. Seeing the pictures, we kind of kicked ourselves about taking the tour instead of hiring a driver for the day.

At the Salt Lick we ordered chicken wings, chili cheese fries, and coleslaw. The chicken wings had a fabulous smoke taste and a just-bearable hot BBQ sauce. The chili cheese fries were the star of the meal, though - everyone dug in and swooned over the crunchy fries, smokey chili and melty cheese.

Like the night before, we asked the staff to order us a cab. It arrived very quickly and we happily got in - but moments later the happiness wore off when the driver started banging his left fist on the door frame, honking at other drivers, yelling at the dispatcher over the radio, and chewing betelnut like crazy. He also had a penchant for taking his eyes off the road while he searched around for things in the cab and drifting across lanes as a result. He spit betelnut juice into a cup a couple of times, which was gross enough, but then he started to spit and didn't quite make it and ended up coughing up a huge betelnut phlegm ball. He eventually spit that into the cup which made Mom cry out "Oh God!" and make movements to open the door and leap out of the cab. The driver heard her and I was praying in the front that she wouldn't say anything else, because I didn't want him to freak out on us and potentially toss us out onto the side of the road in some strange area of town. Simone managed to calm Mom down and the driver - possibly hoping to be polite - chose to open his door, lean out, and spit onto the road from then onwards. Needless to say, it was an authentic Taiwanese experience.