Traveling Taiwan, Day 1- Hualien, Taroko Gorge- 花蓮, 太魯閣國家公園

I don't know when the last time I wrote was, but today marks the triumphant return of Jaded in Taiwan.  I've been traveling around for a week, so you better believe I have a lot to write about.  I'd originally intended to take notes, but our days were so long and carefree that I only had eyes for my bunk when we got home.  We'll see if my memory is as solid as it was in college.

We left Saturday afternoon, waiting around for the flakiest Taiwanese in existence, Ethan.  Ethan's co-worker was supposed to drive us down to Hualien, but with Ethan ignoring every text and call, we lacked the requisite guanxi to call in a favor from her.  On our way to the train station Ethan finally texts us back, telling us he had a rough night.  He wants us to hold off on the trip until tomorrow and hang out tonight.  So not only do we wait around for his flaky ass wondering where the hell he is, but when he finally responds he wants to accommodate his lack of judgement?  I laugh and then realize he's serious.  Brian tells Ethan what a great friend he is for missing his birthday.  Did I mention Ethan's kind of self-absorbed too?  He must be pretty hungover because when we tell him there will be no waiting he gives up without much of a fight.  We grab a couple of beers each for the four-hour ride down to Hualien.  The tickets aren't cheap, almost $500 NT, but we've got seats, coastal views, and all the time in the world.  Good thing too, because the express train in Taiwan might as well be the local.

The ride is long and uneventful, our beers disappearing all too quickly.  The AC, at first a pleasant change from the stuffy interior of the Taipei Metro, quickly becomes unbearably cold, and I'm forced to fish around for my long underwear, which I had brought in case we climbed a mountain.  I find it ridiculous that I should feel cold at any time during summer on a tropical island.  Brian tells me the Spartans didn't complain about being cold.  He also tells me they didn't shit until they were allowed to.

We drift in and out of sleep and wake up about an hour before we pull into Hualien station.  Night has fallen by now, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow to get a proper look at our surroundings.  A taxi takes us to our hostel in short order, located on the outskirts.  We check in, drop off our bulging backpacks (Brian and I rightly surmise we've packed too much) and walk back towards downtown.  Freshly blended fruit juice helps stave off the monotony of standing in line for xiaolongbao.  I will never buy xiaolongbao at Din Tai Fung ever again; everybody raves about the succulent little morsels you get there, but the thick doughy buns we got cost us $5 NT each.  I'd rather pay $2 US then $11 (Ding Tai Fung dumplings cost more than $1/dumpling...ridiculous) for something that tastes better anyway.  After our meal we wander towards the beach, enjoying the rush of water through our toes before returning, barefoot, to our beds.  Sleep is interrupted by clumsy footfalls and sudden brightness, but all is to be expected; our beds are open bunks, and hostels are not known for their restive qualities.  Sleep is long in coming again.

Interesting paint choice

The next day we take a taxi to the train station and go about the business of renting scooters.  Too late, I realize I've left my driver's license at the apartment, and Brian has nothing but an expired state license, the hole-punch staring back at us accusingly.  None of this matters, because my ARC does the trick, and perhaps mollified by my Chinese (or more likely eager for business), the owner doesn't ask too many questions.  We sign some papers, and a copy of my credit card is kept for their records.  Ah.

Outside, we're shown to our bikes, beautiful 125 cc scooters at $400 NT/day (this is the weekend price, weekdays it's $350).  Then the moment of truth, actually driving them.  I've never so much as ridden a moped, so I fumble around with the controls.  Knowing it looks bad, I ask the attendant how to turn on my scooter.  He shows me, and then I look at him and start giggling, a mix of anticipation and embarrassment.  He laughs awkwardly, probably worried about what the bike's going to look like when I get back.  With a minimum of stutter-stopping on my part we head back to the dorms.  I realize that riding a scooter isn't much different from riding a really fast bike, and having ridden a bike through the crowded streets of Danshui, I feel comfortable enough with the traffic around me.  We get our backpacks and head to Taroko Gorge forty minutes north, shirts off and shades on.

On the way to Taroko

Cruising the way cruising was meant to be

Great Core-Workout #1- riding a scooter

At the entrance of Taroko looking back...

...and looking ahead

The ride to Taroko is thrilling enough, but it's not until we get to the entrance that we see how awesome this day is going to be.  The road winds (sometimes literally) through towering cliffs, lush green dotting the bottom of the mottled marble walls.  We choose the right route first, but quickly head back when we see the visitor center.  Fine men such as ourselves require no maps, and no guidance; this vacation has no itinerary, and any path we take will bring fresh discoveries, intentional or not.  We turn around and ride underneath the first tunnel, our day truly starting.

On a bridge overlooking the river we'll be tracing down

Eternal Spring Shrine.  We declined to walk the cliff side path to the left of it.

Before long we see a suspension bridge above us, and decide to take the uphill route to a nearby temple after turning back from a viewpoint crammed with buses.  We see two Dutch girls getting off their shared scooter and chat with them for a bit.  One is gorgeous, all honeyed curls and cornflower blue eyes.  The other one...has a nice smile.  I fumble around for our bike lock, remembering that the rental place has my credit card number.  Brian laughs off my concern:

Brian: "Who's going to steal someone's bike in front of a temple?  Bad karma."
Me: "I guess you're right."
(after walking several minutes)
Brian: "You took your key with you, right?"
Me: "No."
Brian: "You're an idiot."

I'm half-way across the bridge, taking pictures of the beautiful boulder-studded river before us, but just like that I'm running back to the bike, laughing at my serious lack of street-smarts, passing by the bemused Dutch pair.  Snatching my key I hurry back across the bridge and up a stairway leading up along the cliff-side.

We reach a bell tower, and climb up the steps to get a better look at our surroundings.  As high up as we are, looking over the railing immediately makes my knees go weak.  We're barely twenty minutes into the park and I know we're going to keep climbing, so I think today might be a convenient time to conquer my fear of heights.  This proves prophetic.  Brian decides to give the bell a few rings and a Taiwanese couple nearby echoes him as we continue on.  I'd like to get a view of the waterfall we saw, but unfortunately the trail doesn't quite cooperate.  I content myself with a snap of Brian's golden falls, but he surprises me with this maneuver.

Great Core Workout #2: laughing my ass off

Great Core Workout #3: getting pummeled with water

You can see Brian at the very right-hand part of the photo.

Satisfied with this diversion, we set about soaking in the river below us.  Even from the suspension bridge I could appreciate the vivid blue of the water, and a refreshing dip should wash away all the sweat from climbing around.  I reach into my backpack and pull out what should be my swimsuit.  I don't remember my Speedo being quite this small.  Then I see the brand name on the wasitband: ExOfficio.  Ah, my ripoff traveling underwear, supposedly odor-resistant and fast-drying.  I put them on and look like a proper European heading to the beach.  Brian is already wading downstream, so I follow him, pointing out my improvised swimsuit.  The water is crisp and perfectly cold, and we make use of the various pools and rivulets as we head further downstream.  At the bottom we find a group of Taiwanese relaxing and jumping into the bluest pool yet.  The water is deep here, and the surrounding boulders make great springboards.

It's funny, we had ample opportunities to river trace when we had our cabin up near Goldbar, but as a video-game obsessed brat, I only did it a couple of times with my dad and brother.  Despite my best efforts I enjoyed myself, though I don't think I admitted it with much enthusiasm.  You know what they say, "Youth is wasted on the youthful."  Or at least that's what Dad says.

Properly refreshed, we climb back onto our bikes and head off.  Before getting on, I joke that since it looks like I'm wearing a Speedo I should just scooter around as is.  This joke merits further consideration.  When we take off back down the hill I am wearing nothing but underwear, socks, and shoes, giggling like a schoolgirl (unfortunately Brian took no pictures of this).  Mom always hated the fact that I'd walk out in my boxers to collect the mail, so she'll be reading this with no small amount of chagrin.  I get plenty of stares from people, especially after we pull up to a construction checkpoint.  These checkpoints were scattered around the park, always visible by the long line of cars that preceded them.  They opened bi-hourly, so we headed back and checked out a small spring and accompanying shrine to while away the time.  Fooled or not, plenty of people are staring.  My amusement is tempered by the chaffing from the sand on my scooter seat, so my shorts came back on before heading down to the shrine proper.

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We head back to the checkpoint, where we wait with the other scooters.  It's like a scene from Mario Kart right before we're given the green light, only less organized and real.  The scooters zip ahead of the cars and we're humming past an enormous bleached white cliff.  The construction tractors kill the mood, and I wonder what they're doing here.  There's no way they can be ripping apart the beautiful rock above, so are they trying to set up some protective netting or other safety precautions?  I have no time for answers, and if I did, I'd have used it to snap a picture.

We continue along.  I mistake Swallow Grotto for the Tunnel of Nine Turns (which we later find out is under construction), so we park our bikes and follow the other tourists through the tunnel, high above a wide, muddy river.  It seems like the canyon is at its narrowest and deepest here, and the sunlight glinting off the marble swirls gives them a metallic sheen.  Every time I glance over the railing I hold to the murky waters below just a few beats longer than I'm comfortable with.  Fear is not an option in such a lovely place.

What my dad had to say of this: "Standard Asian tourist photo, taken by and of Americans."

Brian's picture in the same area.  Yeah his is better.

Despite the majestic beauty of Taroko, I'm forced to admit it starts to look the same after a while.  Sure there are vertiginous cliffs that shear the sky into a thin strand, distant spidery waterfalls, and every green you've ever imagined, but my photo-taking finger grows weary.  I stop by a railing for what I tell myself is the last picture and whip out my camera.

Except for this.  This did not look the same.  These cliffs felt impossibly high.  Cliffs of Insanity high.

Now those who are close to me know that despite my athleticism I am a very clumsy person.  Waiting and bartending helped to some degree, but I'll always be prone to dropping things and tripping over curbs.  Why do I bring this up?

The camera goes flying out of my butterfingers, bounces once on the pavement and goes over the edge.  I stop for a moment, reality not quite sinking in yet.  Slowly, I look over the edge.  Nothing.

Shit.  SHIT.

NO. NO NO NO.  Why do I always manage to lose something whenever I go anywhere?  I've now lost my phone and wallet in Taiwan...not my camera.  It's just a shitty compact Sony held together with scotch tape, but it deserves a better end than this.  Brian comes over and asks me what the holdup is.  I tell him and he shakes his head.  "How do you drop your camera over the edge?"  My capacity to botch is legendary.

I look over the railing, swallow my fear, and climb over.  There's two narrow outcroppings where the camera might be...unless it bounced hard and dropped down hundreds of feet below.  I grab onto a black cord as I search, lest I'm the next thing to go over.  Ironically, Brian, who has trouble deciphering large writing at thirty feet, spots my camera, resting against the dinkiest shrub ever.  It's a fluke that my camera, skipping over the edge and falling a good six feet down, manages to be stopped by shrub barely larger than my outstretched hand.  As I'm reaching forward for it, one hand firmly clasped to a plastic cord, I feel my body shift forward.  My footing is less than sturdy, and I'm staring straight down a jagged marble ravine.  At this point, an older Taiwanese couple rush over and beg me to abandon my quest:

Wife: "Please just forget about it.  It's too dangerous!"
Brian: "It's ok, he's done this before."

Great Core Workout #5: clinging on for dear life as you search for your camera

Ever so slowly, I stretch out my fingers, knowing that I'm fully capable of knocking it over.  Again.  My hands curl around the cord, and gingerly, I pull it up.  Seems like some higher force wanted me to stop taking pictures too, because the battery popped out on the way down.  The Taiwanese couple eventually wander off when they see their well-intentioned pleas have no effect.  Searching for the battery is useless, though I surprise myself by dropping down to the next narrow outcropping to look around.  Nothing.  Until I replace it, I have no way to check if the lens is damaged, or if the camera even functions properly.

Wish I would've had Brian take a picture, just to show you how colossally stupid I was for climbing down over the edge.  But looking back down for one last check, part of me was proud that I had conquered my fear, even momentarily.  Stephen Hopkins doesn't abandon his companions, even when those companions are, uh, inanimate objects that kind of suck at their job.

Edit: He did take a picture.

With my camera recovered, it doesn't take long before I'm in high spirits once more.  We go speeding through multiple tunnels as the road continues to wind up.  Without the ability to take any pictures I soak in m surroundings, trying to commit these vistas to memory.  We keep cruising, Brian not really wanting to stop, and I unable to record my exploits for posterity.  Eventually, the steadily cooler elevation and dimming sky convince us to turn back.  Here's a quick summary of what we did for the rest of our Taroko trip:

-Walked fifteen minutes through a pitch-black tunnel on the way to Baiyang Waterfall, only to find out it was an hour hike each way.  On the list for next visit.
-Sampled some excellent peaches and were served mediocre, watery ones.  Fruit vendors in Taiwan ALWAYS pull this bait and switch bullshit.
-Talked to a man in Tianxiang about all the maimed dogs walking around.  Apparently, they get caught in the traps aboriginals set for wild boars.  One three-legged guy, his front right leg cleanly amputated, was a spry sucker, bounding around with little concern for his impairment.
-Did some diamond push-ups after admiring the view from 900 meters up.
-Went 104 km/hour on a straightaway in one of the tunnels heading back.
-Killed dozens of insects with my face on the way back home.

Driving around for hours and I estimate we didn't even cover half of what there is to see in Taroko Gorge.  Maybe not even a third. You better believe I'll be here again, hopefully with some friends back home.

I don't actually know where we ended turning around.  The above is my best guess.  Note the arrow indicating Hualien to the south.