Jiangliaozi Cliff and Waterfall- 姜子寮絕壁跟瀑布

My sweet ride

Ryan and Katie were vacationing in Borneo last week, and as both a favor and a duty, they'd loaned me their scooter.  The thing is held together by rust, spit and dreams, and if it went a whole week without starting up, who's to say it'd ever do so again.  With many of Greater Taipei's bigger hikes under my belt, I decided to try something smaller, more intimate, and accessible only by scooter: Jiangziliao Mountains.  Double Ten Day (Oct. 10), or Taiwan's National Day, would offer just the mid-week hiking chance I was looking for.  However, the directions I'd found on the internet mentioned Highway 3, a flower highway, presenting an immediate concern; scooters aren't allowed on national highways in Taiwan.  Hell, neither are motorcycles under a certain CC.  Considering some of the crazy shit that happens on them I guess I'm not surprised:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpW1UhdX8zM

I find an alternate route on googlemaps that's as straightforward as the original, and even more accessible from my apartment.  Trusting my navigational skills, skills much improved since coming here, I strap on a helmet, press the ignition and zoom away.  Conscious of the unusable right brake, I reign in my speed on Datong Rd, the main drag near my apartment.  A scant fifteen minutes later, finding myself in the mountains on long stretches of uphill road, I give the scooter its head, enjoying the beautiful weather and lush scenery around me.  As I drive, wind rushing full in my face, I strongly consider buying my own scooter, a financial decision previously occupied by the less glamorous bicycle, which itself has been long deferred.  If I'm going to be here longer than a year it's worth looking into, especially since all the awesome less-touristy hikes require personal transportation.

Before long I'm at the entrance to Jiangziliao Park.  The grounds are well-maintained, with an attractive red brick walkway shaded by trees blooming in bursts of pink-orange flowers.  I smile at the thought of flowers in October, yearning for the brilliant autumnal palette of my hometown.  Still, the flowers are a welcome infusion into the otherwise endless maw of green.  You can have greens in a hundred different shades, but after a while you stop thinking in terms of Hidden Meadow and Celery Sprig (actual paint tone names), and start thinking in green, brown, and, if you're lucky, blue.

A kindly old man directs me away from the well-intentioned signs to Jiangziliao Cliff, motioning me towards the road.  I thank him and make my way towards a trail rougher, and in his words, more stimulating.  Before I even have a chance to poke around he comes chugging up on his scooter, points out the trail markers along the path, and nods me on my way.  Trail markers- I don't even think to look for them.  You see them in so many places they start to lose any sort of meaning.  Kind of like travel blogs.

The less stimulating trail

The more stimulating trail

There are stone steps there, lurking.

The trail up, though laid with natural stone steps, looks seldom used.  In parts, shrubs have grown up in a knee-high screen, a bid to reclaim lands by right.  I enjoy the uphill push, pausing below a musical rivulet, feeling the cool vegetation brush my shins, getting lost momentarily in a meadow as jarring as it is welcome.  When I'm deposited back on the road, I see the same old man sitting patiently astride his scooter, and I wonder if he's stopped here just to make sure I don't get lost.  He indicates the main trail ahead to the cliff and waterfall and with a simple wave, almost a shrug, takes off, further cementing the thought.

Even the rivers don't like the stone steps here.

Top right rock is the "slab"

Just like with the last hike, the trail here is really more of a suggestion.  I duck under the rope at odd points, finding myself looking up a bright, blue sky above and clear, blue water below.  Further along, I stray again from the path, this time walking on a flat slab of rock.  To my right, I see what can only be the waterfall, and I'm game for getting a closer look.  From the slab I'm able to jump down across the river, then work my way up against the current.  The waterfall, like so many things in Taiwan, is small yet breathtaking.  I'll let the videos and pictures speak for themselves:

Reluctantly moving past the waterfall, I find the river flattens out dramatically where Jiangziliao Cliff looms overhead.  The trail deposits you at a viewpoint directly across the river from the cliff, where you might possibly develop neck pains taking in this sheer precipice.  I, unsatisfied at such a short hike, especially considering I had to scooter here, decide to once more duck under the rope and continue on.

I could spit out volumes of prose expounding on the beauty of this mini-trace, but it'll just be more of the same.  My pictures don't do justice to the hike, and my words, even less.

I'd be content to end this post here, but an "interesting" thing happened to me while heading back.  On the lookout for some other waterfall I'd seen a random sign for, I inadvertently end up scootering all the way out to Jingtong (this hike), or close enough.  Deciding to turn back in case the scooter craps out on me, I end up stuck behind a car weaving quickly enough down the narrow mountain road that I decide not to risk passing him.  At one of the sharper curves, I clamp down on the left-hand brake.  No response.  Hmm, that's disconcerting.  I squeeze harder.

No response.

The car in front of me looms closer.  This is why scooters have brakes for both wheels.  Frantically, I start pumping the handle, but with no more time to spare I'm forced to swerve onto the oncoming traffic lane.  Casual mountain-goers pause to stare as I manage to stop shakily on the side of the road, swearing loudly.  My brakes choose to start cooperating after some coaxing, but for the rest of the ride back I'm left with the feeling that I'm on a ticking-time bomb, ready to go off, or cut off, at any moment.  Getting into an accident and it'd be Dahsit City, population: me.  No scooter license? Check.  Riding on a vehicle I don't own?  Check.  Stranger in a strange land?  Check.

Able to escape from potentially life-ending disasters unscathed?

Check.