Taiwan Trip: Caoling Historic Trail

After our return from Taroko Gorge, you'd have thought we'd be fed up with hiking and want some city life, but we found the call of the wild too strong, and on the following day, we got the train north to Fulong to walk the Caoling Historic Trail. This is part of a 200 year old route that was set up to help the Taiwanese settle the fertile Langyang Plain to the East. The section you can walk goes from Fulong (well actually about 2km along a marked track/road from Fulong) to Dali (about 8km). You can apparently continue on along a valley path to Daxi, which makes for a full days walk, but since we wanted to get back to Taipei, we just did the shorter walk.

It's a very well marked and well walked footpath. Apparently on a nice weekend afternoon it can get really busy, but we went early-ish on a sunny Saturday morning, and people were few and far between. It was a lot more tame than the walks we'd done in Taroko Gorge, but there were still a lot of steps. It was much hotter too, and we only just had enough water. There are vending machines at the start of the trail, and shops in Fulong, but nothing at all in Dali except one little ice cream stand.

Decoration in Fulong

On the way from Fulong to the start of the trail

Start of the trail

Lots and lots and lots of stairs

This says "Boldly Quell the Mists" (雄鎮蠻煙). It was inscribed by Liu-Ming Deng, the Taiwanese regional commander, in 1867 because he walked the trail and was struck with how difficult it was, so he engraved this as a monument to the people who opened up this part of Taiwan.

The same guy that engraved the other stone engraved this one with a symbol for tiger. Apparently there's an old Chinese saying "Clouds obey the dragon, winds obey the tiger", so he wrote tiger on here to stop the strong winds he encountered.

View of Dali from above.

John made me climb up a lot more steps to a higher hut. It was very pretty though, so I'll let him off!

John sitting in the hut.

Temple of the Jade Emperor at Dali

Taiwan Trip: Impressions

Well, we made it back from Taiwan! We had a thoroughly enjoyable Golden Week break, but I think we've both come back feeling more tired than when we left! Taiwan is way more beautiful than I was expecting, even Taipei is surrounded by gorgeous green mountains. The Portuguese knew what they were at when they called it Ilha Formosa (beautiful island).

Taipei, where we spent most of our time, has everything I love in a city...gorgeous setting, delicious, cheap and readily available food, a healthy dose of Asian madness, a combination of beautiful old things and fancy new ones, lots of parks and greenery...yet somehow I didn't love it. I liked it, and can well appreciate all the fantastic things about it, but neither John nor I liked Taipei as much as we felt like we should. We decided it's because it's not as polite, ordered and clean as Tokyo, but nor does it have the chaotic charm of South East Asian cities like Bangkok or Hanoi. We both likened it to Kuala Lumpur, another city that didn't grab us. But then it's equally similar to Singapore, a city we both absolutely fell in love with. It's funny, isn't it, the gut reactions you have to different places? 

But despite that, we had a fantastic week there. As well as Taipei, we spent a few days spoiling ourselves at a luxury hotel in the gorgeous Taroko Gorge. Taroko Gorge is one of the must-sees of Taiwan, and I'd go back to Taiwan in a flash just to visit there again. Lots of hiking with amazing views, nicely balanced with our swanky hotel with it's stomach-ache inducing buffet meals and rooftop jacuzzis. 

That's enough talking for the time being, I'll blog in more detail about what we did and where we went in later posts. I have almost 1000 photos, so there'll be a lot of posts! For now, here's a random sampling :D

Making new friends

"It's so green". "I love how green it is here". "I've missed green". Repeat, and there you have 90% of our weeks conversation.

National Palace Museum. Lots and lots of awesome Chinese things. Very interesting, but no photos allowed, and Museum Fatigue definitely set in!

We love the Taipei 101.

There will be a LOT of photos of this building. It's ridiculous.

I love dumplings. Buying a steamer is now very high on my to-do list.

John played a lot with the fancy settings on my camera this holiday. It made some photos ridiculous, but I love this one.

We didn't visit many temples, sorry Rurousha, but I love the dragons and phoenix(s?es?) on the roof of the Taoist temples. Apparently they symbolise the harmony of yin and yang but they don't look very harmonious to me.

Yes, that is a curry in a toilet.

View from our hotel in Taroko Gorge.

I love buffets.

So many pretty insects :)

Don't have a heart attack, Terry, that is John up there but I promise I got him back safely :D

Nothing says Taiwan like a paper mache rabbit on a bicycle.

Hiking the Caoling Historic Trail

No prizes for guessing where this was taken from!