Taiwan Trip: Hiking in Taroko Gorge

As I said in my last post, Taroko Gorge is amazingly beautiful. Unfortunately, the whole of Taiwan knows this, and they all flood there in their bus tours to see it. Fortunately, buses aren't very good at driving off road, people are mostly lazy, and time on tours is always tight (due to the need to go and stop off at the bus driver's mate's shop on the way home). This means that it is very easy to escape idiotic bus tours, as long as you're prepared to do a bit of walking, and your self-preservation instinct isn't all that high.

One false step and you're tumbling down the mountainside. But on the plus side, no people!

Like everywhere else we hiked in Taiwan, we were very pleasantly surprised by the organisation and upkeep of hiking trails in Taroko Gorge. Whilst there are some trails closed due to landslides, all the open trails were easy to follow, well signposted and had information about items of interest as you walked along. There's good information here about the different day walks, and here about which ones are open. All the ones listed as "scenic trails" or "sights" on any website you see are likely to be short walks with wide paths, stairs and probably full of people. When we were there nowhere was so busy to be unpleasant, but from what I've read it would be a different story at the weekend.

All very easy and everything, but where's the fun in hiking if you can't pretend to be Indiana Jones?

We walked three of the short scenic "trails", which only took about 30minutes each, but were very enjoyable and pretty. 

The Xiangde Temple Trail was right next to our hotel. It was just a lot of steps up to a pagoda and temple.  Lovely views from the top, but I wouldn't exactly call it hiking!

You can climb all the way to the top of the Pagoda for a super good view!

View down the gorge

We also walked the Wenshan Hot Springs Trail. It was about 3km north of our hotel along the main road, and conveniently on the way to the main trail we walked. It's a lot of steps and a suspension bridge down to and across the river to some hot springs on the other side. They were far too hot for us, so we didn't stop to bathe, but they were in a lovely setting. 

Scary bridge #1 of many!

Pretty good place for a bath, hey?

If you thought I was being a wuss, this is the bridge I was on. Scary!

The third easy trail we did was the Lushui Trail. This was south of our hotel, at the far end of the trail we did. It's 2km long, and is just about worthy of being called a trail, unlike the 2 above! It's fairly flat and wide, easy to walk and has lovely views of the gorge.

I wish there was a person at the bottom to give a sense of scale. The boulders were gigantic.

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While those three walks were very enjoyable, they were really just warm ups and cool downs for the main walk we did, the Wenshan-Lushui Trail. This wasn't the walk we'd originally planned to do, but the ones we wanted to walk were closed due to landslides. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as this one was much more challenging, and we both decided afterwards it was absolutely the best thing we did in Taiwan. Walking in the jungle, the only things keeping us company were the copious amount of pretty butterflies, the few monkeys(!) we saw and the beautiful scenery all around.

The trail's only 5.5km long, but it took us about 3 and a half hours. We're usually fast walkers, but this trail was HARD. The first section (coming from Wenshan) was constant up and down for about 2km. That section alone took us 2 hours. There was scrambling up sheer rock, hanging onto ropes to stop yourself falling off ledges, and clinging onto trees and you half slid down muddy slopes. But it was amazing. If you go to Taroko, bring hiking boots and challenge yourself. You won't regret it (well, you might regret your decision about 2km into the trail, but it does get easier, I promise). Just make sure you start from the Wenshan end. 

As you can tell from the photos, the day was cloudy and misty, but still some fantastic views. 

The suspension bridge that started the trail

If I remember rightly, that's our hotel in the middle

I know it's only a tunnel, and up close it was actually very industrial, but I like to think it's secretly Rivendell.

Exhausted by triumphant: at the end of the final climb.

A railing to reassure. 

John likes mushrooms (and ants and spiders and various other things that make me go eugh)

Taiwan Trip: Silks Place, Taroko Gorge

When planning our Taiwan holiday, we decided we needed a treat. I'm not really sure why, since we don't work that hard, but we decided we did. And as soon as we found Silks Place in Taroko Gorge, we knew that it was the hotel to treat ourselves in.

Taroko Gorge is in the East of Taiwan, part of Taroko National Park, near Hualien. 4 million years ago, the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea Plate crashed together, forced up mountains in Taiwan, including the marble that had been formed within them by previous tectonic activity. Add to this 4 million years of the Liwu River running through this marble, and the result is Taroko Gorge. Taroko means "Magnificent and Beautiful", and I can't think of a more appropriate name.

The native people of Taroko Gorge are the Atayal, who lived here in peace until 1914, when the Japanese entered to gain access to the mineral and forest resources. The Atayal tried to resist them, and so naturally the Japanese slaughtered most of them. They cut roads and trails through the gorge, often following old Atayal hunting and trading routes, and it soon became a popular hiking spot. It's remained so ever since, and is now Taiwan's top tourist destination.

Because of this, there are unfortunately scores of bus tours winding up the road through the gorge. Fortunately, you can easily get away from these crowds on the hiking trails, and I'm much obliged to them really because it's due to them that Silks Place was built. 

Silks Place is a 5* Hotel, in Tienxsiang, about half way through the gorge. Neither John and I are usually 5* hotel people (we'd generally rather rough it and have longer holidays) but we heard words like 'rooftop jacuzzi', 'swimming pool', 'all you can eat buffet', and we were sold! And when we found out rooms were only £150 a night, including dinner and breakfast, we decided it was the perfect treat.

And it was! We had a delicious 2 days there. Lovely, helpful staff, great facilities, absolutely amazing, stuff yourself so full your stomach aches for hours afterwards buffet dinners and breakfast, and hiking right on the doorstep. It was completely fantastic, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone going to Taiwan. Since we didn't spend any extra money while we were there, those days didn't come out as much more expensive than any others on our holiday. And it felt so luxurious, swanning about in a white dressing gown, swimming before breakfast, relaxing in a jacuzzi after dinner, sitting on a balcony looking out at the view and reading a good book...am I making you jealous yet?!

More about the hiking in my next post, but for now here are some photos!

Ahhhhh, the comfiest bed I've slept in for 6 months :D

Gorgeous setting too!

The Children's John and Susie play area. Complete with Wii and Table Tennis (I really suck at both!)

Feet in the pool, relaxing by the fire.

John was so excited about having cereal...

...while I was more excited about the fruit and cake!

View from our balcony

Using the yoga studio before dinner

Selection of Asian dishes for dinner

Half of the salad selection...there were also cold meats, normal salad, and most importantly CHEESE and BROWN BREAD. Ahhhhh.

Cake and fruit selection. Hard to get a good photo, but there were lots. And they were all delicious. And I had 3 pudding plates a night. Mmmmmm.

And if all that wasn't enough, it came with a steak of your choice...we both had lamb both nights because lamb is amazingly delicious and you can't get good stuff in Japan. So much delicious, so much indigestion! Good thing we did lots of active stuff during the day to burn off the million calories we ate!

Relaxing in the rooftop jacuzzi after dinner

The little indoor pool. There was a big on behind where I'm standing, but this one had ducks ^o^

I hope that made you all suitably jealous...I certainly made myself jealous that I'm not still there! Ahh well, I suppose now it's time to work to save up for the next treat :D

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!