thegorge

and so we come, finally, to the culmination of my round-island trip. this leg of the journey, though covering much more, was dominated by our visit to Taroko National Park. Taroko Gorge is rightly known as the crown jewel of Taiwan's natural treasures; hopefully you will get some idea of the gorge's splendor from the photos below.


an example of Taroko Gorge's stunning scenery

after we finally got our bus tickets (see thecircumnavigation) the trip from Taitung up the East coast was very smooth, at least for Taiwan, and our bus made the 170 km (100 mile) journey in a blistering four hours! honestly that's quite fast for this place. there's no such thing as a real highway on the East coast, so we went through every little burg imaginable, and were waved down at all kinds of random points along the way. i was actually stunned that their time projection for the trip was so accurate. anyway, the scenery on that drive was no less spectacular than the views in the gorge, blue water stretching forever on one side with impossibly green mountains towering in dramatic relief on the other.

though we didn't get any pictures of that scenery, you'll get some idea from the Taroko pictures, since it is set in the same mountain range. one thing to which i wish we could have got closer was the San Shian Tai--the Platform of the Three Immortals. it appears to be a small islet off the coast just North of Taitung, connected to the mainland by a rather spiffy looking bridge that is composed of eight distinctly arching sections. i assume it's supposed to be evocative of the archetypal Chinese dragon; either way, it's an effective visual statement. though the circumnavigation was quite a whirlwind affair, it has enabled me to focus in on the areas i would like to see in greater detail. since the San Shian Tai is one of these, i hope to have pictures at some future date, so stay tuned.


another Taroko view

the terminus of the bus journey was the fabled Hualien (or Wha-lien). though Taitung was endearing because it seemed like a normal city, Hualien was much more entertaining. they seemed to have better coast and more ways to enjoy it, and it seemed to be a slightly hipper city with more going on in general. Taitung felt a little too sleepy for our big adventures. and besides, Hualien is very convenient to Taroko, and we found someone to rent us a scooter. actually that's a lie. some hotelliers found us someone to rent us a scooter. as you exit the train station in Hualien, you are greeted with a stunning view of... dozens of hotels. on the way down to them we inquired after scooter rentals and were turned down at a couple of places, for not having Taiwanese driver's licenses. so we decided to ditch the bags at a hotel and keep looking. in the middle of a street we were accosted by a lady using very broken English to pitch her sleeping establishment to us, but a little quick thinking made her give us more than just the room she had been counting on. i told her that we were looking for a scooter first, and wouldn't be checking into anywhere until we had one, so as with the girls at the middle-of-nowhere gas station, our problem became hers, though more because of the almighty New Taiwan Dollar than for the joy of helping. it didn't matter to me though; in no time she had us hooked up with a new-looking 125cc scooter for NT$500. that's about US$15, so i guess the NT is not so mighty, and this is without any security and on an expired California driver's license. pretty good deal. actually, at one point before we'd found that place, it sounded like the hotel lady was going to make her husband lend us his scooter, just to get us to stay. maybe the NT is mightier than it seems.


Jill and i at the entrance to Taroko National Park, home of Taiwan's best sight--Taroko Gorge

Taroko Gorge is accessible through the Central Cross-Island Highway of Taiwan, much of which West of the gorge remains shut to anything larger than motorcycles since the 9/21 Earthquake of 1999. this epicenter of this earthquake was in Puli, the geographical center of Taiwan, but was strong enough as to level numerous parts of many cities and cause tremendous rock slides. it is said that the peak of Taiwan's highest mountain is now eight meters higher than it was prior to the earthquake (that's about 25 feet). Feng Yuan was quite devastated by the quake, and many of our students have friends or family members who were killed as a result. the highway is the main road running East-West in the center of the map below.


a map of the gorge area

what i really want to talk about is engineering. the following photos show some good examples, some bad examples, and some downright scary examples:

a rather fetching bridge in Taroko Gorge, along with another, though perhaps slightly less fetching example:

the problem is, when you are familiar with the ethos of Taiwanese engineering, all Taiwanese engineering becomes very scary, regardless of its elegance. what i would like to give a sense of is the stairs. the Taiwanese appear to be constitutionally incapable of constructing a uniform set of stairs--too many are the times i've skinned a shin on a too-high step. so when they undertake feats like building eight flights of totally unsupported stairs, as in this pagoda whose insides are pictured below, one is led to question one's own sanity when climbing those stairs.



looking up to the top of the pagoda, and looking down. note well the suspended stairs, low railing, and fully open center.
absolutely terrifying



but climb i certainly did, with the wind gusting and the doors on all sides of the building slamming open and closed; i even went out on the eighth floor balcony and we got a shot of the view. very scary but well worth it i think you'll agree.


the view from the top

and then we trusted ourselves to the various bridges of less stable-looking character. that's a good burst of adrenaline, at least, as if trusting yourself to a scooter on a windy mountain road wasn't doing it for you.

so what do you think we did next?

you guessed it

finally, before we went back to Hualien to head home via Taipei, we had to stop by the Chang Chun, or Eternal Spring Shrine, which looks very picturesque set way up there in those verdant hills, straddling a waterfall. look:


the Eternal Spring Shrine in Taroko Gorge, where i learned the secret of immortality

apparently this shrine was built in memoriam to the 400 or so workers who died while constructing the Central Cross-Island Highway, and their names are all inscribed on stone tablets inside the building at far left of the picture. its a bit of a walk through caves and such to get to the shrine, but the shrine itself acts as the head for one of the many supposedly spectacular trails in the park. supposedly because thejayfather can't comment on any of the trails, not having walked them himself. but we did see this curious little thing on the trek over to the shrine, hidden in one of the caves:


the awesome Buddhist "Staircase to Nowhere", where i learned why being short is a blessing

there appears to be some mystical power associated with stairs that lead nowhere. perhaps they lead to enlightenment, or a new state of mind and being, diverting your crass western mind from its compulsive drive to get somewhere. whatever the purpose, even the people here don't seem to know why their religions do what they do, so until i take the staircase next time, i won't be able to enlighten you.