Taroko Gorge
19 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
Jessica and I went to Taroko Gorge on the weekend. Originally, it was to be Green Island as we’ve been wanting to go camping. But it was too hard to figure out the details of booking a Ferry at the right time and getting a campsite at the last minute, much to our fortune. Plan B, turned out to be an A plus. Taroko is incredible, a huge chasm we were lucky enough to be able to drive through on a scooter, whipping around the cliff highway like the wind, having the entire panorama of an almost spiritual scenery at a moments turn of the neck. I almost believe we’re genetically designed to react with reverence in such sights of sheer rock faces and formations of such mass and natural beauty.
On the scooter:
I would say we were lucky to get one as neither Jessica nor I are licensed, but everyone (especially tourists) drives without a liscense here, especially in the Gorge where the best way to view and travel to trails is on scooter. The hostel attendant, at the Formosan backpackers hostel we stayed in in the town of Hualien, gave us directions to a scooter rental place called “Pony.” We never found Pony but she gave us the card of another rental place with an unsuccessful search too but it did place us at the spot in the road we needed to be as a man came out of a shop, asked if we needed help, and then became our advocate on renting a scooter. He told us, “very dangerous, not like in America.” I guess motorbikes aren’t dangerous in America.
I took his warning seriously but have had the fortune of growing up in the middle of Michigan so I new my way around any kind of minibike, motorcycle thing you could throw in front of me. And, these scooters are seriously idiot proof, they have electric starters, and are automatics. All one has to do is gas and brake. We filled it up for a hundred twenty NT ($4 U.S.), which was all the gas we needed for the entire weekend and were off. Getting used to the traffic was the hardest part but it’s pretty intuitive once you get a feel for it. There’s bike and scooter lanes and most people watch out for everyone else with the expectation that you watch out for them. There’s hardly any road rage as people pulling out in front of one another is common and expected. You just stop and wait.
-Taroko
We didn’t do as much hiking as we wanted because, we think, most trails were closed due to the damage caused by the previous typhoon. There were signs everywhere warning of falling rocks. We even saw a “watch out for venomous snakes” sign. Needless to say there’s no better way of putting a person on alert than nailing in a “watch out for venomous snakes” sign. We hung out in a gazebo atop a peninsula rock cliff for a bit and walked part way up to a Buddhist temple to a Guanyin statue that was pretty and nice but mostly we just drove through soaking it up.
