Taiwan is not a haven for backpackers or happy campers, and Taiwan’s Lonely Planet was clearly written in absentia. The only guarantee is that if it is written in Lonely Planet it is: long gone, only part of the story, or a wild, unsubstantiated claim. In a slow and painful way I have learnt (but not accepted) that spontaneity reaps only trouble, and travel in Taiwan requires: careful planning, booked hotel rooms, and tours or advance scooter rental.
My first adventure took me to TAROKO GORGE on Taiwan’s east coast, with my space-cadet sister and Miss Canada. We took a late afternoon train, a later afternoon bus, and arrived around 8pm to the gates of the National Park, in other words nowhere. Finding no options to get into the park but a taxi, we decided to jump in. We swerved around Taiwan’s most dangerous and twisted highways at breakneck speed with a highly inebriated driver who couldn’t stop gazing in the rear-view mirror and proclaiming “auzhou xiaojie, wo AI ni!” (“Australian girl, I love you!”)
The next day we found ourselves without transport, and hiking back down the same highways, as a result of our first, very important, travel Taiwan lesson. Tourist Information Centre staff don’t know. They don’t know about: public buses, national park buses, pricing of anything, or where to go. After four hours of highway hiking, we stopped for lunch in a road-side shop, and decided to wait for a bus we were told would come in an hour. After an hour and a half the bus finally came. When the conductor saw us hailing him down, he smiled his big betel-nut smile, waved vigorously, and went right on past. Clearly the Information Centre staff hadn’t told him driving a public bus has more to it than going in circles. Miss Canada I were furious, so we hitched a lift to STALK THE BETEL-NUT CONDUCTOR, with all intention of hurling sticks, stones and clumps of grass. We found the bus, but not the driver, luckily for him.
Luckily for us, our rage had taken us to the gates of heaven. We weaved up a steep mountainside, through hanging mist to the top of a spiralled temple. Blissful sleep as we floated in drifting rain-clouds and our dreams filled with the haunting chants from a nearby monastery. We realised later that the chants were not in fact from the monastery, but from a large, antiquated, road-side amplifier, which for the record, can only be found in Taiwan.
At this point we could have accepted that transport and accommodation would never be in great availability, that backpacking was not the way to the light, but we never changed - and in fact went on to greater error.
.sitting in the clouds
.nic, me and anna walking the gorge's highways
.vertigo inside one of the towers
*
My first adventure took me to TAROKO GORGE on Taiwan’s east coast, with my space-cadet sister and Miss Canada. We took a late afternoon train, a later afternoon bus, and arrived around 8pm to the gates of the National Park, in other words nowhere. Finding no options to get into the park but a taxi, we decided to jump in. We swerved around Taiwan’s most dangerous and twisted highways at breakneck speed with a highly inebriated driver who couldn’t stop gazing in the rear-view mirror and proclaiming “auzhou xiaojie, wo AI ni!” (“Australian girl, I love you!”)
The next day we found ourselves without transport, and hiking back down the same highways, as a result of our first, very important, travel Taiwan lesson. Tourist Information Centre staff don’t know. They don’t know about: public buses, national park buses, pricing of anything, or where to go. After four hours of highway hiking, we stopped for lunch in a road-side shop, and decided to wait for a bus we were told would come in an hour. After an hour and a half the bus finally came. When the conductor saw us hailing him down, he smiled his big betel-nut smile, waved vigorously, and went right on past. Clearly the Information Centre staff hadn’t told him driving a public bus has more to it than going in circles. Miss Canada I were furious, so we hitched a lift to STALK THE BETEL-NUT CONDUCTOR, with all intention of hurling sticks, stones and clumps of grass. We found the bus, but not the driver, luckily for him.
Luckily for us, our rage had taken us to the gates of heaven. We weaved up a steep mountainside, through hanging mist to the top of a spiralled temple. Blissful sleep as we floated in drifting rain-clouds and our dreams filled with the haunting chants from a nearby monastery. We realised later that the chants were not in fact from the monastery, but from a large, antiquated, road-side amplifier, which for the record, can only be found in Taiwan.
At this point we could have accepted that transport and accommodation would never be in great availability, that backpacking was not the way to the light, but we never changed - and in fact went on to greater error.
.sitting in the clouds
.nic, me and anna walking the gorge's highways
.vertigo inside one of the towers
*
