InBetweenDays*

Backpack Taiwan 2008

Part III (Hualien > Taroko Gorge)

Shortly after arrival at Hualien train station, an auntie swiftly engaged us in her small promotional talk about her Minsu and shortly later, she managed to convince us to stay in her Minsu. Hence, we got into her taxi and forgot about the hostel we're supposed to turn up at. Well, like what laoshu said, a short moment of luxury before we hit back to the hostels (cuz i strongly insisted that there will be no more Minsu-s after this, haha). To be honest, its really quite shiok for a change of living environment. A big room to ourselves! Finally, we can throw all our stuff around!

Since Hualien is like soooo inaccessible and we have extremely limited time to start with, we could only opt for the hired taxi solution. (by which i spent a huge amount of energy trying to convince myself that the money is well spent. cuz the suggested price is simply too freaking exorbitant!!) Luckily we managed to negotiate for a better price when the auntie came back with a japanese (the very cute Shiramizu Takahiro san) who's willing to share our taxi ride (and split the costs) with us.

So, off we go to our first pit stop in Hualien > the much recommended Taroko Gorge!

yummy yummy (CHEAP) bento-set!

devouring it while in the car (on our way to Taroko Gorge).
mmmm, no time wasted!

Stupid laoshu! you're not supposed to eat meat!
ALL THE MEAT BELONG TO ME!!

Distant View of Taroko Gorge in the background and a betelnut shop in the foreground, which reminded us that we failed terribly in our mission to spot (much less say take a photograph) the infamous betelnut-beauty

yes..yess.. we're very very near to Taroko Gorge!

Here we are! Taroko Gorge!

erms, no! i am not trying to endanger my life by climbing over to the fallen rocks area.

Thats the river!! Clear blue waters! well, erms I forgot the name!

Pretty rocks down in the clear blue river stream!

i so wanna cross this bridge! looks damn exciting!

but...its closed for maintenance. Unlucky us.

this might just be Swallows Grotto!!
ooooohhh bird's nest!! hahaha

this is.....................well you can read!

actually i have no idea what it is. probably just a gate to Taroko Gorge National Park?

"the path of countless LONG eerie EXTREMELY DARK tunnels"

this might be the best, most apt translation for those 4 chinese characters, which marks the start of our terrifying journey (with me armed with a cui mobile phone that can shine light as much as 2cm, laoshu equipped with a lousy flashlight which cant illuminate much of the path as well, and lastly Shiramizu-san with nothing in his gear-set)

good luck to us. hurhur

this is the first and extremely mild one

look at the small spot of light at the very end of the tunnel?

but the end of the tunnel is indeed rewarding

pretty view!

i guess i was waiting for a photo opportunity of falling rocks, which btw is very common in Taroko Gorge because of the frequent earthquakes, err i think?

loooooook at this tunnel!!

notice the tiny tinge of light at the other side of the tunnel.

okay this is the scariest one! we couldnt even spot any source of light at the other end, however hard we squinted at the start of the tunnel. On top of the extreme blackness, i'm damn sure there're resident bats in this tunnel! The whole tunnel was wet and i kept stepping into puddles of liquid (i shall not try to analyse what kind of liquid those are), soaking my shoes! (-_-") And there's that pungent smell of BATS! urghhhhh. Bats just suddenly appears to be much more frightening when i cant where they are. Correction, i cant see a thing! i cant even see my hand extended in front of my face!

p/s. this picture was taken at the 3/4 mark of the tunnel

yeah, totally appreciate my sense of sight now.

back to the world of light! all hail the sun!

we were having fun playing on the bridge and freaking laoshu out! HAHAH

Shiramizu-san . laoshu . shunu

waterfall!! (but nothing beats osprey falls in YNP! - see past posts for pictures)

humongous rock at the beginning of the falls

hmmm, another waterfall in the far distance (as usual, the pictures did no justice to the real thing at all)

on our journey to find Sun Wu Kong!

okays, no MonkeyKing. but i found some confused tadpoles instead.

why are they confused? cuz they are in the middle of the wide, DRY, path with no view of any water nearby

showing you more of Taroko Gorge

oh SunWuKong...where are youuuu?!?

tadahh! we finally reached the home of the MonkeyKing!!

okay, correction. there's another 2.1km yet to be walked

but what we didnt realise is that we would be soaked if we attempted to explore the cave like that

so.....

tadahhh!! we should really count our lucky stars! we met a group of japanese tourists who just came out of the cave with their raincoats. And them, thinking that we are japanese too, offered us their raincoats since its almost impossible to go into the cave without any extra clothings in our bags.

at the mouth of the cave.

too bad we were unable to take any pictures inside. its seriously quite fun in there, with the curtains of water everywhere. the water is freezing cold, btw.

in the end, we came out with numb and hurt feet (well actually only me and shiramizu-san, cuz we went to explore the other part of the cave, which is out of bounds. hoho)

Presenting to you......Spring Fashion 2008 (Style 1)

this light, soft material keeps you warm against the cool breeze and cool under the hot sun. Best of all, it's 1-size-fits-all! Furthermore, it can be modified to suit all styles!

Spring Fashion 2008 (Style 2)

errrr yahh, we walked all the 4km out with our new, fashionable coat.

Hence, its not too peculiar that we had many eyes snooping on us.

the start of the "Tunnel of Nine Turns"

Looking down into the rapid-flowing river

long long walk againnnnnnn

weeeee!!

the recent fallen rocks.

which really is quite scary

imagine if i just happen to be on that path!

the pretty backpackers, *eh-hem*

i like this picture!

(errr, minus that irritant in blue)

Swallow's Grotto again!

Yeah, we were lucky enough to spot quite a few swallows!

i want bird's nest! *slurp*

lets try rock climbing in mini Taroko Gorge!

i see HuangFeiHong! i must be dreaming!

YES! i got into the picture! hohoho
i'm destined to irritate laoshu!

mmmm..wowww!

errr.. just the spur of the moment! HAHAHA

i think this is the nicest picture we took of Taroko

which, honestly, is not THAT fantastic (other than the WaterCurtainCave, of cuz). Well, maybe yellowstone is really toooooooooooooo beautiful that nothing can ever compare. I wasnt really fascinated with Taroko but laoshu definitely is! So in conclusion, those who have not been there and thinking of going there, you should still go!!