Taiwan
IV: The Taroko Gorge
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III: Puli, Guanziling, and Kaohsiung
(a) Hualian.
From Kauhsiung we flew into Hualien, where we stayed for 2 nights at the Li Shiuan Hotel, a simple 3-4 star establishment, but very clean and extremely well rated by previous guests. The staff was most helpful and when we pull up with our van, there is almost always somebody dashing out of the building to offer his help. It may not have all the amenities of a higher class hotel, but the staff made the stay very pleasant.
After a short rest we left to witness an aboriginal cultural show. The performance was in a large circular hall and has been in operation for several decades. This show was offered by members of the Ami tribe, one of the largest aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. They have two shows a day every day of the week. In the show they are dressed in their colorful costumes.
left: Women of the Ami Tribe performing an aboriginal cultural dance.
The younger and prettier girls all looked bored to death, which is quite understandable since they have to do two shows a day, day in and day out. They’d most probably opt for something more exciting to do. The men do a better job in looking somewhat interested; for them it was a job; and jobs may not be that easy to come by. The older performers take their assignments seriously; they have nothing better to do.
right: Male dancers of the Ami clan.
The show consists mostly of traditional dances, such as harvest dances, courtship dances, and just happy dances. They also have something similar to the Philippine dances, where two long bamboo poles are clapped together just a few inches above the ground and dancers nimbly jump around the poles. At the end of the performance the audience was asked to participate in the group dances; which was nice.
I was reading my Dad’s biography, and he mentioned that he and my Mom visited this show in September 1971, some 42 years ago. No wonder the performers get bored. It is a long time to keep doing the same thing over and over again.
(b) The Taroko Gorge.
This is the most beautiful part of the island; there is a lot of marble here, and the place is sometimes called “The Marble Gorge”. We had reservations to stay in the Silks Place Lodge deep inside the Gorge. But just after we arrived in Taiwan we were notified that access to the gorge was blocked by a rock avalanche caused by the infamous typhoon Usagi, which hit Taiwan just one day before we arrived there. So that was why we stayed two nights in the Li Shiuan Hotel. There is essentially only one entrance to the Gorge, the East entrance. On the west of the park there is a road to Taichung, which is now closed, and a road to Nantou, narrow and quite a distance to civilization.
Of course we did go to the Gorge when we were there; the trip from Hualien to the entrance of the park took 40 minutes, and we found out to our relief that the blockage was actually a little bit further down the road. So we could still see quite a bit of the Park. In this landslide an estimated 200,000 cubic meters of rock fell down on the road and the Taiwanese Government immediately harnessed their resources to remove these huge stones. The Taroko Gorge is their national treasure and they cannot allow it to be unaccessible for very long. And on the next day we were there, they succeeded in opening the road again, 9 days after the typhoon struck. When we visited the gorge that day we were able to go in all the way and even visit the luxury Silks Place Taroko Hotel deep in the Gorge.
Until the 1950’s there was only a trail road running through this gorge. General Chiang Kai-shek, reportedly to keep his soldiers busy after they left mainland China for Taiwan, ordered his Nationalist Army soldiers to work to build a road through the Gorge. This road, called the Central Cross-Island Highway was, at enormous effort, completed in just 4 years, from 1956 to 1960. Because of the steep rocky cliffs, it was not an easy project and some 260 people were killed during construction. The walls of the gorge are composed of marble, gneiss, and schist, and under severe seismic activity they have a tendency to collapse.
left: Our first visit was to the Eternal Spring Shrine, erected to commemorate the workers killed in the construction of the Park.
You can see a path carved in the mountainside leading to the temple complex. From the bridge you have to walk about half a mile to the shrine, part of it through a tunnel bored in the living rock. This tunnel was close to the surface of the slope of the hill, so through the openings in the wall on that side we could see the raging stream shooting through the gorge just a few yards away and 50’ below. It is an amazing sight. In other places the path was just bored out of the surface of the hill, so you would get an open tunnel with overhanging rocks above.
right: Visitors walking through these tunnels are required to wear hard hats, because the walls may not be stable.
left: Dry river bed in the Gorge. On the top right in the picture you can see the steel railings of the walking path. It is dark and hard to see.
right: View of a gorge from the Eternal Spring Shrine.
We also walked the Shakadang trail, in many places chiseled out in the living rock in the slope of the mountain. The trail is still used by the aboriginal tribe living at th end of the trail; they were the only ones allowed to use a small motorized vehicle on the trail at certain times of the day.
left: The Shakadang River. In the steep slope on the right of the river you can see part of the Shakadang trail cut in the slope of the mountain.
The trail runs along the Shakadang river, a tributary of the Liwu river, the main river in the gorge.
The riverbed along the trail has bluish-green pools of water. People from Hualien apparently do come here to swim in the water, much to the dismay of the local authorities. From the entrance at the red bridge to the end of the trail at 3D Cabin is a flat 4.4 km hike.
Going further you will reach two isolated aboriginal villages, Dali and Datung.
The next day we were able to drive further inside the gorge. Unfortunately, the “Tunnel of the Nine Turns” was closed but we did see how it went in and out the mountain. It would have been lovely to walk that path.
We also stopped at the Silks Place Hotel. They were just accepting new guests when we were there. But we were leaving the area that evening.
right: A mile or two before the Silks Place Hotel was passed this red bridge. Note the huge amount of marble visible on the banks of the river.
(c) The Qingshui cliffs.
left: The marble in the cliffs of Qingshui are not clearly visible in this picture.
In this area there is a lot of marble in the rocks, and we went to the Qingshui cliffs for the views. You go out the Taroko Gorge park through the East Entrance and then drive north along the coast. I don’t think there was that much to see, but maybe we were not taken to the right location.
We also went to the Dageeli aboriginal restaurant, operated by members of the Truku tribe.
(d) Going back to Taipei.
We drove back to Hualien, where we had a buffet lunch at a vegetarian restaurant, and then we took the train to Taipei. We had first-class tickets and the fare was only NTD 220, or around US$7.50 per person. It was a very nice ride, with interesting views of the landscape, and certainly much less tiring than by car.
