Roadtrip

One of my favorite things about living and working in Taiwan is how seriously we take our 3 day weekends. With such minimal extended breaks, we cram a million things into 3 day weekends and make the absolute most of them. We were granted a Friday off for the National Holiday, Double Ten Day, in October and decided to rent a van for the 6 of us to drive around the entire island in 3 days – making exciting stops along the way of course! The minute we were all out of work on Thursday night at around 9pm, the four of us Chiayi-ren were speeding south in the enormous brand new van we just rented. Our first stop: Xinying, a very small town about 30 minutes south, to pick up our friends and fellow members of the youth committee. From there we continued south into the night, rounding the coastal southern tip of the island near Kenting, and driving north up the east coast. Long car rides never seem like a chore with these beautiful people, every minute is spent laughing or singing or just enjoying the adventure together. Around 2am we decided to pull off the road for the night. We set up camp right on the beach just south of Taitung and marveled at the wild rage of the sea. With a typhoon brewing out at sea, the waves were monstrous and unpredictable, none of us had ever seen such a thing! It was both terrifying and remarkably beautiful. As we stood on the beach with our toes in the sand and the bright moon illuminating the scene, we were reminded again of just how small we are. The sky was full of stars and there was a wide white ring around the moon and I think all of us fell asleep with smiles on our faces.

There’s nothing quite like waking up on the beach with the rays of the rising sun pouring into your tent. Opening your eyes for the first time in the morning and taking it all in almost makes you sorry you slept at all and missed out on soaking in the view for hours. The sun rising slowly over the ocean, the golden light reflecting on the waves, the breeze gently blowing through the sand. I was fortunate enough to have the time to sit and admire everything while the others slept a little longer. What a way to start the day! We packed up camp early and got back on the road, heading north to Hualien to our next destination: white water rafting! Having never been I was pretty anxious. I was expecting violent rapids and being continuously thrown into the water which was full of sharp rocks. I don’t know why I assumed it would be that way based on the fact that the Taiwanese in general are a cautious people and don’t really do “dangerous”. Regardless of my anxiety, I enjoyed the ride. The east coast is not the easiest place to travel to with limited off time so I really appreciate it when we go. The natural beauty on the east coast is astonishing, the surplus of mountains, flourishing green fields, and the blue-green sea makes you regret blinking!
Eventually we finally made it to the rafting center and got geared up and ready to raft. Unsurprisingly, the rafting itself was pretty calm. The “rapids” were rare but scenery was magnificent and I had a blast with my crew. We spent four hours paddling and laughing and falling in occasionally (because it was funny and we were hot, not because the water was aggressive). Four hours later when the sun was starting to set, we found ourselves at the end of our rafting trip, in an unknown location, very cold and wet and confused. We had secured a ride back to the starting point of the rafting trip, but the language barrier made it extremely difficult to figure out what was happening. After about 30 minutes of standing (dripping and shivering) in a swirl of activity, we were finally approached by a man who we hoped was our driver. He ushered us in his van and we did our best to communicate where we needed to go and thankfully he understood and we ended up exactly where we needed to be – with our van and warm, dry, clean clothes! We changed and washed ourselves in some bathroom sinks ‘on-the-road’ style and continued north to Taroko Gorge where we would be camping for the night. We arrived around midnight and set up camp in the dark and crashed for the night. The next morning we woke up early after a few wrong turns (oops) we located the Zhiulu Old Trail. This is a trail that requires a permit, which you have to apply for weeks or months in advance and pay for. Given our ‘figure-it-out-later’ last minute decisions lifestyle, we had no permits. So we decided to enter the trail from the end gate rather than the beginning gate (where I learned from experience there is a guard ready to check for permits). When we approached the rear gate, we found it taped off with red tape, but the door opened all the same and we let ourselves in. It became clear pretty quickly that the trail was not meant to be hiked on and that the red tape signified that the trail was closed. The trail was no longer the clear path it once was when I hiked it in April, but was instead a guessing game as to where the trail was underneath all of the rocks and boulders that were scattered about the mountainside after what looked like several landslides. We probably should have turned back, but we were too excited to do anything but keep moving forward – excited to finally face a little danger and seek the thrill of real hiking. Over the span of the 10k hike, we got lost a few times, trudged over many a rock covered mountainside, and crossed 3 blown out bridges with only the foundations remaining! It was an awesome adventure and the astonishing views down into the gorge as we edged our way around mountainside cliffs were worth the risks. Once we reached the other end of the trail (and snuck our way past the permit checking guard) we found ourselves sort of stranded and lost in translation once again. We needed to find a way back to our van parked at the other end of the trail, but were unable to decipher the Chinese bus schedule or communicate with the people in the area about transportation. All of the taxis were reserved already and despite our best friendly smiles, nobody would let us hitchhike with them (I guess I don’t blame them, we were a pretty big group of sweaty foreigners – not something I would want in the enclosed space of my car either). A few hours later we were finally on route back to our van on a bus (who actually drove us way past our van, but we were a lot closer than we were to begin with!). When we eventually reached our van on foot, we again couldn’t make it very far due to heavy traffic on the one lane road that wraps through the gorge. We inched our way towards Hualien in a mad attempt to get our friend to the train station to catch his train back to the other coast of the island, but sadly were unsuccessful. Once in Hualien city we opted to buy some baby wipes and treat ourselves to a travelers bath in the streets and then ordered dinner and ate in a beautiful park by a fountain. After a delightful meal we returned to the van to find a parking ticket! Written all in Chinese, we had no idea how much the ticket would even cost us and experienced a bit of panic. We immediately brought it into the nearby 711 and were relieved to find that the fee was only a whopping 20NT (about $0.66 USD) and we laughed it off and drove back into Taroko Gorge… or at least we tried to. We got a bit a lost and ended up driving back in the incorrect direction towards Taitung, but we didn’t realize this until we had been driving for about an hour. We backtracked and were finally heading in the right direction and it looked like our luck was finally changing…and then we got pulled over. Because of the language barrier, it was a very short interaction and we drove off (more slowly) without anything more than a confusing multi-language encounter under our belts. About 3 or 4 hours later we found ourselves rolling back into the gorge and crawling into our tent after a long exhausting day. When we woke up the next morning we hiked the Baiyang Trail which is the beautiful trail with multiple waterfalls and caves. At the end of the trail there was a deep dark cave with a water covered base that leads you to a curtain of a waterfall cascading down at the end of the cave. After our beautiful hike, we got into the van, raring and ready for our long drive back to Chiayi around the north end of the island. Within about 3 minutes of our departure, we drove over some sharp rocks and heard the air whistling out of our front tire at an extreme speed and found ourselves stranded with a flat on the side of a one lane road with holiday weekend traffic on all sides at the bottom of a gorge in a country where we don’t speak the language. We couldn’t help but laugh, what luck we were having! We were fortunate enough to have a lovely Taiwanese couple who spoke English stop to help us. They called the police and helped us translate what had happened. When the police arrived, they thought it was hilarious. They weren’t taking it seriously at all and it was awesome, they took funny pictures with us holding the tire and we had a great time trying to navigate the strange vehicle in search of the tools and spare tire. Once the tire was replaced with the spare, we were finally on our way, but had been set back over an hour. This put us at risk for missing our return time deadline and paying an additional day fee for renting the van, especially with so much holiday traffic. We opted to call the company and tell them in advance we wouldn’t make it and attempt to barter the late fee down because of the car troubles. We were somewhat successful, but either way we were grateful to be able to have a stressfree day of driving.   We were able to stop and look out at the incredible aquamarine ocean as we drove along the coast, and we were able to stop in Taipei for a quality delicious meal and some real-city appreciation. After many many hours in a car, successfully rounding the entire island road-trip style, and numerous car troubles and serious traffic along the way, we finally made it back to Chiayi in one piece. I’m so grateful to have had this experience with such joyful people. We made the most of everything and turned what could have been a stressful, frustrating day into one of the most fun days ever. Nothing but laughter and love and the beauty of the island!