Taiwan Road Trip, Day Four

We spent the last night on the road in a picturesque bungalow complex (complete with a huge marble hot springs tub in the bathroom) just outside Puli. The next day, after breakfasting on the most humongous pork sandwiches I've seen in a good while, we sauntered up the hill across from the hotel to check out the hang gliding launch spot on top. Didn't see any gliders that day, but a bunch of other nice stuff:

Hillside betelnut plantation

Chung Chai Temple, an international centre of Buddhist academic research, culture and the arts.

As always, the flora didn't disappoint:

Golden Trumpet Tree, Tabebuia alba

Some kind of Christmas tree...

After that, it was time to hit the highway back to Taipei. In an autobahn rest stop by Hsinchu, we found this wonderfully wacky sign. This is what happens when dictionaries are used without protective gear and in the absence of professional supervision...

Now it's time to prepare for a trip across the Southern Cross-Island Highway - a road even more magnificent than the CCIH!

PS: Many thanks to Andy Wimmer who agreed to take over my camera for almost the entire trip, as my hands were usually glued to the steering wheel.

Taiwan Road Trip, Day Three, Part Two

Above 2500 meters the flora changed drastically. Gone were the jungly taro leaves, the ubiquitous ferns and the flowering trees - this was now the realm of conifers, lichens, moss and general creepiness.

At 2600 meters, we passed the Sacred Tree at Pilu, a 3200-year-old, 40 meter tall fir tree (Cunninghamia konishii). It's an amazing feeling to touch a living creature that was already alive at the start of the Iron Age, around the time when the Romans established their Empire.

Just below the top we stopped for lunch in Dayuling. The restaurant had iron garage-style pull-up doors instead of front walls. These doors were wide open, and DAMN, was it cold in there. But the mountain cuisine helped us forget the arctic climes: wild boar, highland cabbage and tiger lily blossom soup. I'd crawl all the way from Hualien for that sauteed boar with wild onions!

At 3100 meters, the Hehuanshan guest house offers hikers a place to stay overnight for a nominal fee (breakfast included). Check out the hiker-made snowpersons (can't say if they're boys or girls). Sorry about the asinine pose, guess I've been in East Asia for too long.

Then the serious part began: narrow, slippery roads on tundra-like terrain, swept clean just that morning after a fresh snowfall, and fog. Boy, the FOG! If you want to see the view from Wuling Pass, the highest road in East Asia, you need to arrive before 1 pm, because after that the fog will restrict your line of sight down to five feet. Not desirable in combination with the above-mentioned road conditions and the gaping maw of the valley three feet to your left.

The fog stayed with us all the way to ca. 2500 meters and then finally lifted to reveal the lovely slopes of lower Nantou County, aka "Taiwan's Orchard".

More about that and Day Four tomorrow!

Road Trip Taiwan, Day Three, Part One

Day Three found us traversing one of the most amazing mountain roads in Taiwan, the Central Cross-Island Highway, and of course the world-famous Taroko Gorge, which is actually the first 15 miles or so of the CCIH. Much has been written about the Gorge and the Highway, so in order to save valuable cyberspace, I'll let my photos do the talkin' and others do the explainin' - here are a few links about the history and sights of the Taroko Gorge and the CCIH:

Taroko Gorge

Taroko National Park (the eastern part of the CCIH)

Story of the CCIH

More pix from the CCIH

This trip takes you from banana plantations by the Pacific all the way up to the highest mountain pass in East Asia (3275 meters) which is covered in snow from December to March, and back down to sea level, all in one day. Hence, I decided to split this day into two parts: the first features the Gorge and the ascent, the second the icy realms of the pass area.

The gate to Taroko Gorge

The Gorge

Out of the gorge, and into the hills

Things to remember

A different fauna and flora: this nasty-looking piece of work is a local nettle, Urtica thunbergiana, aka "Cat That Bites" in Chinese (咬人貓). It forms huge bushes with fat, dripping poison glands on the large leaves. Touching them will guarantee the end of your boredom for at least two solid days.

As to fauna, we saw a Formosan rock macaque staring at us at eye level from a roadside tree when we came out of one of those narrow tunnels. I guess he was less surprised than us, but decided to haul butt anyway, just in case. You never know with these strange, pale bignoses. I couldn't get a photo of him, but here's a specimen of another widespread simian species:

Above 2500 meters, we also saw a whole slew of alpine birds, the most interesting among those the Formosan whistling thrush and the White-whiskered (Formosan) Laughingthrush, both endemic to the island.


Part Two coming tomorrow!

Road Trip Taiwan, Day One

I’m back from our Four Day Six Hundred Mile Easter Holiday Company Outing Island Road Trip that took us from banana and pineapple plantations by the Pacific shore across an ice-covered 11.500 foot pass (Hehuanshan) where we played with snowmen and then drove on to return back to the tropics proper five hours
later. This is definitely my favorite route around the northern half of the island: Stranded blowfish shoals! Roadside monkeys! Breakfast banana cake! Cloud forests! Bearded firs! Towering cliffs! Stone rhinos! And - of course - more! (did I mention steamed lobster with wasabi?)

Here’s my report, for those of y'all who didn’t fit in the car:

Day One:
Starting in Taipei County and ending in Suao/Nanfangao, the road led us east along the northern coastline with its picturesque fishing villages, rocky outcrops, endless pebble beaches and a nuclear power plant or two.

This rare specimen of a Taiwanese Pebble-Gobbling Rhino dwells right outside Shimen.

Sweet potatoes - nowhere better than in Sanchih County! (Also double as large-bore artillery shells)

Bisha Harbor, one of the largest seafood markets on the island.

Coastline

Japanese fin de siècle gold processing plant outside of Jiufen
At Fulong Beach, we were treated to the eerie sight of dozens of beached porcupine pufferfish. No other species of fish was present, only the porcupines. A quick investigation into the matter revealed that they must have been pulled
out by anglers (the Taiwanese are completely crazy about seafood) and thrown back in because they're not exactly convenient to prepare for the dinner table.

Alas, that did't keep this intrepid blogger from getting a quick protein fix. Maybe he should have read up on the genus Diodon first: When inflated they pose a major difficulty to their predators: a large diodon fully inflated can choke a shark to death.

One creature's trash is another one's lifeboat.
No place in Taiwan is further than 45 miles away from the ocean, as the crow flies, and seafood's a way of life. This was our dinner that day, in a harbor restaurant at Nanfangao.


Day 2 Report coming tomorrow!