Total Miles Traveled: 40,324
Ladies and gentlemen – we’ve just crossed the 40,000 mile mark! That’s a lot of miles! To give you an idea of just how many miles that is… the circumference of the earth (at it’s equator) is 25K miles – so we’ve circumnavigated the earth almost 2 times. From Maine to California is around 33oo miles across – so we’ve gone back and forth across the US 12 times.
We had the opportunity to travel to the East Coast of Taiwan with Tony’s parents and his aunt. It’s a good thing we went with them because the area is largely inaccessible to English-speaking tourists. Most hotels are small and information about them can only be found in Chinese (Tripadvisor and Expedia are useless here). In addition, the best way to tour the area is by hiring a driver who can take you to the many out-of-the-way places and tell you about the area you are visiting. While we didn’t understand a lot of what the driver said, at least we had Tony’s family translate key points.
Taiwan’s east coast is quite picturesque. In some places there is less than a mile distance from ocean cliff to mountain terrain. This makes for some dramatic vistas. Tony and I found it interesting that much of Taiwan’s coastline is under-developed or not developed at all. We learned that the government controls a lot of the coastal land in an effort to fend off attacks. So you get alot of scenery like this:
and this…
The first night, we stayed at a small sea-side hotel. Check out the ‘luxury’ bathtub…
The hotel was situated in a small village. While checking out the village, we stumbled upon a small fish market. The fishermen had just returned with their catch of the day. We were surprised to see the rays as well as the baby hammerhead shark (we’re pretty certain it was illegal to catch it).
In the neighborhood we were staying in, Qi Xing Tan, we were told that goat’s milk coffee is a delicacy. Well, of course we had to try it. While some people drink it hot, the proper way to serve it is cold. They also served goat’s milk tea. We tried both.
The verdict: Not our ‘cup of tea’. Imagine melting goat cheese in your coffee. Blechhk! We had our coffees hot, though we suspect that the cold ones would have been better.
Taroko Gorge
About an hour inland there is a national park called Taroko Gorge. This area is known for tall mountains with steep cliffs, treacherous mountain roads, beautiful marble rock formations and pristine water. Definitely worth a visit and maybe spending a couple of days hiking, if that suits your fancy.
Don’t forget to wear your sexy hard hats when walking along the gorge…this keeps your head intact as the falling rocks, well, fall around you.
This suspension bridge was fun to walk on… Kind of a doozy because it would bounce up and down from you and others walking on it. The trail ahead was closed presumably because there was a rock slide (which are quite prevalent throughout the area).
The family – from left…Tony’s aunt, his dad, his mom, and us:
What’s special about the photo below? The boulder. Taroko has huge marble boulders along the river bed, many of which are more than 10 feet high! It’s what makes this scenery different from the Andes Mountains in Argentina.
Can you spot the facial profile of a person carved in to the rock? Look for a nose.
We hiked up some steep steps to see this temple…
and this huge buddha statue…
That night,we stayed at an “authentic” aboriginal “campy” hotel with beds on the floor that had built-in electric heating. If you ask Tony’s mom what she thought: “I didn’t like the hotel at all.” Despite the confused style, the food wasn’t bad.
And, you cannot beat the view… the hotel was surrounded by mountains on all sides and accessed via a narrow valley.
Here’s a slideshow of all the photos:
[flickrslideshow acct_name=”tony-chen” id=”72157625314389237″]
Next up – it’s back to the coast and driving south past Taitung to Ziben – known for its natural hot springs.