Taiwan -- Last Laugh

I've already mentioned how affordable Taiwan was but let me prove it with pictures of some of our hotels and hostels. Keep in mind, I'm a cheapskate, so none of these places cost more than 25 or 30 USD per night.

Lobby of the Nahee Suh Hotel, Taipei

Our view from the Nahee Suh, Taipei. 

Sitting room at the Choging House, Taipei

Our suite in Haulien

Beachfront in Kenting

All of the places were beautiful, affordable, and meticulously maintained though if I had to choose my favorite spot, it would have to have been the common room of the Young-Uh Guesthouse...  

...where Caroline has either grown to gigantic proportions...or we visited a miniatures museum.

Taiwan: Kenting

Theoretically, we were going to have about 3.5 days to explore the southern tip of Taiwan but, as mentioned a few posts ago, the bus ride from Kaohsuing took a bit longer than we anticipated, delaying our arrival until the middle of the evening and eliminating the ".5" part of the "3.5" theoretical days. There were also two days of heavy rain--heavy as in the streets became flooded within minutes--thus shaving our three days down to one. This may sound like a disastrous few days, but things actually ended up working in our favor.  Allow me to clarify a few things:

1) We knew it was typhoon season before we even booked our flights so we were prepared for some washouts. (In retrospect, we were really lucky to only have 2 days of rain. The weather was great for the rest of the trip).

2) The first day in Kenting was beautiful, (more on that shortly).

3) Our SPF 35 did absolutely nothing to protect us from the sun. The fact that we had cloud cover and rain for the next two days was actually a relief, (even cold showers hurt my skin).

4) While it rained exceptionally hard, it only rained for brief periods of time so we weren't confined to our hostel all day.

We woke up on our first day and immediately inquired about renting scooters. We were told that we would need to have an international driver's license, (which we didn't), in order to rent from most of the places. The girl at our hostel told us about a place that might accommodate us, so we headed that way and sure enough, we were able to rent scooters, (The owner looked at my American license, which is expired, copied my passport number, and handed me two sets of keys). Having no experience riding a scooter, we clumsily made our way into traffic and started for the road that snaked along the western coastline.  

I should backup for a moment. We were pretty sure we'd be able to find scooter rentals in the morning, so the night before we looked at some maps and memorized a route that promised to lead us to some of the more secluded beaches. We had no idea just how secluded the secluded beaches would end up being and therefore, just how difficult it would be to find them.

After breezing along the coastal road for about an hour, we started to notice little trails heading from the roadside into the palms and (probably) down to the shoreline. When a group of scooters passed us and suddenly darted to the left, we decided it was time for a swim, so we followed them down the sandy path and ended up here:

The beach was clean and almost completely empty. The water was warm and crystal clear, (I could still see the bottom even when I couldn't touch it). We spent the whole day in and around the water, either swimming...

...or checking out the tide pools.

We rented some snorkels and cruised around some of the tide pools checking out some of the coral and the local marine life. I spent about 15 minutes following one fish all over the cove. He wasn't too entertaining though, he just kind of swam erratically from place to place only stopping briefly to stare at things and blow bubbles. 

I've already talked about the rain but I'll just add that we were able to check out the southern tip of the island in between the downpours.

I don't know what else to write, but this entry feels incomplete so I guess now is a good time to say that Caroline and I have (obviously) decided to stay in Korea for another year. Here's to hoping that the next 12 months are just as good as the last.

Taroko Gorge: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

Red squares, floating campfires, aggressive swimmers, bears, killer bees, (seriously), and cliff-face acrobats are only a handful of the dangers that await the millions, (this is a rough estimate), of hikers who flock to Taiwan's east coast to enjoy Taroko Gorge. As if hiking under the blazing sun isn't difficult enough, the place is crawling with things that can kill you. Things like Lingering:

Suspiciously Low Overhangs...

...complete with very thorough warnings about headspace, or lack thereof:

Slippery Surfaces

Cliffs, although if you found yourself in a situation where you were barreling uncontrollably towards this sign, judging by it's placement at the very edge of the cliff, you'd probably have just enough time to read it before heading overboard.

Venomous Snakes

These guys are actually pretty scary as there are quite a few different species of poisonous snakes in Taiwan such as but not limited to: cobras, pit vipers, those green bamboo vipers that live in trees, and the Banded Krait--whose venom typically causes death within 2 hours. Pretty scary stuff huh? Well then hide your eyes because this next bit just gets worse.

That's right. This part of the gorge had poisonous insects and snakes working in tandem to terrify unsuspecting hikers. Luckily, we were able to bypass most of the danger. I say "most" because with all of the signage posted throughout the park, not once were we warned about the perils of riding the park's shuttle buses. There's nothing quite like careening around hairpin curves with a bus that, in all likelihood, is packed beyond capacity while people on scooters pass on all sides and the driver points out historically bad landslides and rock falls such as this one...

...which may not look like much in the picture but imagine staring hundreds of meters up to the clouds and hearing about how an entire cliff face just collapsed one day...this while the bus blows by at about 80 kilometers per hour...There were some moments when I couldn't even look.

If you look at the bottom left corner of this next photo, you'll see the reflector on the top of the "guardrail".  Just above the reflector, where the tree line meets the rocks, you can see the aforementioned guardrail again and I'll let you speculate as to how our bus made it from where this picture was taken to the other side of that curve, at high speed of course, without ending up a smoldering wreck at the bottom of the gorge.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this sign is. It's pretty obvious that there's a gigantic dropoff on the other side of the 14-inch high guardrail.

Our day began with a leisurely stroll along the river. We were hoping to hike to a cave where we could go swimming, but that part of the trail was shut down for maintenance. After hanging in and around the water for a while, we boarded a shuttle bus and made our way toward the top of the gorge, getting on and off a few times to hike around other parts of the park. 

It was bright at the bottom...

...with the sun reflecting off of the exposed marble.

The cliffs were full of funky rock patterns...

...and shapes...

...and colors.

The subtropical forest at the bottom of the canyon was my favorite part.  Take a look at this awesome flora...

..and fauna.

I watched the clouds envelop the subalpine conifer forests (nerd) at the top of the gorge. It's worth mentioning though because pictures hardly do this place any justice. The park's landscape--in its entirety--hosts coastal cliffs, subtropical forests, and subalpine conifers...

...as well as ice cream sandwiches made with pancakes...

...and this scene. Pretty dynamic place.

After a long day of hiking and nearly plummeting to our demise, we wandered around the sleepy town of Haulien in search of food. Naturally, this caught our attention:

As did this...

...and this.

Of the three items pictured above only one of them was able to escape my digestive system...or I escaped its...that's almost a sentence...