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Taiwan Tales Day 5 – The magnificent Taroko Gorge

One of my favourite things to do in Hualien on this grad trip in Taiwan was taking a day trip to see the magnificent Taroko Gorge. Liyu Lake was beautiful, and Yangmingshan back in Taipei was lovely as well, but I think very little can compare to the natural splendour that is the Taroko Gorge. Dare I say it, it’s Gorge-ous.

We took a day trip with the hostel – our guide was the hostel owner’s partner and even though he was a foreigner, he had lived in Taiwan for a few years and knew his stuff quite well, so it was an enjoyable tour. Our van entered from the East and started from the visitor centre made our way to the middle point Tianxiang and then turned around back to Hualien.

Here are some of my favourite sights from Taroko Gorge:

SHAKADANG TRAIL 砂卡礑步道

Our first stop was Shakadang trail, a short distance from the Visitors Centre after the beautiful Shakadang bridge. It is a path cut into the side of the cliff face that follows the Shakadang River, notable for its beautiful turquoise blue colour, even though the waters were really low when we were there. The actual trek is 3-4 hours long, though we only went a short way on it and popped down to the river banks to touch the water before turning back.

Shakadang actually is the aboriginal word for ‘molar’. I remember our guide telling us something about teeth being strewn around the path… eeks.

Hualien Taroko Shakadang Stone Lion
There were stone lions on both sides of the bridge and my favourite thing is that each lion had a unique face!
Hualien Taroko Shakadang River
See how low the waters are, but you can still see the unusual blue due to the minerals in the water. if you look on the right of the picture you can see the path that we walked as well
Hualien Taroko Shakadang Water
Up close, the water is tinged a little blue but very clear and very cold
Hualien Taroko Shakadang Path Me
A closer look at the pathway

CHANGCHUN SHRINE 長春祠

Our next stop was a place called Changchun shrine, or the Eternal Spring shrine. We stopped at the bridge and from there, you can take a pathway along the cliff that leads to a cute little temple nestled in the side of the side of the mountain. This shrine was built to commemorate the 226 people who died in the building of the highway that runs through Taroko Gorge in the ’50s.

My friends K and P make a quick dash to see the temple while the rest of us decided to just enjoy the view of the open valley and the gigantic pile of rocks from the bridge. We spotted another 2 temples above this shrine, each higher than the next, with some really skinny looking harrowing cliff paths to get to them.

Hualien Taroko Changchun Bridge
This bridge is actually red in a lot of the pictures I’ve seen – obviously it needed some paintwork! The path is to the right on the other end of this bridge
Hualien Taroko Changchun Shrine
The shrine – I love the little waterfalls. You can see the path and people to the left
Hualien Taroko Changchun Shrines
The bottom right shows the Changchun shrine, the top left shows the other shrine. How on earth do you get up there without it being kinda harrowing?

BULUOWAN 布洛灣

We drove up winding roads to Buluowan where we saw the native Taroko tribes do some demonstrations to showcase the artistry of their culture. I bought a little purse for my mum, thinking about how I probably would have been quite a failed woman if I had been born into that tribe because that was some intricate weaving.

Great views of the gorge and valley from up here – if you are there in the right season you get a whole sea of beautiful lilies in bloom. Also, there is an odd head statue there which no one really knows where it originated from, though I personally think its some ancient tribal territory marking at work. Funny story – one of my friends thought that ‘head hunting’ was a literal hunt for fallen heads that had detached from their bodies.

Hualien Taroko Buluowan Valley
Valley view from cloud topped mountains from Buluowan
Hualien Taroko Buluowan Stone Head
The stone head

YANZIKOU 燕子口

After Buluowan, our guide dropped us off at the Swallow Grotto or Yanzikou trail. This path was in the middle of some sort of valley that ran along the Liwu river – the sides of the grotto were so steep and this was a really narrow gorge, so you could see the little holes all over the rock face which is where the swallows nest. I loved how you could really see the weathering in the rocks.

This path used to be for vehicles, but they built a newer better road, and this was converted into a pedestrian only path. The path leads to a lookout point which is where our guide picked us up again.

Hualien Taroko Yanzikou Wall
The grotto is named for the flocks of swallows that live in those holes and fly through the canyon
Hualien Taroko Yanzikou Tunnel
Here’s how the tunnel looks. They left the road markings all in place
Hualien Taroko Yanzikou Sign Me
Yeah this is me trying to imitate the sign…
Hualien Taroko Yanzikou Railing
I love this fencing at the end but I don’t get why there are foxes/cats in it. The birds I understand though, but why the felines?

CIMU BRIDGE 慈母橋

The Cimu bridge and the nearby Cimu Pavilion were built by late Taiwanese presidents in honour of their mothers. The interesting thing about the marble rock here is the 2 distinct layers of black and white.

Hualien Taroko Cimu Bridge
The pavilion sits on a layer of black rock, while the marble on the river bed to the bottom left is white

TIANXIANG 天祥

Finally we reached Tianxiang, a little town that is the halfway point where daytrippers would turn around and head back, and those planning to travel longer would stop here overnight, before continuing their journey and finishing in Taichung.

We visited the Xiangde Temple which you have to cross a suspension bridge to get to. It is also home to the octagonal Tianfeng pagoda, a giant golden Bodhisattva statue (in my journal I wrote this as Bodhivista because that’s how that word looked like in my head *smacks self* ) and a white robed Guanyin whose alcove had a spot which was oddly quiet – no sound of the river or air around it.

Hualien Taroko Tianxiang Pagoda View
Tianxiang from above
Hualien Taroko Tianxiang Pagoda Guanyin
The Tianfeng pagoda which I climbed up for the view, and the Guanyin below
Hualien Taroko Tianxiang Pagoda Stairs
Love the weird octagonal shape of the pagoda’s stairs
Hualien Taroko Tianxiang Bodhisattva
The golden Bodhisattva
Hualien Taroko Tianxiang Unholies
My friends popped down to the river bed to do a little commemoration of our trip there – wonder how long those rocks stayed in formation

YUEwang PAVILION 岳王亭

This was a little stopover where we crossed a suspension bridge to get to the little pavilion. What is it about suspension bridges that make you feel like bouncing around on them? My poor friend P was rather nervous about the whole affair.

Hualien Taroko Yuefei Bridge
Whee!

JIUQUDONG Tunnel 九曲洞隧道

The highlight of the tour was visiting Jiuqudong, similar to the Swallow’s Grotto, this was once a vehicular road turned into pedestrian only, and offers great views of the gorge. It’s actually right near where we saw the Swallows Grotto earlier. Spectacular scenery all around and for the record, Jiu here doesn’t stand for 9, but the sound is similar to ‘for a long time’, symbolizing how long this tunnel will last.

Hualien Taroko Jiuqudong Tunnel
Entering the tunnel – it’s 1.2km long
Hualien Taroko Jiuqudong Sign Me
standing underneath the sign
Hualien Taroko Jiuqudong Valley
Beautiful view of the gorge and river
Hualien Taroko Jiuqudong Fish Rock
Look to the right of the water – can you see a very large rock formation that kinda looks like a fish swimming upwards?
Hualien Taroko Yanzikou Me Photographer
Taking a shot of the walk
Hualien Taroko Yanzikou Liwu Gorge
That’s what I was taking

We woke up really early in the morning for this tour to Taroko, so we are pretty knackered at the end of the day whn we reached our hostel in Hualien City and have to nap before we could function for dinner!

We walked to the Nanbin night market by the seaside where we grabbed some street food, and decide to buy some fireworks and take them down to the beach to play. Given that Singapore has long banned these fireworks, we are hilariously inept, and nearly take out some passers-by with our ineptitude. No wonder these things got banned they are pretty dangerous! Though perhaps if we had that proper childhood initiation, we might not have been such embarrassments.


Onward to Day 6 where we headed to Ruisui and failed to white water raft >>

Read the rest of the Taiwan Tales or see my other posts on things to do in Taiwan

Andrew Darwitan

Saturday 18th of October 2014

Hualien is absolutely my favorite part of Taiwan. Taroko is beyond gorgeous. And I love your diary-style blogging. =)

Jaclynn Seah

Sunday 19th of October 2014

Hi Andrew! Thanks for that - I do keep physical diaries on trips, though usually for blogs these days I write on major themes more than day by day accounts, but glad you like it :) I do want to go back to Hualien some day!