Branching out into the Wonderful Worlds of Northern Taiwan
This is it! I’m back in the United States. I can’t believe it. In fact, I’m even on my next adventure- a long weekend in the Big Apple to visit a smorgasboard of friends who have moved here. But it the meantime, I’m going to be chugging out these blog posts, before I forget all of the crazy memories that the trip has given me. You can read my other posts here.
Originally, I was going to write this post about our time in Jiufen, an incredibly picturesque mountain town that is quite popular to visit from Taipei. And then I remembered all of our fun trips on the Mountain-bound Pingxi line, that is also in that part of the country. And then, I remembered that we still had day trips from Taipei, including our first visit up that same Pingxi Line. Needless to say, Taiwan was packed with fun excursions.
Yehliu Geopark
Our first day trip revolved around Yehliu Geopark and Sandiaoling Waterfall trail, and both were Northeast of Taipei. Unlike in America, where nature is almost exclusively available to those who own cars (could you imagine going to the Appalachian Mountains without one? A shame that car-less folks do not have the same opportunities to soak in nature), Yehliu Geopark is connected to Taipei by a 4-times-an-hour bus. With two of our friends from the hostel (hi Michel and Kobi) we snagged the bus for the 70 minute journey.
From there, we got dropped off at a fishy-smelling, dated seafood town of Yehliu, and made our way to the Geopark. This park’s claim to fame consists of eroded rock faces adjacent to the ocean’s breaking waves. Parts of the park feels akin to Mars, and the most famous rock appears to be modeled after Queen Elizabeth I (it’s official name is “Queen’s Head”, and has taken approximately 4,000 years to form, and is expected to collapse in the coming years). The park, buzzing with tourists, was a fun excursion overall. I haven’t seen much geography like it, and I always enjoy going to places that aren’t dominated by westerners — it appeared to be a mostly Taiwanese (or perhaps Chinese) attraction.
Sandiaoling Waterfall Trail
Our first of 4 trips up the Pingxi Line started subsequent to our trip to Yehliu Geopark. Though it was getting on later on in the afternoon, we hopped on a train and headed to the stop, which turned out to be a complete delight. The station was a dictionary definition of serene. It was carved partially out of a tunnel, rain-forested mountains abounded on every side. A few houses dotted the landscape as dusk began to set it’s night-long grasp on the day. Had Studio Ghibli had a scene from one of their movies inspired from the station, I would not be surprised in the slightest.
We walked along the tracks into the tiniest enclave of houses (a village makes it sound bigger than it is), and found the signage for the waterfalls. However, as we made our way, one of the residents told us not to go — we soon compromised that we would be up and back in 45 minutes. While Sandiaoling Waterfall trail has 3 waterfalls in total, we were still able to see the first, a gentle up-hill walk of just over a kilometer. It was quite pretty (if a bit far away and understated), but it was also such a day full of pleasantries that it fit the vibe quite well. We then headed back to Taipei at night, soaking in the flickering and peaceful nighttime city lights.
Wulai
A few days later, we headed to Wulai, which is famous for it’s busy market street and mecca of hot springs. It’s a popular day trip from Taipei, and having a 4-times-hourly bus line certainly helps the appeal. Another stunning wind through the jungle mountains was a treat, and we soon made it to Wulai. We first headed up to the funicular, a fun-sized 1km train line that heads to a nearby waterfall with neighboring tourist shops,Taiwanese sausage vendors, and hip cafes. Perhaps it hadn’t rained much recently, but the waterfall was short of spectacular. It was tall, and water indeed fell, but nothing crazy about it. I think my time in Sandiaoling had a better waterfall representation.
Shortly after, we got a scallion pancake from one of the vendors after taking the funicular back to the main market street. We then found out by chance that much of the Wulai magic had left. It turns out that so many hotels had siphoned off hot spring water for their hotels that the free, public hot springs pools had dried up. The magic found itself behind a paywall. Man. Oh well.
Jiufen
This last one was not a day trip, but rather our first stop around the island from Taipei. Jiufen is one of Taiwan’s most popular tourist attractions, a red Chinese lantern-lit mountain town full of charm, winding roads, and spectacular views of hills rolling out into the sea. We’ve seen many tourist attractions that have both lived up to and not lived up to the hype, but I would say Jiufen is a must for any traveler in the area.
The one asterisk to that is it rained about 95% of our four nights there. It rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. (thankfully, it was on the warm side). It was great for our lazy days, and a nuisance for our adventure days. We also stayed in an inn run by a Taiwanese family, but our conversations were run start to finish through a handheld speech translator that was surprisingly effective. We would speak one language into it, and a pretty-decently-translated sentence in the other would pop right out. I’m guessing the technology is effective since the US and China are such big trading partners and its essential for business.
We were not able to stay a second night, so after finding out (in the rain) that several places were sold out, the inn hosts invited us to their second inn a short drive away. It was quite strange the next morning getting woken up by the speech translator’s muffled “breakfast is here” through the door, but they were wonderful and left us a picnic basket of food at the door.
Beyond those silly misadventures, Jiufen was quite charming but there was not a wealth of things to do in the city itself (most of it can be walked through in an hour or two). The best mental image I bring from Jiufen is those red Chinese lanterns swaying in the soft nighttime wind, illuminating a rain-glossed back alley of concrete and storefronts. It brought a visual, comforting warmth in the rainiest time on our trip.
Next Stop: Other parts of the Pingxi Line!
