As we waited outside our hostel for our pickup... it... didn't come... 15 mins later and it... didn't come. I panicked a little, because the lady boss said 9am sharp the day before so was afraid that they might have left us out. At 9.30pm... wa laoz... *phew*, the minibus arrived. Half an hour late, and no apology... bottomline is, the ppl over there have no sense of punctuality.
Took us about an hour and a half bus ride to Taroko National Park because the driver cum tour guide had to pick 4 other groups up (our bus was totally packed) and had to make a trip down back to the visitor's centre to get some stuff. After passing us the itinerary, he finally made his way to the national park. We made our first pit stop at the main centre, which had... practically nothing much to see. Gave us half an hour break over there, while we checked out the area. All those time he would be doing a live commentary of the tour around the national park and would be nagging us to be punctual so that we don't overshoot the time... because even if there was such a threat of overshooting it, he will have to take out certain attraction. The tour was planned to be from 9am till 4pm when we would leave the national park and head back to our accomodations or the train station.
I for one, was super pissed off with the organisation of the tour. Which I shall further elaborate on later. Our first attraction stop was... The Yuan Zhu Ming's exhibition area. WOW. Ain't that exciting. He gave us half an hour over there... where we checked out this Ah Ma aboriginal lady quitting stuff in an enclosed mini hut, which also exhibited other souvenirs and equipment used by them. There was a small theatre there but both yq and I didn't bother sitting through the enrichment video, instead we explored the place a little more. Discovered there was a 2nd storey souvenir shop which also sold aboriginal stuff, which played songs sung by the little aboriginal children.
Not before long, we made our way to our next major destination. The swallow grotto. That was, personally, my first highlight of Taroko gorge. On one side we could hear the gentle gushing of the waters below us emitting from the gorge, and on the other, a small road leading to a series of caves. As we walked along the walkway, cool refreshing breeze beat upon our faces and the flying swallows simply ignored us. They flew into the caves to (I can only assume) spit their saliva into mini holes to build their nests or to feed their young, only to fly out again and hover around the cliffs of the gorge. That was one of the few times anyone could ever get that close to swallows which flew as near as 1metre away from you. We were given an hour to walk the entire stretch, unfortunately, that was less than enough time to really take a lesiure stroll and appreciate the beauty of the grandeur of the place.
As we hurried along to our next pickup stop, we passed by bridges and got to see more of the gorge in plain sight. It was indeed breathtaking. We even came across a green mini lake in the midst of the gorge and from a certain angle resembled a heart shape. Also came across this statue of this man... whom I didn't have the time to stop and read but assumed he must be some great man so I took a photo of him too.
Our next pit stop was Lyushui trail. Before alighting the minibus, our drive told us to look after one another. The first half of the trail was a boring uphill rocky path with mid-height cliffs on one side and dense vegetation on the other. After finally reaching the top, we followed a winding path through the forest and finally came upon a more interesting walkway... along the cliffs overseeing the gorge. The next exciting thing which we encountered was that we had to grope our way through this pitch dark cave, and it was seriously a blanket of blackness. Yq took the lead initially until we reach a point that visiblity became 0. I had to strech my hand in front of me to make sure I don't bang onto any rocks or "anyone" but the entire shebang didnt take more than 10 seconds.
After crossing a bridge on the "other" side of the cave, that was where we came across the highlight of the entire trail... as its name suggested, Lyushui, meaning green waters. It was... priceless. Definitely well worth it, as quoted from yq... but I had exclaimation marks floating above my head. tsk* tsk*
Our next stop was our lunch area, which I have no idea where it was or what it was called. There was a temple on top of a hill, 2 enomorous bridges and a gigantic statue of Guanyin on the mountains. Our group was seprarated for an hour because some of them had catered for lunch, but not us. We settled for 1 of the 3 food stalls lined together which had aggressive competition. Each spoke of how good their food was and we settled for the first stall we came across... much to our regret. We were lured in by this aunty who used gimicky speechcraft such as "shuai ge and mei nu". We went into the shop not because of that but because it looked more crowded and well received compared the other 2. There were indeed more people in that shop, but the food turned out to be below average tasting. We ordered some pork cutlet noodle and bamboo rice (rice cooked in this enclosed mini bamboo shoot). None was anything commendable... and they were pretty pricey as well.
After lunch, we headed towards the Wun Tian Siang Park, which was yet another upward climb. We were the only ones climbing the ulu-ated path, which was a little freaky yet exciting once again. Climbed up what seemd like a thousand steps up to a look out point (ok, I might have exaggerated a little) and the view up there was indeed one to remember. We saw a sign leading to a church and both of us decided to explore it. We were contemplating between the church or the far away temple as time was running short... but tried the church nonetheless since it was nearer to where we were. It was an old, yet well furnished church with a small front yard and we heard people around. Made our way down, and back to the bridges where we could witness the beauty of the gorge yet once again andthe furthest we went was across this yellow bridge to the front gate of the temple.
Unfortunately time didn't permit us to climb up to the temple. Also saw the pebble "artwork" below the bridge we were standing on, done up by some really free people. Does look like a fantastic place to propose though. ;p Our bus came to pick us up and dropped us at another highlight of the entire tour... Eternal Spring Shrine. 
After boarding our minibus, "thanks" to all the rushing and reprimanding by the driver, he said we were before schedule.. had time so he stopped us at... brace yourself... which wonderful site would he have brought us? We heard of this other place called Shalangkang (had crystal clear green waters) which was a 4.8km return stroll that Tonny, the cab driver from the previous day had told us about which he mentioned tours won't bring us there due to time constrain but he would have (and claimed how much the Singporean couple he showed us on his phone liked it and how we would have too). There were many other places... there was this 9 hole tunnel which was out of bounds because there was a recent case of falling boulders (which we did witness along our tour ride.. looked pretty bad) and I can only imagine the other tourist spots located around the national park itself... But he.. that son of a gun.. he brought us to a... newly opened souvenir shop!!! Some Ah Mei crap shop.
I was utterly disappointed with the organisation of the tour... the trip around the national park itself was good, not because of the company but because of the gorge itself, and the beauty which surrounds it. Though we did buy 3 boxes of their famous Moji (which had free sampling and tasted awesome), I couldn't forgive the driver. He rushed us, gave us pet talks, came late to fetch us, dilly dallied at the first half of the tour and when we had time, brought us to a souvenir shop... He was just another working personnel who just does the bare minimum of what was required of him.
Bought ice cream, but the wind was so strong, weather so humid that it melted and stained my blue t-shirt. We sat and chilled out at the shore, which was totally covered with small pebbles of all shapes and sizes instead of sand. It was.. gorgeous. The pebbles wouldn't stick to our butts and it was less "messy" than other beaches. A good "concept" indeed.
The tour ended and those in the minibus were dropped off one by one... a mid 30s couple who wore white that day, a family comprising of 3 ladies, 1 ah ma, 2 sons and 1 daughter ( I think), a mix couple (caucassian guy and asian lady), the 2 malaysian girls whom we met on the train to Hualien and coicindentally on the tour bus too and the mid 40s couple (the guy had a big dslr). The driver dropped all of them... and left us the last. Think he made a mistake and he asked us where we were going. Dropped us our hostel and despite the "advice" on the plain A5 size itinerary on tipping the driver... NO TIPS FOR THAT BUM.
We took a trip down to the train station to get our train tickets for the next day to Taipei because we assumed it would be easy to get a train down.. and eventually I didn't want to take that risk so decided to get them a day beforehand. On our way there, we got to witness the more intimate side of Hualien. Saw kids dismissing from school and how they had their own "traffic" system just outside of the school to direct vehicles (well... it makes safety comes first at school zones in singapore second in line.) They had more welfare and looked after the safety of the kids more in Hualien and we noticed each child wore the same uniforms and carried the same bags. In-ter-rest-ing. And cute. Passed by the local elementary school and high school, as well as the "student district", where the students hanged out at.
We finally made our way to a park, just a stone throw's away from the station and decided to buy some local and famous moji there to try out. They didn't allow free sampling so we settled to buying familiar flavors and bought only a few to try out first. Apparently the famous brand over there was a total rip off. Heard from the driver that they were doing very well because of their branding and publicity and I cannot help but second that. They were too sweet and tasted notches below what we taste at Ah Mei's.
Bought our train tickets and headed to the night market once more. Though the thought of the savoury and cheap xiao long baos at the town centre made us salivate, we gave it a miss as we didn't want to go through all the tedious waking again. So we made the choice of going to the night market over the town centre. We tried out some lousy noodle soup and the chui sian san chi "saliva drop 3 inches" guang chai ban (coffin bun). The coffin bun was well recieved by the both of us. They had a selection of meat which you could "bury" inside a thick slice of toasted butter bread and the combo came along with a cup of beverage (red tea or soy milk), all at a reasonably low price.
After filling our stomachs, and playing the basketball throw ins several times, we deicded to head back to our hostel as there wasn't much to do. Spoke to Penny at the counter and we arranged to have supper together, just that we needed to wait about 12am for her. We did and while waiting, we hanged around in the living room where Sunny the dog, would come up to me and tempt me to scratch his underside (now now, don't think twisted. not that area).
Both of us played wordplay, and after a while, we befriended this English guy who was also a backpacker who was watching the live telecast of one of the world cup matches. Think it was US vs. Slovenia? He joined us in the game and we further got to know that he was doing a project in Hualien about aborigines for his masters. The time finally came when Penny dropped off from work and she drove us and her friend, our newly acquainted friend by the name of Riva to this roadside stall selling sushi and california rolls (seems taiwanese love california rolls aaaa llottt!!). We had a very nice and heartfelt conversations with them and carried on our "destiny" and "love" conversations at the town centre were we had xiao long bao once again (its 24 hours so you can go there anytime of the day.
The girls were very cute, and yq was even more so when she sounded like a big sister giving them hope about love and finding that someone special eventually. Made me fell in love with her all over again and I felt extremely appreciated. As it was already very late, we didn't chat for long, but we did exchange emails and contacts because they had plans to make a trip down to Singapore for their grad trip and I promised them that we would be more than glad to bring them around.
Went back to the hostel, took a dreaded cold sprinkle bath before turning in and geared ourselves up for our last but stop, Taipei.
To sum it up:
Taroko National Park Ratings: 4/5 (a must-go for the scenic beauty and its interesting sites)
- Not advisable to go for the guided tour because it didn't feel that worth it and I didn't like the restrain on time
- Can try asking for a cab driver to bring you around, what was quoted for us was $2,000NT per car so don't get yourself ripped off over there
- Shalangkang looks well worth it to spend a good 2 hours there, swallow grotte is a must go, so is eternal spring shrine and the pebble beach (which is out of the national park)
- The lyshui trail is 50/50, you can give it a miss if you don't have much time but still worth a trip down if you do, same for the 2 bridges and the temple (our lunch area)
- Pack your own lunch and prepare lots of water because the food is expensive and sucks over there
- There's not much to do in Hualien, so if you want, you can do what the malaysian girls did - they took the package tour and in the evening, took a train to someone else, so you won't get to lose your time at night over there
- Hualien is indeed famous for their moji but you shouldn't buy them from the most accessible and available brand (can't remember their shop name); Ah mei's moji's tasted real good (not that cheap though)
- Toilets are fairly accessible, can be found at all major spots, but bins are on the rarity
- Receieved great hospitality over there and everywhere was very friendly
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