Finally back to blogging after a short hiatus with a travel post on Taiwan!
Was at Taiwan two weeks back with my family and the weather there was incredibly hot. If you think Singapore ,where it is summer all year round, is hot, Taiwan’s summer is scorching. But weather aside, I did enjoy myself at Taiwan, one of the my favorite travel places!
Ok, I have only been to Taiwan twice but I’m already falling in love with the country. The locals there are just so friendly and helpful! You always feel welcome in their country! Not to mention that the food, accommodation and shopping is good and affordable.
Ok, enough of my nagging and bragging about the excellence of Taiwan. Today, I will blog about my 2 day trip at Hua Lien, my first stop for my 1 week holiday at Taiwan. Besides Hua Lien, I also traveled down to Tainan and back to Taipei. But for this blog, let’s start with Hau Lien, the home for Taroko National Park.
I took a TRA from Taipei to Hua Lien. The train ride took about 3 hours. There are faster trains such as the Tze Qiang one but be sure to book your tickets early online as they can be sold out pretty fast.
At Hua Lien, I engaged the service of a local guide. Not a tour guide exactly – more of a taxi driver who brings tourists around Taroko National Park. Pretty good service and reasonable priced. The tour is for the entire day.
First stop: I asked the guide to bring me to GongZheng Bao – pretty popular shop for xiao long bao (pork dumpling) and it was awesome!
Sorry, I don’t have a photo of the bao itself. But be sure to try when you are there!
The scenery along the way was spectacular.
And we stopped by Qing Shui Duan Ya (Clear Water Cliff). Pretty view as well.
Our next stop was the Shakadang Trail. The guide only gave us about 45 minutes to walk the trail. However, if you want to walk till the top/end, it will take about 1 and half hour. Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of time.
Some pictures on the scenery:
We then proceed to the ci mu qiao (mother’s bridge):
More scenery photos and the stopovers that we took photos of:
This was a bridge that we had to cross. Apparently, this bridge should not take the weight of more than 8 people at once. Sounds kinda dangerous, isn’t it?
One of the oldest bridges around.
That’s all for the Taroko National Park photos. For the national park, allocate about 6-8 hours should be enough. Be sure to rent either a tour guide or a cab for the entire for convenience. It will be difficult to get around the park as there are little public transport.
Our tour guide also brought us to the beach where it is surrounded by the Pacific ocean.
As a final stop, the tour guide brought us to this famous za da cong you bing (bomb onion biscuit) which was absolutely delicious. The “bomb” is really just an egg with a half-cook eye yolk which burst after biting into it – hence, the term bomb.
According to the guide, this is the best bomb onion biscuit you can find in the whole of Taiwan. Not sure how true is that but just looking at the queue, this is definitely one of the must-trys in Hua Lien!
That’s all for the Hua Lien post. Stay tuned to my next post on Tainan travelling places!
vitaselle 