The first stop on my route east around Taiwan was Hualien, a couple of hours away from Taipei. The main attraction of this city is the nearby Taroko Gorge which sadly remains almost entirely closed to visitors due to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake in 2024. I had heard that Hualien was a bit of a ghost town and unfortunately the rain didn’t help the already strange vibe of the place. I imagine in better weather it’s lovely with its mountain backdrop but all I could see was low cloud.
The “Hualien Wow” hostel was really good, right opposite the train station and the bargain price of £10 included toast and peanut butter for breakfast. The hostel may have been Wow but Hualien was not. Even the well known night market was a washout – with no buses running that I could find, I walked the 30 mins each way in the rain (the hostels lend you umbrellas or you can just rent one on the street) only to buy some inedible tofu sticks and a pot of sweetcorn. Most of the food on the street markets is fried in some sort of cooking oil that smells rancid – the whiff of it makes me feel sick.
An extremely earnest woman at the bus station information stand told me there was not much point in visiting Taroko, especially in bad weather, as only the visitor centre was accessible. Instead she highly recommended an 8 hour day trip up and down the east coast. The next day it wasn’t raining so I decided to take her advice – it was either that or leave Hualien without doing anything, as there was actually nothing else to do. I arrived at the bus station (conveniently right opposite the train station) 15 minutes before one of the 3 departures of the day hoping I’d still get a seat, and was greeted enthusiastically by an attendant manning the desk. He gave me a ticket from a machine with the number 1 on it, which I thought was a little strange. At 9.30 on the dot a minibus bus pulled up and a little old man got off with a clipboard, wrote down my name and contact details on the first line of his sheet, ushered me into the first seat and off we went. I was the only passenger. It became apparent he didn’t speak any English when he spoke into a translator on his phone in a comedy monotone voice to tell me he would be my guide. It’s ok, I thought, I’ll be getting off at each of the 7 or 8 different stops and can do my own thing.
After about ten minutes his phone told me in its robot voice to get my camera ready as we were going past the world’s biggest building made of Lego (I think), followed by a mountain in the distance that he was very insistent I got a photo of. I obediently got my phone out but had no idea what I was meant to be capturing. What happened next was interesting. Some military tanks drove past with soldiers in camouflage gear standing on top arranged in a circle facing outward with their machine guns pointed right at us. It looked like a scene from a movie. There are some military bases around so I assumed (hoped) it was some sort of drill. I asked my guide who suddenly refused to talk, shaking his head and making a “no comment” sort of gesture. He obviously didn’t want a record of any mention of the military on his phone.
We arrived at the first stop, the world’s only fire station that is actually built like a fire hydrant. It’s cool, but you don’t need more than 5 mins to have a look and take a photo. Oh no, said my guide, the departure time is in 25 minutes – I must look at the temple next door, use the squat toilet, then we will take photos and “I’ll show you some wonderful illusions”. I then realised he was going to accompany me on every stop and I’d be participating in the world’s most ridiculous photoshoot. It was going to be a very long day.
Here is me infront of the fire station after he whipped out a hand held mirror and took a photo that gave the illusion of a water reflection. I feigned delight and said oh wow, so clever! He then took a panoramic with me running in a circle so there appeared to be two of me. “Do your parents know you have a twin in Taiwan?” he asked. Once was quite amusing. But at each stop in the drizzle, it got old very fast.
Today was the only day I didn’t bring any snacks. By the time we got to the fishing village for the lunch stop I was starving and it was now pouring down with rain. His instructions that “We will eat lunch at a local fish restaurant and the bus will depart in 90 minutes“ was not what I wanted to hear. I translated that I wanted vegetarian food and suddenly he spoke a few words of English – “OH MY GOD” he said slapping his head, suggesting I walk up the hill as there was a shop that “might sell bread”. The tiny shop at the top did not sell bread or any sort of snack I could identify and the missing-toothed shop owner seems to have no idea what I was asking for – but he did gesture further up the hill. Turns out at the very top there was a restaurant with “Welcome” written in English, several vegetable based options and a lovely lady and her little daughter greeted me with “would you like a beer?”. Yes please.
My guide was a stickler for the official “bus departure time”, which wasn’t for another ten mins so when I got back we had to stand in the rain looking at a mural of whales on the wall and playing a guessing game of which species each of them was and do I have whales in my country. After lunch he told me “This afternoon will not be fun. It is raining”. No kidding. If I wrote about every excruciating stop we made this would be a very long post. I will just mention the best (or worst) three:
1. The Nissan cave. We stopped at the Shimen recreation area where a long path leads to a stunning rocky coastline and a cave. But it was raining, the rocks were slippery and the sea looked ferocious. Ever so often the waves threatened to cover the rocks where we were standing. The guide was in full photographer mode by now. Try following instructions in Chinese to recreate specific poses when you have no reference as to what they are. It’s only when I saw a photo in the recreation area explaining that “The sea-facing opening is called the “March Cave” as it looks like a March (a Nissan car model)” that I realised I was supposed to be driving a car. After I fell over on the rocks trying to reach the next spot I was getting annoyed and told him no more photos. This just annoyed him and he told me crossly that “an American tourist got an amazing photo in that spot”. Good for him.
2. The cliff rescue. For someone who looked about 70 he leapt up the rocky slope to the top of the rocks. After looking over the edge I decided I really didn’t want his photo to be the last one I ever took. But getting down was harder than he made it look, so much so that I got stuck. To add to the ridiculousness of this entire day there was a family a bit lower down who sent their approximately 10 year old son up to fetch me. Unfortunately he appeared to be scared of heights. The poor boy started screaming (no exaggeration) as he tried to reach me while his parents laughed their heads off and took photos of us both. My only regret is that I didn’t video it. The guide just looked disgusted that I didn’t want a photo on the edge.
3. The bum shot. Best of all, or worst of all, at an otherwise average viewpoint he started positioning my arms and told me to hold my nose. Again I had no idea why until he showed me the photo. Like other tourists on his camera roll, I am supposed to be pointing at a mountain in the shape of a bottom and holding my nose at the smell. Is that even funny?
I couldn’t hide my annoyance at the end when he wanted me to do the mirror trick myself and I failed the test. He snatched it back and his phone shouted “No! Never drop the mirror!”. The final straw was when I was trying to enjoy my ginger tea whilst praying for the departure time to come around and he asked where my husband was and informed me that he was 66 and not married yet.
Hualien is probably best left until the Taroko Gorge reopens, or perhaps I missed something. Unfortunately I just wanted to get out of the place so I went straight to the train station to secure my train ticket down the coast to Taitun the next day.
Maz On The Road 