Road Rage: Driving to Taroko Gorge!

We finally had a day off for a national holiday here in Taipei. It was 10-10, their National Day and we were off to a little place called Hualien for the weekend. We did not want to take the bus or the train, we have had enough of these modes of transport. What haven't we done for awhile??? Drive a car!! We couldn't wait for this long weekend since it is the only holiday until January since we started working. I got my International Drivers License and we rented a car for the weekend. We were all so excited...Well, except for Amy who decided Korea was a better option for her and took off there. I lie, she didn't really choose to go to Korea, her visa was expired and she was almost pushed out of the country...Haha! Anyways, that is how the trip began. Amy was not going to be there and the three of us were very sad that she would not be going with us (plus, she wanted to drive!). Then, on Friday night Victoria twisted her ankle and was unable to walk. One more thing that went wrong. She was strong and pulled through, limping her way around the whole weekend. We were very proud of her. We were ready for this trip and woke up early Saturday morning to pouring rain and the news that it was to rain all weekend. Great! It has been sunny here for weeks and the one weekend we have plans to go somewhere, it decides to rain! Just our luck!

So, we make our way to the car rental place (Vic hobbling)and pick up the car. We had a nice, white Toyota and then took off for the expressway. I was driving, God help us, but we made it onto the Expressway. We were just going the wrong way. We had to get off and turn around to get on the Northbound lane and that took us 45 minutes. We figured out from the first hour we were on the road that Taiwanese drivers generally suck. They have no courtesy and will cut you off from all directions even if you are in the right lanes. We also figured out that the signs all suck and don't make any sense. They will switch names each mile and lanes will disappear with no warning. It was all very frustrating, but we just took our time and tried our hardest to not get into or cause an accident. The one thing that we had against us is that if we did get lost, it would be very difficult to find someone that spoke English to give us directions outside of Taipei. I can't believe how different Taipei is from the rest of Taiwan. It's very rural in all of Taiwan and we were getting more stares anytime we got out of the car. We were pimping and had tints on the windows, so no one noticed us actually in the car. We would roll down the window sometimes to get a laugh at the expressions on some peoples' faces.

The drive was actually so beautiful even with the rain. We were driving down the east coast highway and right next to the Pacific Ocean. We were on sheer cliffs sometimes over 1000m high, over looking the crazy waves in the ocean. We mostly drove up and around mountains and had some spectacular views. We only wished for some sun! We finally made it to Hualien about 8 hours later. We only drove about 217km, but the roads were so slow from the mountains that it took that long to drive. But, we were in no hurry and stopped along the way to look around.

Hualien is a small city on the east coast. There really isn't much to do in Hualien except to see the beautiful Taroko Gorge. We navigated our way through the city and found our hotel and wandered/hobbled around. We found the 5 bars in the city by getting into a taxi and saying the Chinese word for beer, Peeju. They were amusing little bars with bands and lots of Taiwanese and basically no foreigners. The next day we drove to Taroko Gorge to find out that all the hiking trails were closed due to the typhoon from the previous week and the hot springs were closed as well. Again, just our luck! But, we had a wonderful drive through the gorge, stopping and looking at the breathtaking views. I actually drove through waterfalls as well as right next to them. We had to have quick reflexes to close the windows in a hurry because the water would come in the car. The roads were scary at times to drive on because there was one lane with a mountain cliff on one side and a sheer drop to the raging river on the other. Most drivers did not seem to mind that traffic was going both ways and would speed down the lane not knowing what was on the other side of the mountain...Stupid! We drove through caves and tunnels and the view was absolutely amazing. It's hard to explain what we was, but I will put some pictures up of course!

Our weekend was at close on Monday when we woke up to sunshine...Finally and on our last day when we have to drive back! Just our luck again! The drive back made us realize how wonderful it is not to have a car. Traffic was horrible and going about 20km/h up and around mountains. Again, the drivers were in such a hurry that they would pass other cars in the other lane not knowing if a car was actually coming the other way. It could have been a recipe for a disaster. Oh, I forgot to mention all the landslides that we were passing all weekend. Yeah, that made us relax a bit knowing that a big boulder and mud can fall on us at any given time! We decided to take another route home and drove through cities with horrible drivers and got very frustrated at Taiwan. We did however, finally make it back home and only getting a little lost on the way. Surprisingly, Taipei was easy to navigate and traffic was so calm compared to the places we came from. Shouldn't it be the other way around. We now appreciate that we live in the city, with all the restaurants and bars. We happily dropped the car off and got into a taxi to get home. No more cars for us unless we hire a driver!

I am so glad that I got out of Taipei City to see some of what Taiwan has to offer. It is a beautiful country and I hope to see more of it one day.