TWENTY-SIX: A Taiwanese camping experience

Camping season as a child meant pretending I was asleep at 4am so that my father would pick me up and carry me to the car. I would tuck my face into his chest so he couldn't see my smile.  He tucked my sister and I neatly into the back of our 1969 station wagon, which had been made into a luxurious travel bed. We would sleep on and off and the sun would wake us later, hundreds of kilometres closer to the Maritimes.

Special to Accent Magazine

Thanksgiving in Taroko

November 2003

While the rest of you back home were busy gorging yourselves on Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings, I was camping out at the bottom of Taroko Gorge. 

The Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend coincides with the Taiwan National Holiday, 10/10.  The best way to celebrate a holiday in Taipei City is to get the heck out of the city, as far as I’m concerned.

Unfortunately, on this particular weekend, many, many others had the same idea.

Taroko Gorge, renowned as  the island’s No. 1 tourist attraction, is a marble canyon featuring caves and waterfalls, a rushing river and even some hot springs. Suspension bridges and ornate temples perched on high cliffs complete the scene. It is a popular place for natives and foreigners alike, as the natural beauty is so breathtaking.

The highway running the 19 kilometre length of the gorge took from 1956 to 1960 to build and approximately 450 lives were lost in the process.  The national park continues to be quite a dangerous adventure today, if hikers are not prepared for the worst in weather conditions and the lack of civilization for quite a distance.

There is only one hotel in the gorge, The Grand Formosa, and it is very pricey.  I wouldn’t want to stay there even if they weren’t sold out on the October weekend. It is billed as a 5-star hotel but it isn’t anything special.  They do, however, have wonderful buffet meals that we took advantage of twice over our three-day stay in the gorge. 

The Catholic Hostel was also fully booked but again, it isn’t a place that I would want to stay, in a dorm room with several other snoring backpackers in squeaky metal bunk beds.  That isn’t exactly my idea of fun.

The campsites that we were told about were actual parking lots during the day, so we were walking right past them and didn’t recognize them!  I mean, really, imagine pitching your tent on a piece of concrete or asphalt!? But that is the way it is done in Taiwan.  Most campgrounds provide either a concrete or a timber slab for your dome tent to sit on. I’m assuming these people sleep on air mattresses.

On our hike up the mountain from where the taxi dropped us (at the last sign of civilization), we could find no level ground on which to pitch a tent. The only other flat ground was the shoulder of the road, which is often used by tour buses overtaking tractor-trailers, and not exactly safe.

So we hiked down the wet, slippery staircase that is built into the side of the gorge, at the Wenshan Hot Springs.  The perilous climb down into the ravine took about ten minutes with all of our camping gear on our backs, the trail winding through a dark cave and over a dodgy (my Australian friend’s word to describe anything sub-par) hanging footbridge. Once again, it was evident that safety is not a number one priority on the island of Taiwan. Despite a bilingual sign warning that only 5 people were allowed on the bridge at a time, they streamed over by the dozen. 

After a brief discussion, we decided that we would be safe from typhoons and even falling rocks from an earthquake if we pitched our tent under the overhanging cliff on the riverbank, around the bend from the hotsprings.  I liked this idea because it meant we would have a nice hot bath or a cool river to swim in any time we liked! There didn’t appear to be any danger of nighttime visits by wildlife, as the occasional bird or butterfly was the only animal life we saw in the gorge. The only other thing we had to worry about was the possibility of the river rising while we slept, sweeping us downstream and dashing us on the marble boulders at the rapids.

The gorge is relatively short and most of the landmarks are located right along the route so it is feasible to see everything over the course of one day.  Many Taiwanese people stay in their cars for the day trip, getting out (and blocking traffic) periodically to take pictures, dressed in their best clothes.

Some of these sightseers actually made it part-way up some of the hiking trails and they were quite an amusing sight to the rest of us, in their high heels and Sunday best, carrying umbrellas to protect their skin from the sun.

We were blessed with one of the most beautiful fair-weather weekends in months, and the night was lit with a full silvery moon.  Dozens of people took advantage of the warm weather and bright night to climb down into our ravine and soak in the hotsprings, late into the night. Entire families including babies, senior citizens and even the occasional family dog made the trip down the wet and slippery staircase, many without flashlights, food supplies or drinking water. This amazed me.

We managed to light a campfire (by cheating and using my bug spray as an igniter - shh!) and thought we might have some company but other than the occasional bather looking for a quiet place to go to the bathroom, we were left alone.

The routine seemed to be to soak in the natural hotspring tub until you can’t stand the heat anymore, then jump in the shallow river and soak yourself among the rocks, under the hot spring waterfall.  Oh yes, and you must yell at the top of your lungs while doing this.  That is essential to the Taiwanese, as they dearly love to make as much noise as possible.

This merry making was going on until we retired for the night, but the noise was muffled by the deafening sound of the rushing river.  We were treated to a rude awakening the following morning at 5:30, however, when some early morning swimmers decided to take the plunge right beside our tent.

There are many trails to hike in Taroko Gorge, but as our camping location at the bottom of the ravine made it necessary for us to hike ten minutes vertically and then another 3 km into town every time we wanted to eat, we decided that one trail would be enough for us. 

The Paiyang Waterfall Trail and Water Curtain Tunnel starts just 1 km outside of town, and it is probably the most popular hikers’ trail as the incline is very slight and the scenery is amazing.  I couldn’t imagine attempting the dark cave tunnels through the mountain without a flashlight, but many people were doing just that. At the end of each tunnel, a new scene awaited.  Masses of butterflies followed us in the sunshine, and I’m sure there were bats watching us from amongst the stalactites in the caves.

The last kilometre of the 3 km trail has been closed off for some time now, as it has flooded.  There is a big warning sign in both English and Chinese at its mouth, explaining the dangers of entering within. As we prepared to turn and head back down the mountainside, we noticed a small crowd gathering at the mouth to the cave.  A group of women, dressed in yellow rain slickers, were laying flowers and fruit in some sort of offering, at the barricade.  Then they proceeded to climb the barrier and wander into the knee-deep water of the cave, singing an eerie song as they linked arms. 

It was a very unique camping experience that we will not soon forget.

The Taroko weekend was one of the last really warm ones, as fall has officially arrived in Taiwan.  There are no fall colours in terms of changing leaves here, but many of the flowering shrubs go into bloom again this time of year. Our daily temperature averages around 23 degrees and it falls just below 20 at night.  Frequent rains and a strong wind combined with the absence of sunshine remind us of last winter, when the sun didn’t shine for months on end.

It’s time to turn off the air conditioner and get out the raincoat.

-30-