Travelogue: Taiwan Day 5, Cingjing → Hualien (Taroko National Park) ☼

Back to continue about my Taiwan trip in May, I know I'm way backdated but I would definitely finish all 15 days ASAP, so I'm able to look back on my blog entries and recall all the stuff I've done in Taiwan!

This post is gonna be mostly photos because WE TOOK SO MANY!

So, we woke up bright and early the next morning, packed up our luggage and went to the common area to wait for the driver we've hired to arrive at Misty Villa at 10am. Tzu had previously booked a driver by reading forums and reviews online and he found a really reliable source to book a private cab from! (:

 It cost us 5000NT in total for the trip from Cingjing to Hualien in addition of the driver taking us through Taroko Gorge and HuHuanShan and giving us a sort of like tour. And he helped us to take lots of pictures as well! :D But the booking was rather expensive as it came up to about 100SGD per person since there was only the 2 of us and they charge by a standard rate for one cab. So it'll be quite worth it, if it was a group of friends or a family travelling together for this aspect for sure!

Here's a detailed list of the places within the Taroko National Park that we were brought around and other sightseeing destinations along the mountain route we took via the cab:

Chingjing - Wuling - Hehuanshan - Dayuling - Bilyu Sacred Tree - Tiansiang - Tunnel of Nine Turns - Swallow Grotto trail - Eternal Spring Shrine trail - Entrance of Taroko National Park - (Cingshuei Cliff) – Hualien Sunrise Hostel

Taroko National Park 

Wu Ling - Highest point on Taiwan accessible by public vehicles

It was kinda misty and foggy when we were up there, so we missed quite a view, sadly ): 

A word of caution to people considering this route: the driving can be quite nauseating as it is a rather winding path down from the mountainous regions, so it'll be good to have a packet of sour plums nearby or some motion sickness pills along with you in case you feel like vomiting. I experienced motion sickness, especially when going down the mountainous roads in the cab. So I just closed my eyes and just shut my mouth entirely for the whole journey till we reached the next stop and had some sour plums to ease the puking feeling. 

With the Bilyu Sacred Tree

We stopped by a family-run eatery along the way, where we had our lunch and a break from the road trip (:

Tzu looking extremely happy with his food heh

With some warm tea! (:

I was so glad to get some warm tea, because it was like rather cold up there and I was totally not prepped because I was only in my jeans and a cardigan for warmth hahaha. The tea leaves are picked by the owners and they  have this recipe of using peach-infused honey to sweeten the tea instead of sugar, which was sooooo good. 

Our driver! (:

The wooden cabin interior of the eatery 

Gorgeous mountains

Time for some jumpshots heh! :D 

Super-ugly-legs-jump-shot LOLLL

Yay success! (:

Rocks arranged 

Teehee, this bridge was rather shaky and the boyfriend who's afraid of heights was just a little bit scared :P 

♡

Construction workers lollll

Aftermath of a landslide

While we were there, there was apparently a landslide which occurred a few days earlier, so the Taiwan govt posted a restriction whereby vehicles were only allowed to pass out and in of Taroko Gorge at 3 timings per day as they were trying to reconstruct the road and remove the rocks from the landslide. So while we were queuing and waiting for the time where vehicles were allowed to pass, we actually caught a glimpse of some rocks which were still kinda tumbling downwards(!)

That's the end of our day trip through Taroko National Park (: The driver then drove us to our Minsu(Hualien Sunrise B&B), and we settled in with our luggage and freshened up to head out for dinner at Ziqiang Night Market! 

I'll continue about Ziqiang Night Market on my next post because we went there for both nights that we stayed in Hualien! (: Till the next ♡