Pingxi Old Rail Line: Hiking the Forgotten Land

Peaks among the jungle..

Standing atop peaks among the jungle...

PingXi is a quaint little, now touristy-ish, village to the south-east of Taipei. About 30 minutes by regular train from Taipei station itself, you land in the world of RuiFang...a nice little town in its own right. From here, departing the regular train and hopping on a local train that will take you on a side-branch of the main rail line up and into the mountains. A slow chug uphill...a four car train ponders the endlessness of time as it meanders its way through moss covered rail lines and thick walls of jungle. Finally you arrive in Pingxi. Perhaps the fourth or fifth stop on this line, there is one more after, then nothing. Its almost the end of the line.




A forgotten place in terms of the momentum of development, but traveled enough that the trains are regular and the choices of things to do there momentous. Momentous, that is, if you like to hike. Here the Taiwan Mountain Climbing Association has taken the rugged choice to make multiple un-scalable peaks...scalable. In a country where everything is too dangerous and trails are destined to be closed even before they are built because people are afraid of the danger, we came across a network of trails that unleash before you rugged spires to climb with ropes, cables, chains and overall the most elaborate set of devices. Danger takes centre stage. But, not the "well, you might die" danger, more of a "be careful and you will be fine, mess up and .....well, you might.....". Anyway, its a supremely amazing place, and a place we had never even heard about before. So, imagine our surprise when we get there and the trails are awesome, we are climbing pitoned spires of rock to heights that give us a birds eye view of the jungle below. Simply amazing.

Crystal scaling the aluminum ladders that make the peak possible.

We killed a good 6 hours hiking the network of trails, made it to 6 separate peaks and still, after perusing the trail map once we reached civilization again, realized that we had to plan at least two more 6 hour days to see the rest of it. This is a place we will return to.

Pingxi is famous for a few reasons, most predominantly because it is home to the annual Lantern Festival which is a celebration held one month after lunar new year (so....early February-ish). Thousands of people come here to buy/make traditional lanterns (about the size of a school desk in height and width). The tradition is to write a wish on them...a wish for you, the world, a memorable declaration for the future....and to light the flame and watch it fly off to the heavens and reach the eyes of those who celestially make choices for our world...

Pingxi village from the top of the first spire. Nestled in the moutains south of Taipei it is a somewhat forgotten world within a most dramatic landscape...and has absolutely stunning hiking trails!

...or, to splash a bit of reality on that....they light the flame and the lanterns fly off to the sky until, by laws of physics, they can go no higher and the begin to travel longitudinally, and land somewhere in the forest. Remember that they are on fire. This is both a heavy tourist time, but also a heavy fire brigade time. There is work to be done when the forest catches fire! However, remember that the 'rain' part of the rain forest is quite precise, and there is never really a dry patch of tinder to light enabling a massive burn. Small ones, though, do apparently get their start in many places.

Snacking on freshly steamed nuts (I know, not actually nuts...) and then hitting up a noodle shop for a post dinner, ost snack dinner-snack. Some veggies and a beer, while a stray cleans up the rest of the meal from other guests after they leave.

For us, this weekend all started innocently enough - me, google and the phrase "Taipei day hikes". Tired of the same places, we were driven to see new faces of Taiwan. It ended with us taking a train to RuiFang, crashing in a cheap cheap hotel with huge rooms, drinking a pint with a dog and a noodle shop snack, and waking in the driving rain in a town that was all new to us. Coffee....dress....porridge.....more coffee.....to the train. The reason we stayed in RuiFang was simply for proximity; arriving from the east it makes no sense to go all the way to Taipei. We stopped in RuiFang specifically because this is where the smaller local train starts its journey into the mountains.

Crystal at the Ruifang station, waiting for our mountain train. On the right is Pingxi station...quite a stark difference!

Fresh (supposedly) meat hanging and waiting for the throngs of eager consumers on the left, while a bird awaits its own bit of fresh meat from the river below.

So...where were we...ah yes, coffee. After coffee (mmmmm......) we boarded the train and watched, as the sky poured an ocean of water on us, the weaving rail line takes us to the mountains. Once in Pingxi (Ping-She) we got some gloves (old work gloves, once thought to be a ridiculous necessity for hiking but after dealing with the cables and ropes we were certainly glad to have them!) and hit the trail. The first 30-40 minutes or so is straight up on stairs and through a patchy network of road-trail-road montages.

Pingxi station fom the other side of the tracks, tucked nicely into the vegetation and rocks. Crystal, on the right, taking early steps on the first peak.

Then ... the base! From one junction there are three spires to ascend. Scrambling on wet rock, savaged by driving rain, we made our way up and down each in turn. A awesome, amazing amount of effort went into setting up these routes, and I applaud every moment of effort that the Taiwanese have put into it. Without proper rock climbing gear all of this would have been impossible to climb.

Hike, hike hike....climb, climb, climb....wet, wet, wet....happy, happy, happy...

Climbing up and up and up...

The view from the top of the third peak...in the distance you can see the first spire and the surrounding landscape of Taipei County. Not the usual mental image of Taipei, I presume!

Crystal climbing up on the left, the view down on the right.

More views from along the trail; left is the view down and the right is a section that skirted another peak, circling the base and then climbing in similarly steep fashion.

Lunch was perhaps the most ominous moment of the day for, despite the amazing jungle around us, the epic peaks we were standing upon and the misty mountain scape before us, we were able to sit down (on one of the peaks) and have lunch while the only sound in the background was the loud and eerie muntjack (barking deer). A critter the size of a large fox perhaps, this deer has a call like a monkey/dog. So....so weird. We have yet to get a picture of them, but we have seen many in the woods scampering away with only their white bum dancing through the green woods as evidence of their existence. It was a calm, memorable moment to be eating our bread and carrots with a muntjack off in the jungle.

A view, and a critter.

Lunch! Homemade buns, raisins and carrots. Nothing beat a trail lunch!

The day ended bravely, with us tramping our way back to the train station after a day in the wet, tropical-orange muddy soil. Dirty, wet, tired and elated. We grabbed a coffee, another coffee and waited for the train back. Slept for this ride....so tired!

Taipei. Hostel. Whip off muddy clothes, whip on dry clothes (although my "dry" clothes were just as wet as my "wet" clothes, just much less orange and muddy!). Dinner. Sleep.

A bridge in the making. Taiwan is replete with supension bridges and to see one inthe making was quite a different view compared to the regular, and rather aged, wooden ones we see along most hiking trails.

In the morning we set off for part 2 of our weekend, a small yet popular village of Wulai. This place is famous for its traditional culture (Atayal People) and the verdant hot springs that are piped into hotels, restaurants and can be found in the river bed itself in many places. Also a massive waterfall. And a gondola that takes you over the massive waterfall. All in all, pretty spectacular place to spend a slow day. However, we were looking for a fast day. Apparently, somewhere in them hills are trails, a huge network of hiking trails that would make a Canadian weep. So we were told. But...after a day of looking we found no such trails. Research, and return! We will find them! We spent the beautiful day walking around, checking out the food stalls and caught a few amazing shots of the river valley and the misty jungle that surrounded us.

Prayer fires; bloody rediculous waste of paper and source of air pollution (imagine everybody in the country, once a month (almost) burning fires outside their homes and shops for imaginary sky-faries to bless them. Bah!

The view along the Wulai river, where you cnn see (if you click on it) myriad pipes sendint hot spring water from the south side of the river to the north where the majority of hot spring hotels and pools are.

Lunch on the left (not for us...), and streets packed with people selling and buying...mostly fod. The man in front of Crystal in this picture eventually won us over and we were served a traditional Atayal (one tribe of fifteen on the island) meal of bamboo, papaya, tofu and banana rice. Mmmmmmm...banana rice......

These are pretty self explanatory - bananas for sale, and on the right a typical noodle/rice shop where you can go and point at a bunch of veggies and order what you want. Mix and match. Toss in some rice and a dash of a local specialty and you have yourself a Taiwanese meal to die for!

Along the streets of Wulai there were not only food stalls trying to feed you lunch, there were also places to buy raw produce and supplies. Here, on the left, is a wide sleection of mushrooms and on the right is a more snack oriented preserved egg in a vacuum sealed bag or deep fried ostrich eggs. For some reason, we passed on both the egg varieties.

Ok, ok...the English is bad. Forget about that. All English signs in Taiwan are bad. Its the intended meaning that is worse. I love Taiwan, with all my heart. Its a naturalists playground, an oceanic and mountianous adventure all wrapped up in a biodiversity hotspot and a splash of weird and wonderful cultures and a pretty intense an cool language. But...the people really dont like to take risks. A little rain turns them all to prissy children. So, this sign is put up to warn people not to get their clothes dirty. Taiwan needs to be reunited with its natural side...a culture of urban-centric peculiarities pervades here.

Crystal walking along the swinging bridge that was set up for people like us, tourists, but that represented actual games and tests of worthiness of the past times in the Atayal culture. Actually quite tough to walk across!

Back to Taipei, home. We are already planning our next jaunt in the same area...now we know how to get there, where to go, what to look for....so we can jump right into the juicy mountains and see more crazy biology, geology and history (huge old coal mining area with remnants of old rail lines sitting in a timeless daze in the forest - moss covered and forgotten bridges, houses and mine shafts that tell of a time long past). Taiwan not only has epic nature, but epic epic history that makes the journey of learning about this place exhilarating and endless....

Listen carefully...aside from the wind you can hear the elusive Muntjack, or Barking Deer, off in the misty distance of the forest. Listen carefully!!

Concrete turns to Jello...

A hefty and respectable 5.0 earthquake smack dab in the middle of our city...

When the plates start shunting their way past each other, its like walking on Jello. Or, so it seems. Never quite got around to walking on a classroom-sized mat of Jello....but one can assume...

Bike Trip: Pedalling the Southern Highway (and a bit of off roading)

A rainy day on our bikes....not just rain, but wind driven bullets of liquid cold and pain. Dripping with sweat and the bucket loads of precipitation falling, we hustled about the southern part of the country. New roads, untouched by our treads thus far.

What was planned to be a two day camping trip turned, rather quickly, into a hostel and a "where can we dry our things out" trip. The Taiwanese winter chill is upon us, and when it is damp and cold....

Or original plan was to take our bikes on the train south to the village of Dawu. There, we wanted to follow the road south, depart from the main highway that cuts through the mountains and follow what was, on the map, a dotted line along the coast and enter a grassland area of the southern tip. However...

The dotted line turned out to be less of a road, less of a passage to the southern grasslands, and more of a dirt track to a forgotten house (although there were a lot of dogs there, so there must have been people, somewhere). It became a road to nowhere....kind of like listening to Glenn Beck. But I digress.....

The road went as far as a stream, wide and menacing, and went no further. The rest of the coast was impenetrable. The road ended. The torrent continued...

Sunday morning we awoke to stunning clarity and sunshine....a much better day for riding!

This then, is the tale of how it all worked out.

Friday night to Taitung. Sleep. Wake, train south. Rain, rain rain.

Another train, from Taitung to Dawu. The further south we got (where the rain is usually less) the heavier it got. Hmm. South, south, south. Rain, rain, rain. Drizzle at times, pouring at others. When we finally arrived in Dawu it was wet, there was a chill in the air but we were pumped to get on the road and explore some new kilometres of this adopted home of ours.

Us getting breakfast early saturday morning as the rain pounded the outside world; us waiting to get our bikes (for the first time!!) on to the train.

Hitting the road we passed the village itself, kept going until we got to the harbour a mere few km's away. Spotting a neat looking place, we puled over and took our seat. Ordered food, made it through a conversation with a gentleman with his family who was ever interested in our trip, us and talking about just about anything that came across his mind, and ate our grub. Full - very full - we got on our way again.

Perusing the choices of food to eat at the lunchtime harbour stop. So easy when you can just point!

The rain continued, but we pushed on with an eager cadence - south south south!

The road yet to be traveled.

We finally made it to the turn off, and were instantly turned around by a couple of fellows who demanded that we turn around - "no road". Ok, landslide. Ok....there was another access to this road a km back. Try that route....a truck slowed to tell us, again, that we could not continue..."no road, no road".

Whatever. I did the impressive thing that I always do when people in Taiwan tell me the road ahead is dangerous - I tell them "I know, I just want to take a picture". They accept that we will do just that, and not try to carry our bikes across a landslide or along a cliff. While we, fruitfully, do just that.

This time though, the road truly ended! There was no going further, it just ended. It turned from a main highway, to a small road, to a dirt road, to a rocky-dirt path, to a dry river bed to a grassy patch to nothing. Nothing. The End.

Turn around.

Making our way along the secrondary road that abruptly ended at a stream. Crystal, on the right, meanders her way back across.

So, we hit up the main road again and started south-west along this road and climbed up and up through the mountains for a couple of hours. Eventually we realized with the cold, our drenched bodies and stuff, the lack of camping places....we realized that we were destined to double back to the village of Dawu. Which is ok...we like Dawu. Calm, dusty little place that welcomes us. So, we let ourselves be welcomed.

The next morning we awoke to:

The sunday view ... so much different than those of Saturday! This is why we came....this is why we stay...

Sunshine!

Our original goal was to take the train straight home from Dawu to Hualien, the previous day being the main goal of our trip. However, we could not. Just could not. It was too perfect out.

So, instead of a 1.5km ride to the train station and a 4 hour train ride back to Hualien, we decided to bike.

Making our way back home, north along Hwy 11. All new ground.

Worthy of a post itself, this is a tortured reminder of the power of Typhoons here. Two years ago Taiwan was assaulted with a major typhoon, turning this entire village into a washed out riverbed. The wind was not to bad, but the rain immense. It simply washed away the majority of the town of Taimali. What is left is a patchy network of mess....still. Collecting up a mass of wood that the river spewed forth, and that which washed up on shore from places unknown, many places look like this one. Half clean-up obsession, half job. These can be sanded, cut, and sold to make furniture and various household items. Fetch a good price, too.

Stopping to change our tickets and embarking in a conversation with a ticket seller that took too many turns to explain, we set out to Taitung, some 70 curvy, hilly kilometers to the north.

About 7 hours later we pulled into Taitung, and made it on the last train that would take us to Hualien (Hualien is another 170km north of Taitung....not possible!!)

The train station kiosk where we were able to, after a good 45 minutes of bartering with the facts, change our tickets and get our money back for the Dawu-Taitung leg that we were now biking. Seems we know the rules with bikes and trains better than the employees!

Us just before our lunch break of homemade buns and diced veggies, on the left. On the right, the remains of humanities obsession with disposable wares. This is, unfortunately, a reality along most of the coast. Most does not come from Taiwan exclusively, but Taiwan and Asia all together certainly fall into the group of throw-away bsessed. Everything is in a plastic bag, nothing is reuseable and nobody seems to realize the problem. And here is where it ends up.

Peering out over the trees to the horizon...somehwere over there is Canada.

Along the way home we stumbled upon a training operation for Taiwans Search and Rescue squad. Today they were doing rope training and how to rescue fallen hikers, etc. Interesting to watch how they handle themselves on the ropes...pretty much the same as we do.

This was a stretch of road that we had dreamed of biking before, but just never really planned out. But, as our proper plans kinda failed, this dream became a reality. Funny how that happens.

To half marathons equals a full marathon, right?

....well, not exactly perhaps! But, we, having just dusted off our shoes and our gear from last weekends 21km running fest in Taroko, decided to toss ourselves into another. South this time, to Taitung County.

Another 21km spent with people running in outfits of such typical grandious innanity that only Taiwanese people can think up - last time many carried backpaks....nothing streamlined and athletic, padded or even used....but rather bulky canvas Doraemon kitchy things. And then there was the lady in a dress....not a running skirt or an athletic get-up that looked like she could wear it either running or to work, but a bonified dress. Then there was the guy that ran carrying....no joke....a pack of smokes. Its a different crowd, these Taiwanese runners.

Regardless, the bulk of the crowd are super into it, and we are pumped to jump back into the fray. Below is the proof:

...later.

Half Marathon

This weekend our sights were only set on the Taroko Gorge Marathon. We signed up for the half marathon - 21 km through one of the prettiest places in the Country. The prettiest place in the country.

Aside from the months of training that need no explanation (we, um, ran a lot) the only story here is the day of the race. The schedule was supposed to be this:

Wake @ 3:45am, Take Train @ 4:35am, Sign in @ 5:30am, Store stuff/prepare/stretch until 6:30am, Race @ 7:00am

We, however, did not wake up until 5:45am.

I guess two alarms were not enough...next race, four alarms!

So, whipping ourselves out of bed and cramming cereal and coffee down our throats we rushed around the apartment gathering our things, got dressed and lunged down the stairs to the street below. Totally empty, as it should be at 6am on a saturday morning I guess.

Think. Think. We missed the train....totally missed it. We could scooter there....that would take about 45 minutes and leave us chilled and cramped and not in the mood for a good race. Taxi. Taxi. Get a taxi. Our only hope...our only choice.

We paced around in that momentary stasis of inaction that follows a situation like this - where do we get a freaking taxi on an empty street at this time of day?

Hotel....

Running down the street to the (luckily, close by) WuZhou hotel we burst through the doors and asked the clerk to call us a taxi. Perfect. Done. Calm. We walked to the street, paced around some more and waited for loving yellow car to take us north to Taroko Gorge.

Moments later it arrived, we got in and were able, finally, to breath, relax and take in the unpolished beginning to the day. Half an hour later, a thermos of coffee and two pairs of re-laced shoes later we arrived at the shuttle bus stop. This was good...people were still getting the shuttle from the Taroko train station to the race starting point (National Park HQ). So, we payed our $30 cab fare (ouch!!) and tossed our things, and ourselves, on the shuttle. What felt like an eternity, but was really only 5 minutes or so later, we were let off at a bustling HQ. Register, store our stuff, rush to the bathroom and......wait. Everybody, it seemed, had waited until this moment to use the facilities and while the girls line was moving like a well-oiled machine, the male line was tinkering along like rusted garden tool. It........took.......FOREVER!!

Crystal was able to get to the race on time, while I, still in line as the starting bell sounded, started the race 8 minutes late (at 10 minutes late they make you forfeit...so, I was literally 2 minutes away from defeat!). I started alone.....paced myself and caught up with the mass by the 1km mark or so. After that....we ran.

It does no good to go into the details of the race - it was beautiful, perfect weather and we ran a really good race. Crystal finished 3rd in her class, which was awesome. A nice prize and a certificate to remind her always!

We are now looking forward....one in November and one in June. Maybe.