A 5 hour train ride was all the separated me from a
completely different world. I traded in my scooter helmet for a rafting helmet.
Instead of scooter exhaust, I smelled the ocean breeze.
Our train left at 6am on Saturday morning, so naturally I
went to bed after 1:30am. I’ll sleep on the train, right? Wrong! It was standing
room only, so I spent the whole ride leaning against a wall next to the
bathroom. Let me tell you, I was not a happy camper. On top of that, I got
motion sickness and spent most of the day with an upset stomach and headache.
After we checked into our hostel we took a bus to what we
thought was an Aquarium. Well, it actually ended up being a children’s
amusement park. But who cares, we still had fun riding mini rides. The log ride
was especially fun. Viking Voyager would be jealous of this ride. The coolest
part of the amusement park was that it was on the side of a mountain
overlooking the ocean. Pretty cool views.
Later that night we went out to eat. Bad food. Bad service.
Awesome Location. Right on the shore. Massive waves crushing the coast. I think
all teachers need to take monthly trips to the ocean. Rather than listening to
kids screaming for direction that you just gave 3 times, all you hear is water
hitting rocks. Loved it.
Early the next morning we bussed up into the mountains to a
rafting company. They went thru the whole safety talk, only it wasn’t the same
as back home. Instead of sitting properly, you straddle the raft. Then when you
hit rapids, you stop paddlin’ and duck down inside your raft. If you know
anything about rafting, you know this is insane. Oh and they suggest wearing
long sleeves and jeans. Our paddles were half the size normal paddles and we
had the most ridic life jackets and helmets.
But who cares, im in the mountains, in the middle of the
forest, on a clay colored river. Life is good. So the first half of the river
was spent splashing all the other rafts. We kept getting in front of the
pack(of probably 200 people) because it was much nice not having a bajillion
boats around us. It was easy to do because Taiwanese are lilly dippers. Im not
sure why they even gave them paddles. Another odd part was they didn’t give
each raft a guide. Instead they had motorized rafts that they would push the
boats. Annoying and dangerous. Not a fan!
After lunch is where it got really fun. So they hooked all of
the boats up and pulled them down the river. This is because the rapids were
much tuffer in this section and the Taiwanese don’t know how to raft. So after
one set of rapids, where the boat directly attached to us flipped and sent 8
startled people down a raging river, we decided to break loose. The guides
weren’t fans of this. But oh well.
We had 8 people in our raft. The 6 originals, and 2
Taiwanese that we saved. Only 2 of use had ever really been rafting before. The
river went from maybe an easy class 2 to a difficult class 3, with maybe a
class 4 rapid or two sprinkled in there. So, without a guide, and a lot of
first timers in the raft I was quite impressed with how we maneuvered down the
river. Apparently so were the other rafters.
As we wove our way back and forth between a few boulders we emerged
into a clearing. There awaited at least 100 rafters and guides all cheering for
us, doing synchronized claps. They were truly impressed that we navigated our
way down. From then on, we became celebs. Every boat tried to get near us,
splash us, take our picture. They all wanted to say “Ni hau”( hello) to the
white people. It was a whole lot of fun.
We got picked up just before our raft got to the ocean. From
there we took a bus up the mountains and along the coast. This coast looks just
like the Oregon
coast only less developed and bigger waves. Very pretty.
Then another 5 hour train ride back to Taichung . Went to bed. Woke up and it’s
Monday morning. Yippeee!! (sarcasm)
Here are a bunch of pictures and videos from the trip. I
haven’t looked thru to delete the bad ones so sorry if some of the pictures
suck. Also, some of the videos may or may not have us doing the gangnam style
dance. We may or may not be making a music video.
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| Bottom of a bubble tea. The bubbles are sick nasty. |
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| Hostel lobby |
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| Reppin COMO |
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| In Taiwan, when storage lockers go abandoned, the treasures within are put up for auction. |
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| I do what I want. Nobody tells me what to do. Whats that? Hold your bags while you ride the ride. Okay :-( |
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| Long line of rafters |
Quick sand. Real. Life. Quicksand
