Today we were moving from the east side of the Taiwan island to the west side and, as we’ve seen before, the only way to get from one side of the island to the other is by going all the way around the coast to avoid the huge mountain range running down the spine of the country.
So, we took a train this morning from Hualien all the way back north to Taipei, then transferred onto another high speed rail train and went south for another two hours. Very uneventful, and very comfortable, but still five hours in a train is a long time. I might have had a nap.
Bit of a circus when we arrived in Taichung. We were meant to transfer from the train we had taken from Taipei onto a bus for the last leg to the country town of Puli, but it turned out there was no bus with the number I needed. After trying the helpful information centre girl at the station who couldn’t help, I found some wifi and did some research. Who knew that there would be two train stations called Taichung in the same city? I didn’t. And sod’s law of course – our bus was departing from the other one in about 15 minutes.
Isn’t Google Maps just a life saver? It showed me the bus route, and the closest stop to the station we were actually at, so we charged down the roads and over the crossings, arriving a full minute before the bus came past. So we made it.
Arrived in Puli about an hour later. Yesterday we went to Taroko Gorge which was on the eastern end of the Central Cross-Island Highway. If we’d kept driving, and weren’t afraid of heights, we would have eventually made it all the way across the mountains to the next decent town – Puli. Only 120km up and over, but expect the trip to take 4 hours. Needless to say the engineers who surveyed the train route went around.
Our Airbnb is right next door to the Puli market, and our rooftop overlooks the stalls. Breakfast tomorrow is going to be fresh.
The market from our rooftop.
Puli Airbnb