Jueisuei
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2005
1
16
39
Trip End
Ongoing
Jueisuei,
Taiwan
Saturday, April 9, 2005
I took a bus ride from Hualian to Jueisuei. After I got to town, I was surprised to discover that there were no hotels to be found. The Lonely Planet book did not have any information about accommodations in Jueisuei. There I was, with a heavy backpack on my back, walking up and down the street, looking for any sign of a hotel. I noticed something was wrong when I pointed to the Chinese word "hotel" in the guidebook and the locals just look at me confused.
After walking for about half an hour and speaking with several locals, I finally understood that there were no hotels in Jueisuei and the only option for travelers was to rent a room in a guesthouse.
Jueisuei Photo 1
I rented a room with a Chinese family for NT700. It turned out that the room was much nicer than some of the hotel rooms I stayed in. It even came with its own bathroom, TV, and AC. Nice.
River Rafting
My purpose for going to Jueisuei was to try out its famous river rafting trip down the Hsiukuluan River. The river is the site of the International White-Water Rafting Race, held annually in June, attracting competitors from all over the world.
The guesthouse family offered to book my rafting trip for NT650. Not knowing rather or not it was a fair price; I decided to cross check it with other trip operators. Thus, with a handy map of Jueisuei in hand, I walked 4km to the Rafting Tourist Association. It turned out to be a very pleasant walk. The road passed through many fields of sugar canes and flower beds. At one point as I walked up the top of a hill, I could see a panorama picture of lust green rice fields.
As it turned out, the other operators were more expensive (NT900) and seemed to cover the same route so I went with the guesthouse family for NT650
Jueisuei Photo 2
.On the day of the rafting trip, the driver pulled up with only two people in the van. They were a boyfriend/girlfriend couple from Taipei, Steven and Judy.
Because there were only three of us on the boat, the driver used the motor most of the time so we didn't get to row much. It wasn't what I expected. But I had a great time anyway chatting with Steven and Judy and admiring the beautiful scenery. Too bad we didn't have our cameras with us because the driver warned us earlier not to bring them with us. We shouldn't have listened to him because we discovered later that there were many occasions where we could have safely taken our pictures without getting our cameras wet.
There were two other boats on the river that day from different trip operators. One had a full six person crew. The other had only three. Every time they got near us, we would try to dowse each other with water using buckets in our boat or our paddles. It was great! It made me feel like a kid again.
