Route: Rueisuei ( No.9 road ) - Siouguluan river white water rafting ( near parallel country road No.64 ) - Coastal road No.11 - Road No.64 by car - Rueisuei - Fuli
Total distance: 25 km river rafting
Now this will be a different way of transportation, not using our legs, but the arms mainly: white water rafting.
Our landlady had it all arranged: 600 TWD/person ( high season 800 TWD ) for rafting and 150 TWD to get back to Rueisuei by transporter. The landlord brings us to the starting point, about 2 km strait down the road from the train station - you can't miss it. Near the railway station are also several rafting shops where you can book a tour.
The starting point is a modern and big center and has also a camping place. We get our gear of helmet and safety vest and a paddle. You better have own light sport shoes or river hiking shoes as one foot will dangle in the water. Please also think of sunblock lotio and sunglasses. After viewing a short safety video off it goes at about 10:00am. 6 inflatable rubber boats with 8 persons inside each. We join a mixed group of colleagues on a company outing by a small firm.[ Sorry no pictures as I am afraid the hundreds of photos taken already may be damaged in the water as well as the camera ]. Some accompaning boats with motor are helping a bit. Basically the whole tour is pretty easy and all major obstacles have been blown out of the way. At the begining there is a bit confusion how to paddle and steer the boat - we want or have to go right and everyone paddles foreward - that does not work, does not get us anywhere and we get stuck in shallow water. One of the motor boats has to push us free - that's what they are there for. To make up some time and catch up with the other boats we get pulled hundret meters - hui ... what a speed. The other main fun is to have water battles, meaning splashing water at each other or using a small bucket each boat has on board to pour water over the co-skipper. This is also done with other boats and wild " fights " emerge. Some parts have stronger rapids and a lot more maneuvering skill has to be applied, which we have developed to some extend by now . Sometimes someone falls off the boat into the river - in our boat only once, the beauty of our crew . Then a bit later we have a really more exiting time. We all see the rapids and in the middle of them the rocks in the center, just surfacing a bit from the wild splashing water. It's clear- we have to go right or left of this point. Then all efforts are pulled together and ... some paddle to the right, others to the left, which as you can imagine, cannot be a good thing. And really, we hit the previously descibed rocks right in the middle and get stuck on top of them. The water from the slightly higher part of the mini falls flows into our boat and fills it completely. All efforts to get the boat loose by rocking the boat ( I know the proverb " don't rock the boat " ) failed. It did not w, orsen our situation, but it also did not help. Should I have walked the way? I wanted to get out of the boat and try to push it, but then I thought it's probably not such a good idea - if the boat starts moving and I get stuck between the rubber boat and a hard rock.... Finally the safety boats come and push and pull us lose - but even that took a while. Can you imagine: Only one slightly more difficult place in the river ... and we hit it right on and get stuck. I feel like pride drowned in the flooded boat. At 11:30 am we have a 45 minutes break along the river near a small Amei village - lunch box to regain our strength. At 2:00pm we arrive at the final destination, the rafting center at the mouth of the river before it releases its floods into the Pacific Ocean. We change clothes, have a coffee and wave good-bye to our co-skippers.
We drive back by a VW transporter with a driver and 7 students ( degree in Information Management ). The driver has a lot to tell:
- Ruei Shuei coffee should be better than the more famous Guken coffee
- This area celebrates the Arrow Bamboo Festival ( this bamboo is also used for cooking - but only boiled, as i will learn months later from indiginous peoples; some people will get drowsy if eaten raw )
- The small Amei village we had stopped for lunch ( sorry, I do not remember the name, but quite in the middle of the stretch ) has the most water buffalows in Taiwan. One or two shops sell the meat - he says very good as the cows only eat grass.
Back at Ruei Shuei railway station Tsai Chin takes the 5:00pm train to Hualien, where she has arranged a meeting with an old friend from her student times. I take the bus to Fuli at 5:10pm for 134 NTD and the 40 plus kilometers. The landscape is really phantastic in the evening hours. Mountains on both sides of the wide Rift Valley, the sun sinking behind the mountains of the Central Mountain range shining the last golden-red rays onto the green-yellow rice fields and the mountains of the Coastal Range. I see many holiday places along the way, and that is just what I can see from the road No. 9. Many villages lie hidden in some distance at the foot of the mountains right and left off the road.
At 6:20pm I arrive in Fuli and walk the whole small town looking for a place to stay - here I have no information. I ask at a 7-11 and the a young female staff brings me about 500m away to a nice place - again this unbelievable friedliness. I ask and can get the room for 1000 NTD, a good price for the friendly looking place, but I thought of something cheaper, especially as I want to start very early the next morning. I ask at the police station and they direct me to an old, very old hotel down the road, which should be cheaper. Unluckily they also confirm that the road No. 23 from Fuli ( I find the starting point of the road in the middle of the village ) is 45 km long - a bit on the long side, especially with the heat. I pass by the very old building which is the hotel twice as I did not suspect it to be a hotel. It's a bit dirty and a world apart from the first place I saw. The price of 400 NTD incl. small TV with all channnels and a van ( 500 NTD incl. Aircon. ) convinces me. The room has seen cleaner and better days, but I sleep in my sleeping bag and the head on my jacket, which has also seen cleaner days - but it's my very own dirt! An old lady is the owner. She gives me two self-made Tsung Tze ( sticky rice filled with different things like mushrooms, meat, bamboo, egg etc. and all this wrapped in a lotus leave in the shape of a pyramid ). They are delicious and enough for a whole dinner. Some locals help me to read the bus schedule showing busses going at 8:30am, 10:30am and 11:30 am - tomorrow I will find out none will be going .
Try to sleep early , but it does not work before 11:00 pm.
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