Taroko, but not so much Hualien

A couple of weeks ago, a message popped up on Facebook saying "Wanna join for Hualien?" Staying in Taipei isn't really my favorite activity, so I said yes without hesitating. However, this wasn't a nice little trip with a few people, no, this was was a trip with FIFTEEN people. 15! Well, for the few of you that know me, know I'm a solo traveler and I don't particularly like people. So much for that. However, I can say it was a great trip, but never EVER again with so many people.

We got up really early to catch one of the first trains to Hualien on Saturday morning (I still don't understand why we didn't take a late train on Friday instead). The train was full and only three people got seats, and I wasn't one of them. Lucky for me, Capucine preferred to sit with the others, so I stole her ticket and had my own seat at the other end of the train. The first problem we encountered as a group was where to eat; I stated quite early that I wanted something really unhealthy. The rest of the group wasn't in on this plan, so they decided to go to another restaurant. Leïla, Katharina and I decided to run away and go to McDonalds. So worth it.

Next task was to figure what to do the first day. I insisted on renting scooters, some insisted on renting bikes and some just wanted to go to the beach. What a group of people. After one hour of discussion we ended up renting scooters. With a big group of 16 people, it's easy to lose each other, so all of a sudden we ended up in two groups.

My group ended up at this place, Qixing Tan, a beach where the sea had decided to be two different shades of blue. The place was nothing but marvelous. I was easy to fall in love with this place, and by accident we ended up here both days; first day on purpose and the second day on our way to Taroko. Right next to the beach there was also a military airbase, and that day they had practice. Oh my God, I actually though Taiwan was in war for a few moments.


This picture is taken on the end of day one. We had traveled for a while to find a way up to the mountains, but ended up on a dead end. So, we sat down and did absolutely nothing for a while, which also was nice. This is by the way, Mathilde from France, Laura from Germany, me, and Rachel from Hawaii (as she likes to point out).

On the second day we jumped on our scooters and drove to Taroko, and what a wonderful place; rivers and mountains, and green. Oh, I've missed green and nature! We made sure to stop several places on the way and took probably a thousand pictures, but Blogspot has told me I've used all the picture space I can, so I'm cautious and only post a few. Anyhow, when we came to Tianxiang, where this temple on the picture above is from, we split up - the others went to see a waterfall and I jumped on my scooter and drove.

I drove and I drove and I drove and ended up on the top of the mountain. So nice. A shame the sun disappeared and it started to get cold, or else I might have decided to travel for ever and never go back. It was so nice and quiet up there and the monkeys had a great time staring at me. 

A small treat from the hostel; a note that was supposed to prevent us from throwing the toilet paper in the toilet, but ended up making us laugh instead.

And finally, the whole group represented by France, USA, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Japan. Even though it was tiring and we were too many people, I had a really great time! Thanks to all of you!

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, I went to Taitung (Taidong) the next day, but I barely took any pictures, so I'm not sure whether I'm going to make a post about me doing nothing or not.