Road Trip 1: Sitou

Ok so today was my first real venture out into greater Taiwan and I decided to go to Sitou. One because it was highly recommended and 2 because I knew the general way to get there and 3 it isn't very far from JhuShan. So David and I set off this afternoon and all is going well. Except that due to communication problems we didn't actual leave JhuShan til about 2.30pm as it gets dark just before 6 here now that didn't give us a lot of time. We drove to Lugu which is the town I biked to last weekend and then went on towards Sitou. At first I was interested in checking out some awesome waterfalls but we missed the turn off so went right on to the end where we hit a national park.

Due to our lateness of departure etc we really didn't have more than an hour and a bit worth of sunlight left so we decided to give the national park a miss for the day and headed back down to try and find the road to the waterfalls.

After driving up and down a few times trying to find the turn off to the falls we stopped and asked in a tea store where we found a guy who spoke English. David was interested in seeing the tea plantations which were just beyond the falls so we asked about the road. At first everyone was saying it's too late which we took as meaning it's closed but really they were just saying that it is getting dark and thus not worth it. At first we didn't really understand but the guy explained that the road to the waterfall and tea plantation isn't like the main road it is narrow and poorly marked.....errrr ok but he did manage to explain exactly where the turn off was that we missed and we went on our way.

Now let me explain til that point we were driving on normal roads, 2-4 lane well surfaced roads. That ceased once we found the turn off for the waterfalls which looked more like a lane or driveway than a road.

The road was so beyond explaination. It was crazy...yet also amazingly exhilerating to drive. It was definately narrow quite often it narrowed to a point where they was about enough room for 1 1/2 cars....of course this is a two way road. Fortunately due to the time and the day we didn't encounter much traffic. So there we were winding out way around this beautiful mountain side on this little road trying to find some waterfalls. The road turned often and winded back on itself so much it was amazing. Top Gear would have a field day on these roads. So anyway with a bit of luck we followed the signage (Often chinese only) and made it to the lookout point for where I believe the waterfall is meant to be. We went passed that and saw some of the tea plantations and then doubled back and tried to actual see the waterfall.

There was a lone sign that pointed to clearing which held two paths. Both paths looked well dodgy. By that stage dusk was starting to settle and I took one look at the paths and the spiders that clung to the trees overhanging and surrounding the paths and decided I really didn't care to see the waterfall....The odd thing is though we couldn't even here the running water of a waterfall so honestly I dunno if we were even in the right spot though all the signs told us we were.

Anyway on the way back the light faded and so on went the headlights and thus began an amazing trip winding through this insanely narrow road not entirely sure if we were actually going the right way (although there were very few choices); trying to head back to civilisation.

David told me later he wondered if we were going to be sleeping on the mountain that night because quite honestly the lack of signage and whatever made it insane to navigate however it was all good we hit familiar landmarks and made it back to JhuShan around 6ish.

The weird thing is on the tourist map (which amazingly enough was in English) the road is quite defined...there was no idication the road was going to be insanely narrow and all twisty and turny, right on the mountain edge.

So that was it we drove around didn't see a whole lot of touristy things though the view from the roads we were on was amazing in themselves so it wasn't a waste...plus it taught me a valuable lesson about the deceptiveness of these stupid tourist maps.

Defintely going to need a decent road book before doing any serious exploring...I mean today was meant to be an easy leisurely drive somewhere close to home and half of the way was going on semi familiar territory.

So that was the first road trip. The national park did look beautiful though, we'll definitely have to check that out another day.

Huey (the car...yes it is named) performed amazingly, it doesn't have a lot of power up hills but that's not a huge surprise but for what it is I'm very happy...of course the cd player didn't seem to want to work which is an issue that I will have to deal with but otherwise I have no complaints.