Tag Waterfalls
A couple of weeks ago I was in a camping gear store looking for something when a man came up to me and asked something. I couldn’t really give him a proper answer but we started chatting and soon enough he had invited me to go river tracing. I’ve been interested in going for a while, but I’ve just never taken the time to arrange a tour, so when the opportunity came up like that, I happily agreed to join.
At first my wife was planning to join as well but she had some work to do so in the … Read the rest
There are two possible solutions to my border problems that I can think of: to sell the bike here and possibly buy a new one in Cambodia, or to stash the bike here, go to Cambodia for a few days. Then, when I have been away for long enough to avoid the 30 day rule for Vietnamese visa exemptions, come back, collect the bike and ride it back to Vietnam and from there into Cambodia.
I was lucky enough to find a way to combine the two methods which gives me more options than anything else. I put an add … Read the rest
My goal for the day was to reach Stung Treng in Cambodia, but it’s only about 100 kilometers from Don Det so I spent the (relatively) cool morning hours exploring the islands. Close to Don Det is a slightly bigger island called Don Khon which is famous for two things, waterfalls and river dolphins.
I like the way the boats are surrounded by islets 
View from the bridge, who builds a house on such a tiny little island?
I took the motorbike along the little path that counts for a road in Don Det, crossed the bridge and went out … Read the rest
Today we set off towards Taroko Gorge which will be our starting point for the actual crossing.
A few kilometers out from Hualien city we went down to a secluded beach. When I was younger I would have jumped into the water directly but now I didn’t feel like it. I still took off my shoes, rolled up my trousers and just stood in the water’s edge, letting the waves wash over my feet. By now this has become a kind of ritual for me.
After that we headed … Read the rest
When the wife and I go up in the mountains we often pass through a place called Neiwan. It’s a kind of vacationers paradise with a lively food market, several go cart tracks and a number of hot spring resorts within a short distance. Basically city dwellers can go there to enjoy the mountains without having to forfeit modern amenities.
Every time we drive through the area I see roads that look very inviting but for some reason or other we’ve never really driven on them. Recently however, I’ve been determined to see where they lead and yesterday became the … Read the rest
This weekend is the tomb sweeping day so we got two extra days off. On Saturday it was apparently international pillow fight day, so we joined a pillow fight event in Taipei. It was quite simple, just bring a pillow and show up, but fantastically fun.
We’ve seen most parts of Taiwan but we haven’t really been sightseeing in Jaiyi county so we decided to spend the remainder of the weekend there. … Read the rest
Several years ago Yini went to a mountain trail in Nantou county called Sky Ladder, but since she was with a friend who was not so used to mountaineering, they had to turn back after just a short distance. Ever since I heard about it, I’ve wanted to go but I haven’t had a chance until now. Yesterday evening me and Yini drove down to a small town on the outskirts of Taizhong. After a night in a motel there, we continued to Zhushan township and the sky ladder trail this morning. Perhaps I had too high expectations because the … Read the rest
This weekend is the Tomb Sweeping Day, which essentially just means we have four days off in a row. Renegade wife and I are making the most of it by traveling around and enjoying ourselves.
We started off lightly yesterday by driving out to a small amusement park just outside Hsinchu city. The park itself is small, old and pretty lame, except for a few really well executed optical illusions:
This tilted house is by far the best, I actually got a little bit motion sick just by … Read the rest
Taiwan’s government was nice enough to give us a nice long four day weekend to kick off the new year. Me and Renegade Wife spent new years day being lazy at home, which felt really good. The other three days we’ve been travelling around both here and there and had a pretty good time.
We started with a trip up to Xiaowulai in the mountains, where there are plenty of waterfalls and suspension bridges.
view on the way up
First view of the waterfall
A smaller waterfall
Looking down at the big waterfall from above 
The main waterfall from
Yini and I both felt a need for a mini vacation, so this weekend we took Friday off and headed to Taidong on the south east coast. This is about as far away as you can go in Taiwan while still staying on land. If you are taking public transport you can either get a high speed train south along the west side, change to a normal train and cross the southern tip then go north again along the east coast, a process that takes around six or seven hours. Or, you could get on the normal train right from … Read the rest