I visited Wulai aboriginal village on Saturday, March 13. Sacha, Erinn, Cathy and myself caught a bus from Taipei that took us south of the city, and into the mountains to Wulai.
It was a miserable day - it rained the whole time we were there. Although it is not very nice to wander around all day in the rain, the low clouds and mist in the mountains makes for some interesting photographic opportunities, such as this shot taken from a park area situated across a gorge that then overlooks the village area. If you click on the thumbnail below, you can see the village area at the bottom left along the river. Although you can't see it in these pictures, the river has many natural hot springs that attract people for a hot soaking.
Getting to this park area requires a trip in a cable car across the gorge, almost crossing over the waterfall in the photo below...
Typically, the photo above can not capture the scale of the waterfall. It was taken from in front of the cable car bottom landing, and if you check closely, you can see the lookout and cable car top landing on top of the cliff, near the right corner.
As I mentioned, this is an area inhabited predominately by aboriginal people. At one point during our bus ride back down to Taipei, a couple got on the bus and were, according to Sacha, speaking in a dialect that she did not understand at all - and she speaks both Mandarin and Taiwanese, and can recognise Hakka.
As you can see in this photo of Sacha, not only was it raining the entire time, it was also a bit chilly, as evidenced by Sacha's University of Washington sweatshirt. Check out the short hair, eh?! I decided it was chilly enough (and wet enough) to warrant me wearing some Gore-Tex. As you can see, the cherry blossoms are out in full bloom now in Taiwan.
The park area is criss-crossed with fresh, clear streams, that apparently have Sakura trout in them. This photo below highlights one such stream. I apologise for the quality of some of these photos - there are water droplets on the lense in many of them, as well as some foggy areas - it was impossible to keep the lenses clear that day!
I was not aware that Taiwan had an indigenous trout species, and so I found it necessary to sample one for lunch at a restaurant on top of the gorge. We treated ourselves to steamed Sakura trout, fresh local wild green vegetables, an assortment of stir-fried, fresh local mushrooms, and some chicken. It was excellent - we had never had the greens before, and they were quite unlike anything we've ever had before in Taiwan.
Well, that's the trip to Wulai. I think I would like to return again sometime, maybe when the weather is a little nicer...