We are planning a trip as follows:
Day 1 - fly into Taipei, arriving pretty late, stay overnight at the airport hotel
Day 2 - catch the high speed train down to Chaiyi, pick up a hire car and drive up to the visitor centre where you start the Yushan hike (sorry, can’t quite spell it)
Day 3 - hike up to Yushan/back down to car and drive somewhere to stay the night [WHERE? any suggestions?]
Day 4 - drive to Taroko Gorge [HOW LONG WILL THIS TAKE]
Day 5 - spend time around Taroko Gorge
Day 6 - drive back to Chaiyi to return the car/train back to the airport
Yes, we are getting permits processed - hike up is a weekday so hoping they will come through if not we’ll just have to hike around Alishan.
So - how long would it take to get from near Yushan to Taroko Gorge? What is the road quality like? Is it open? We have driven on small, slow, windy roads in mountains in NZ and Australia etc, but hoping to get a feel for how long these journeys take in Taiwan as we have never driven there before.
Any suggestions for places to see on the way/ places to stay? I saw a few other threads where you point out that the “tourist traps” are not worth going to. The idea of queues of chinese tour buses makes me shudder - that’s NOT us - we are looking for hiking/greenery and some “real” Taiwan - but on the other hand none of us speaks any Chinese so we are somewhat limited in the practicalities of what might be achieved! (We live in Hong Kong, so we know how to “cope” but recognize sometimes you miss the best stuff if you cannot read signs/ask people etc etc)
Thanks in advance for any response. I use forums in HK frequently and know what a great source of information they can be, so I’m hopeful here.