Oh, you’re talking about JiaoXi. You can get there by train and then take a taxi (or even walk) to a hotel. I’d recommend you get in touch with the Ilan Tourism Office to get some more info.
You could also organise a trip out to GuiXan Dao (Turtle Island), as the the boats leave only one station past JiaoXi… I went last October, saw about 200 dolphins, got to do a little walking around the island, and ate some great seafood.
Hope this gets you started,
The Big Babou 
I stayed at the Crown Hotel in Jiaoxi a couple of weeks ago - very nice modern room and outdoor private spa for NT$1400. According to the staff, most of the their customers tend to only pay for the use of the spa, so getting a room without a reservation shouldn’t be a problem. Be prepared to negotiate.
Why didn’t I remember that? In fact, last year, I stayed in the same Crown Hotel with my girl, but we came by train… It didn’t seem to crowded then, either… I guess we can try that area… If we ever get going… Thanks for reminding me…
I will make a note of Pinglun… I knew a river not far from Shuan Hsi, inland, on the way to Fulung… There is another road south from there, through the hills I want to check out…
But it is 7:50 and getting her to wake up isn’t gonna be easy…
That area’s good for riding around. Think about it this way. There’s the highway from Xindian to Ilan that goes over the mountain, running NW to SE. Pingling is about halfway. Now if you take a different road from Muzha, you go past Shen Kang (the chou dofu place) and after a little while you’ll hit a big T intersection where there’s a convenience store. If you go right, you’ll head south over hilly windy roads to Ping lin (past a nice buddhist university). Probably the more interesting road is the left turn, heading NW over more nice hills… This takes you past Pingxi to Shi Fen, where there’s a train line coming from Rui Fang. Continue down this road and you’ll get to Rui Fang and Jilong, although I haven’t done that. What I have done is turn right at Shi Fen and climbed up over a really high mountain which is where they’re currently digging what’ll be the 2nd longets tunnel in the world, for the new highway. Anyway, over that hill and you get to Shuang Xi which you mentioned, which is on the main Taipei-Ilan train line. The last part I haven’t done, but from Shuang Xi there’s a road down to the coast at Fulong, and probably alternate hill routes, to cut out going round the peninsular there.
Just this is at least 2 day trips, but if you’re taking a long weekend, it would be a nice way to go. Remember if you’re tired on Sunday and don’t want to face the fairly nasty Ilan-Xindian Highway (9?), you can throw your bike on the Airbus at Ilan and get a ride home (Airbus 0800 088 626 www.airbus.com.tw).
Have fun,
brian
Just noticed that the auto-pinyiniser changes I-l-a-n to Y-i-l-a-n, but not T-a-i-p-e-i to T-a-i-b-e-i. Those are the only two that I never use the right pinyin for. ‘Taipei’ is just a habit, and I’ve never understood why pinyin wants to stick a y in front of the ‘eee’ sound.
Brian
The road is even better now that they’ve run a tunnel through the mountain. The 30 minutes or so to go up that hill and down the other side now takes about two on a broad, fast road into the gorgeous Shuangxi valley.
The mountain road is still there, but as there’s little or no traffic on it any more, its an even nicer ride than before. When you get to that viewpoint at the top it is TOTAL silence. Wonderful.
BTW, Shuangxi is where my alien cat’s landing podule must have crashed – that’s where we rescued him.
Well, we got out the door by 11:00 and, anticipating rain on the morrow, we rode over the mountain and down to Neihu, whence we discovered the magnificent and EMPTY highway #28 down to the town Wan Li, just before Yeliow… En route we discovered a great river for swimming in the summer! Wow… I am going back to this place in future… If anyone wants to join me for a Sunday ride, I’ll show you the river… There is another road that goes south, too, all the way down to highway 5 and then, if you can find the road at Hsi Jer going up in the hills, you could navigate all the way up and down and up and down to Shuang Hsi…
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