CNY + East Coast trip =?

We are staying in Taiwan this CNY and thinking about some east coast trippin for a few nights.

Any advice on accom (nothing fancy), must sees, must dos, traffic tips etc etc??

Hi Chris,

There are plenty of threads on the East Coast. You might have to do a search to find them or scroll through a few pages. I drove down there last time from Taipei to Taidong. It is a good place to go during CNY because the weather is much warmer. The winter monsoon is blocked by the Central Mountain Range.

Here’s one of my old posts from my trip this year. It’s more of an impression than useful advice though.

I waited 'til Tuesday for the road to clear of the weekend traffic then hit the road packed with weekday traffic as I meandered my way through the mountains between Taipei and Illan. This long and winding road was charged with that familiar mountain beauty that we often take for granted around Taipei and infused with the smell of my daughter chucking over my editions of Master and Commander and 1421 the Year China Discovered America. Taking a leaf out of Master and Commander, I had that landlubber keel hauled and lashed.

Thankfully the mountain air was fresh and my companion soon passed out from the drama of her first encounter with the evils of being all at sea. This leg of the journey was purely functional so I was pretty much blinkered to the beauty unfolding around me except as we passed through the conifer forests and swept down out of the heavens to be greeted by our first glimpses of the Pacific.

Illan is a construction site so I wasted no time there and quickly took on the beasts of burden that feed all that demand for concrete and road building, the dreaded Su-ao gravel trucks. The road from Su-ao to Hualian is a beautiful fuck up. No pirate adventure would be complete without the sheer cliffs that pitch hundreds, sometimes thousands of feet down into the tranquil azure below hiding coves and caves where treasures surely abound along side the wrecks of cars and lives that have paid the ultimate price for progress. But this section passed much quicker than I expected, only 2hrs with a couple of stop offs to drink in the beauty and air out my jockey shorts.

I ploughed on straight passed Taroka Gorge and Hualian city saving them for my return journey and arrived at my first destination Hualian Ocean Park. This is a place I

thx fox

i have been along the east coast a fair bit before but never during CNY. so the traffic isnt too bad?

i would love to go muzha -> ilan through the mtns --> then south of taidong via coast

[quote=“Chris H”]thx fox

I have been along the east coast a fair bit before but never during CNY. so the traffic isnt too bad?

I would love to go Muzha -> Yilan through the mtns --> then south of Taidong via coast[/quote]Traffic gets pretty bad, depending on the direction of travel. I’d say if you could hold off until maybe the Tuesday or Wednesday to start your journey, it might be a bit better.

I went down at CNY a couple of years ago by train and the hired a car when I was down there. That worked out pretty well, but the car hire was expensive. There is a Kar plus rental store just outside the airport in Taidong.

we have a car and i have always wanted too drive the route…

If you drive into the Jhihben river gorge -where the hot springs are- and take that road to the end past the Jhihben Forest Park, you can follow another yet steeper and narrower road until you reach a gate. Park your scooter or car there and hike down (walking around the gate) to the river. It’s a jaw-dropping beautiful gorge to explore, complete with turquoise water, waterfalls plunging down from everywhere, and monkeys. One time some friends and I saw a monkey that must have been released as a pet because it wasnt’ a macaque -white fur and a black face (or was it black fur and a white face). There was a nest of them, in fact. But I dunno, maybe we stepped on some slimy frogs and started tripping or something. I swear we saw them.