Many of the hotels can book tours for you that will take you through Taroko Gorge, to the beach, and a couple other places. Since your parents can’t walk much, I don’t think there’s really much else to do in Hualian. There’s a relatively new water park there, but that would require a lot of walking.
I have heard that people prefer to take the bus to Hulian for the reason you mentioned. That road is spectacular and taking the bus should be safer than doing it on two wheels.
Sorry, don’t know any details though. You could go and ask at the Aloha, Feiguo, Zhunlong etc. long-distance coach company offices though. I usually use Guoguanghao these days. The station for those is right next to Taipei Train Station, on the south side I think.
fei go all the way. nice movies. splendid seats. yeah, the suao highway is to be experienced.
Airbus is pretty cheap, and you can even take your scooter on it. The depot is by Sunyatsen MRT (north side of Zhongxiao E Rd - or maybe it’s City Hall MRT, i’m not 100% on that).
Brian
Thanks for the info, I can’t wait till Wednesday to catch that bus for a few days break in Hualien!!
You should avoid FeiGo if possible; their buses and drivers are not the best on the road
Thanks to the Lonely Planet book, we saw a few reasonable rate hotels listed in Hualian. Does anyone have any particular experience of any there that they’d recommend or not recommend?
We are looking into the Hualian Hero House, Yongqi Hotel and the Dashin Hotel.
TIA,
I really liked the Zhu Tzi Buddhist Cultural Center. We spent a whole afternoon wandering throughout the main building.
Besides wading in the crystal blue waters in Taroko gorge, one amazing surprise my friends took me to was a hostel by the beach.
This place is owned and run by a “aboriginal”. The place offers great aboriginal food, good drinks, and clean cabin on stilts on a lovely green lawn hill. It’s 100 ft away from the beach where the swimming was good. Got too hot though. At night, we sat by a fire, chilling. FYI, it’s called NiuShan (Cowhill).
Another suggestion is river rafting. And it’s perfectly safe. I heard the company dynamited the rocks so it became super easy. The only reason why other rafts flipped over when I was there, was because we went a few days after the typhoon, hence higher water levels. But it was still safe, but exciting. heck, pretty much everyone flipped except this one boat full of old men and women (the women were covered head to toe for the sun). The company took on hundreds of people per day; it really was astounding to see this one boat make it all the way dry (apart from us, but we’ve done this stuff before).
i am forgetting all the names. try a natural hot spring. a leisurely cruise from hualien to taidong down the coast road and up the valley was always nice. down by fenglin is the old lumbercamp. hualien city proper? uh, um…the nightmarket is always good to show visitors. lotsa sugar cane vendors- everyone should eat if off the stick at least once in life. catch one of those rickety old early morning trains just for the pleasure of doing it. ride down to one of the larger small towns. walk around, get a glimpse of how they do it and train back to the big town of hualien for a stellar night of drinks at the river, orange and the all-star cafe. the treehouse is a good place to drink a beverage of choice: big old banyan tree, outdoor courtyard, a restaurant and a big ramshackle house that has escaped condemanation has a good feel to it. it is across from the best english school in hualian: odyssey (as they say it “O D sigh”. there is an old enclave of japanese era wooden homes in hualien city just up the hill that is worthy of a look.
[quote=“Jack Burton”]Besides wading in the crystal blue waters in Taroko gorge, one amazing surprise my friends took me to was a hostel by the beach.
This place is owned and run by a “aboriginal”. The place offers great aboriginal food, good drinks, and clean cabin on stilts on a lovely green lawn hill. It’s 100 ft away from the beach where the swimming was good. Got too hot though. At night, we sat by a fire, chilling. FYI, it’s called NiuShan (Cowhill).
[/quote]
Do you have a number for this place? Address or general directions where it is and how to get there?
Thanks.
re: niushan
not in hualien city proper. south of town- down the coast road about 30 minutes south. on a map it should be horizontal across from fenglin. there is a little road going between the two. until a few years ago it was only passable by daredevils on two wheels. last time there they had spent alot of money on making it car safe. a spectacular, winding drive from fenglin to to the coast completely devoid of any kind of pollution. hurry and see it while you can.
[quote=“skeptic yank”]re: niushan
not in Hualian city proper. south of town- down the coast road about 30 minutes south. on a map it should be horizontal across from fenglin. there is a little road going between the two. until a few years ago it was only passable by daredevils on two wheels. last time there they had spent alot of money on making it car safe. a spectacular, winding drive from fenglin to to the coast completely devoid of any kind of pollution. hurry and see it while you can.[/quote]
It’s probably just me and too much coffee but I don’t get the directions. Fenglin, do you mean Fengpin, south of Chichi Beach? Do you turn left off the highway (at Fenglin/Fengpin) and drive down a paved road to the beach? How can the road be a spectacular winding drive to the coast when you are already at the coast? Or is it just a short drive?
Off-topic but I’m been hearing about (and discovering myself) more and more places like this in the past few years. It’s a great trend. More chilling out cabins, more resorts showing appreciation for the natural surroundings, more concern for cleanliness and aesthetically pleasing structures.
Many of these places I have found to be aboriginal owned or run.
I don’t think we need to run out before these things are gone. The trend toward better quality and more diverse tourism offerings is here to stay.
[quote=“skeptic yank”]re: niushan
not in Hualian city proper. south of town- down the coast road about 30 minutes south. on a map it should be horizontal across from fenglin. there is a little road going between the two. until a few years ago it was only passable by daredevils on two wheels. last time there they had spent alot of money on making it car safe. a spectacular, winding drive from fenglin to to the coast completely devoid of any kind of pollution. hurry and see it while you can.[/quote]
There is also another fabulous cross-coastal mountain road between the rift valley and the coast that starts in Fuli. This maybe even less traveled than the Fenglin Road. Fuli is a couple of hours south of Hualien, and 21km south of Yuli, which is the largest town between Hualien/Taidong on the rift valley road.
The road is like a mini-Taroko in places, and ends up near San Shien Tai on the coast. Just North of Fuli is a huge waterfall you can actually see from the road. Makes a nice swim on a summer day, and the river is full of bright red fresh water crabs.
30 minutes south of Fuli is the entrance to the Southern Cross Island highway…You could drive up the East side, take some hikes and marval at the scenery.
I get it now. The route skeptic yank is talking about goes from the 9 to the the 11 and not just from the 11 coastal route to the sea. I need a better map of Taiwan.
How were the prices at that hostel by the beach (Niushan)? Is it accessible by bus or do ya have to have a scooter to get there?
the bus service was quickly dying away, a scooter gives you the freedom to go when and where you want.
Yes, we’d like to rent a scooter. However, I have heard that it is difficult to rent a scooter around Taroko Gorge without an International Driver’s License so I’m not counting on having one. Also, do you remember what the prices were like at that hostel? Not to be a total cheap-ass but there’s no use busting my butt to get to someplace I can’t afford to stay. 
rent a cycle in hualien. walk out the front side of the train station. some shops there’ll rent without an int’l license. don’t loose heart. many shops won’t and you may very well have to stop in many of them. the niu shan ranch (or whatever its english name is) is on the other side (south) of hualian city.
Well, we ended up missing the boat on the scooter. We figured that since it seemed so difficult to rent a scooter in Hulian, we would see if we could rent one in the park. Note to others: you will not be able to rent a scooter in Tienxiang or any of the other little towns inside the park. If you feel that you must have a scooter, rent one in Hualian. That said, I was O.K. with not having a scooter. The road along the gorge look pretty damn trecherous and I’m a bit of a scaredy cat. We did rent a scooter on Green Island with no hassle. The terrain there is more my speed for scootering around!