Went back to Taian on Friday for a couple days. Though a few new large hot spring hotels have opened the place is more or less the same. I did bring a camera but forgot the cf card.
Since the faulty weather bureau suggested it would rain Friday night I opted to stay in a small B&B style place. It was right beside the river, two story wood design, with small room with balconys. The views were very nice of the small river, and the looming hills across the river. There was even a waterfall cascading down a cleft in the slopes I could see from my balcony.
Room cost me $1450 for the night and this included use of the hotsprings as many times as I wanted. Simple facilities, just small private rooms with big cement tubs lined with small stones, but they face the river and have big open windows. Really, for a great view and hot springs you can’t beat the price, though I suspect it probably gets noisy on busy Saturdays as their hot sand facilities are popular with tours. Phone: 037 941928.
This would be a good place to stay for someone not looking to spend $6000 a night, but didn’t want to camp. To get here, take County Road 62 as far as Onsen Papawaqa (a huge new complex to the left about 15 minutes in), then cross the bridge. The B&B is just to the right, 100m. There’s a nice restaurant/cafe on the other side of the bridge. Decent food, good music usually (not mandopop), and a lovely atmosphere.
The river is too shallow to swim in front of the B&B, but there is a new dirt road in front that follows the river. Actually this dirt road start at Provincial Hwy 3, where County Road 62 branches off, and runs all the way to the suspension bridge past the Policeman’s Hot Spring Club. The path should be about 15km long, making it a nice bike route. There are a few places it is washed out, but the carry is easy. The washouts also mean you won’t be sharing the road with vehicles. Next time I go (which should be a couple weeks) I’ll bring my bike and let people know how the biking is.
Saturday morning I drove to the end of 62. They have finally fixed up the area. I suspect they are going to start charging people to enter and drive to the suspension bridge. New toll booth and picnic like area and a new dirt road, lined with shrubs and trees all the way to the suspension bridge. Not sure if they will build the free hot springs but I doubt it. Too much business pressure.
The way to Shuiyuan Waterfall is pretty clear now. Just cross the suspension bridge, and head up the stairs. At the top, head down to the river, following the signs. There’s now a new wooden staircase and walkway to take you down to the riverbed. From here the rough trail is pretty obvious. Follow about 30 minutes until you reach a big rock outcrop. There are two nice pools here and I had a very refreshing swim in them both. To go around the outcrop, stay to the left, away from the river.
In another couple minutes the valley narrows and a rock face sinks into the water. There’s a rough log ladder to help you up to where you can safely cross the face. But if you want to see the falls, just cross the stream (it was only up to my thighs yesterday) and you’ll see the 20m thundering beast up a small side canyon to the right. I know I had it to the left in the last Lonely Planet but well, that’s what I was told. 
In any case, you will need river tracing shoes if you want to get right up to the falls. You don’t need river boots to hike along the trail as far as the waterfall.
After lunch I drove to the little abo village just up from Tenglong. There’s a new fancy hot spring resort there. Lovely lookout from the open deck cafe and from the public hot springs but the facilities were too simple: just a couple pools. The rooms were obviously designed for local Taiwanese tastes.
I drove up the road toward Henglong Shan (5.5km to the end) and stopped after 2km to walk the rest. It’s a super steep mountain road but a lovely walk through bamboo forests. The lookouts across the valley and over the hills is superb.
The last thing I did was check out the campsite mentioned in another thread above Tenglong. The road up now is in good shape for a car though I walked first. The campiste is a large grassy bluff set high in the hills. It’s incredibly scenic up here, with high mountains rising up, and a snaking river valley below. There was not a soul at the campsite but me.
A five minute walk down the hill you’ll find a decent swimming hole, and a further 10 minutes a really gorgeous one. The river (different from the one I went up earlier) rushes through a boulder strewn valley, making great noise and forming large pools everywhere. Looks great for tracing.
Just behind the campiste is the trail to the old tree and also to one of the nearby peaks, Niaozui Shan. Five minutes up the trail is a branch leading to a waterfall that tumbles a few hundred metres to river valley below.
It’s a great time to visit Taian as the flamegold trees as blooming wild in the hills. There are also purple lilies everywhere, orange day lilies, white daisies, and the wheat like luwei also blooming white. There are also very few people about as the hot spring season hasn’t really started.
If you are looking for a really fine place to soak, or stay the night, Cedarwood something, high on a bluff, near the end of the road looked very lovely (I had a tour). The taofang rooms (rent per hour) have one of the best views from a hot spring tub I have ever seen. The tubs are large stone basins, big enough for two western people, and are set right against clear glass windows about 2 metres wide and 2.5m high. In other words you have a complete unobstructed view across a gorgeous mountain valley as you soak. It’s $800-900 an hour for a soak. Bring someone you love, or want to love - long time. Rooms are around $7000 a night.
Damn, I took a brochure and namecard but now can’t find them.
Oh, there is another 5 star hotel at Taian that I didn’t get a chance to look at. Onsen Papawaqa. Here’s a good review, and yes, the writer is spot on that is looks unfinished when you drive by, and does blend in fairly well with the environemnt. A Taiwanese friend stayed there and gave it very good reviews. Rooms are about 20 ping in size.
I do have to give Taian credit for it’s new hotels. The new development is not crappy, tiled eyesores. Even Cedarwood, hill on a bluff, is obvious but inoffensive. I do think the County Magistrate is braindead though. All upscale hotels do is make Taipei based companies rich. They don’t really help the local economy except to give people waitering and front desk jobs.
That said, the abo-run place across from the hotel has turned from a poor B&B into a prosperous cafe and restaurant.
[quote]
Onsen Papawaqa hotel blends into surroundings
/ By Luke Sabatier ,Taiwan News
Former Miaoli County Magistrate Fu Hsueh-peng believed that the lack of upscale hotels was a major impediment to tourism growth in the area.
Whether he would have felt that the bold and ambitious (some might call it harebrained) Onsen Papawaqa in Taian fits the bill is anybody’s guess.
The project’s daring architect Cheng Tang-huang presented the hotel’s investors with a simple proposal: throw NT$450 million into an upscale 66-room hotel that’s going to look unfinished.
OK, so he may not have used those exact words, but they accurately - to a point - describe the end result. Some of the hotel’s inside walls in public spaces and its exterior are rough concrete, the way it appeared after the molds into which it was poured were tossed away. Add to that the thin slats of dark-colored hardwood suspended from one floor to another outside and you can very easily think as you approach the hotel that it’s still under construction.
“We have some architects and construction people who stay at the hotel who tell me they would never approve the rough wall surface, while other guests are simply dumbfounded,” said Jerry Kang, the hotel’s operations manager who is part of a management company that has been hired to run the hotel. “But it turns out to be an asset because it gives people something to talk about and brings us closer to our guests.”
The concept behind the design was simple: ensure that this upscale property would blend seamlessly with the surrounding natural landscape, including the grayish dry riverbed.
“The idea was not to influence the natural environment, to show humility and almost have the hotel hide itself. The architect really hates tiles and paint or anything manmade or that is too ostentatious,” Kang said.
But while the exterior is rough in its own compelling way, the rooms are a different story.
“The outside looks unfinished, but the rooms pay great attention to detail, with the generous use of glass to allow unobstructed views of nature,” Kang says.
Wood is also a critical element. Yang said that the hotel won a tender for a batch of rare Taiwan incense cedar that had become driftwood in a typhoon, and it’s used everywhere - on walls, as furniture and floors, and as the wooden tubs found in rooms.
While the architect understated the hotel’s exterior, the rooms, while simple, give the hotel a truly unique feel. Even the most elegant hotels pretty much maintain the same furnishings, layout and design theme in all their rooms - not the case at Onsen Papawaqa.
“No two rooms are identical. The 66 rooms come in 20 different styles, so you could stay here a lot of times and have a completely new experience,” Kang said.
The rooms on the first floor are situated too low to have views of the riverbed, but compensate nicely with private outdoor hot and cold hot spring tubs and an outdoor shower. Those located on higher floors have a variety of layouts, some with large bathroom areas and a tree growing in the room, while others have the hot spring tubs off in a side room, with a small Japanese table in the living room for tea or snacks. A delightful feature in many is the use of incense cedar as an uneven wall or ceiling.
“Much of the hotel is centered around straight lines, which the architect felt not very exciting. So in some rooms, he used the wood to create a different feel for space, reflecting the undulations of the areas’ mountains. The uneven ceilings and walls have made some of our older guests a little dizzy,” Kang said.
The question is simply can the most compelling hotel architecturally in the Taian area charging rates of NT$6,600 to NT$13,000 a night make it. Kang said it would have been easier if the hotel was larger, but price points are far less of a concern than building a reputation for good service, at a hotel that has only been open since early January on a “trial basis” until March 31.
If the service can match the facilities (once they’re completed), Onsen could still do well, even having invested an average of NT$8 million per room.
“People who appreciate interesting designs really like it. Those who don’t, well, there’s nothing we can say that will convince them,” Kang said. “Because of the design the building is hard to maintain, but it’s still worth it. Guests become curious, and once they see the rooms, they’re really satisfied.”[/quote]
