Taiwan Expedition Log

August 9-29, 2008
September 5, 2008 update

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Friday August 22, 2008

We continued slowly west, stopping only occasionally as we rose in elevation. We particularly enjoyed the international road signs, both the car over the cliff sign and the rocks falling on your car sign, we had seen each regularly since leaving Taipei. So, what are you supposed to do about falling rocks on your car? Dodge them? Don't drive? Drive armored vehicle? I guess they just have ambulance-chasing lawyers here also and are just looking to avoid liability, but geez folks .. it's pretty darn obvious rocks are going to be coming down from the mountains.

At 7,800', we found many of the lower elevation ferns growing at one of the highest elevations we had seen these species including what appeared to be an onychium, lepisorus, a polypodium-esque fern, and more Woodwardia unigemmata. At 8,400', we found more patches of Lilium formosanum growing with wonderfully purple-spotted forms of Tricyrtis ravenii. Not far away, a typical roadside bank yielded patches of paris and Trillium tschonoskii growing side by side --- two lost cousins, reunited again. Hovering atop these gems were large flowering plants of Schefflera taiwaniana. It is hard to conceive of paris and trillium growing wild under schefflera.

We crested the high point on Highway 20 and then began to drop again in elevation. At 8,100', we made a stop where we found the delightful narrow leaf dwarf Ophiopogon intermedius growing with a short polystichum near a giant Chamaecyparis obtusa var. formosana. Note to self ... this gets much bigger than the conifer books indicate. Later at 7,500', we stopped by a dry river bed, only to find sinopanax growing right beside a high elevation, and a very cut-leaf form of Fatsia polycarpa. It appears the higher the fatsia grows, the more cut-leaf the foliage becomes. The road continued to drop in elevation until we found hedychium growing at 6,500' elevation. We also found the tree fern, Cyathea spinulosa at this elevation, but spores were unaccessible due to the near vertical cliff on which the tree ferns grew. This was dramatically higher than we had seen this particular fern growing throughout our trip. Fortunately, we found a solitary plant just down the road at 5,600' which was much more accessible and loaded with spores.

As we reached the town of Paoli (aka: Baoili Baulai), the road got dramatically worse with huge stretches of asphalt missing along with entire lanes and bridges. Electric lines, trees, along with huge clumps of a splendid clumping bamboo had either slid down the mountain or were poised to do so. It was interesting to see the latest technique in road recovery, which involved cementing the side of the mountain with drain pipes inserted and then trying to rebuild the road banks. In some areas, more than 100' of the bank had washed away leaving only a vertical cliff, so it was either concrete the banks or build tunnels. The stretch from Paoli to our hotel site in Jinhaisen (aka: Chiahisen) was truly horrible, but we finally made it only to discover Jinhaisen consisted of not much more than a Buddhist temple.

We sat by the temple examining our maps and wondering if our hotel, supposedly in Jinhaisen, was actually back in Paoli. It didn't take us long to arrive at the conclusion we had passed our hotel, so reluctantly, we set out backtracking on the worse stretch of road for the day. Passing road crews was even nerve-wracking the second time as we watched one backhoe operator moving rocks where perched precariously on the precipice of a cliff that had already partially given way ... I hope they pay those guys well.

Arriving back in Paoli, we followed the signs to the hot spring and shortly on the right we saw the signs for our destination, the Hsien Paoli Hot Spring Resort. We arrived to find the 10-acre resort nearly deserted. Not only had the road washouts on Highway 20 affect the resort, but we could see the nearby Launung River had overflowed and rendered many of their parking lots and a recently constructed hotel building unusable. This typically bustling resort was deserted except for us and two other families. Our bungalow, which looked 1960's vintage, was surrounded by an eclectic collection of labeled plants and cycads among the many koi pools. None of the restaurants on the property were open, so we had to find somewhere to eat.

We unloaded our gear and headed down the access road to see if any of the other hotels were open for dinner. The first place we found was the brand spanking new Wang Men Resort Hotel, located at a higher elevation than the Hsien Paoli. All we could say was wow! The restaurant was indeed open and once again playing American oldies music. There was only a dozen cars at the entire hotel, so the effect of the landslides were felt by all of the resorts in the region. We had a wonderful dinner, then back to our hotel to clear the dead ants out of the shower, so we could get clean. We also had no Internet service, but then I didn't have a computer either. Supposedly, however, my new laptop was waiting for pickup in the town of Tainan, 2 hours to our west. The Hsien Paoli Hotel wasn't bad, but if you find yourself in the midst of the Southern Cross Island Highway, check out the Wang Men Hotel.