August 24, 2009 by Annalisa
On my last weekend in Taiwan, Laura and I went to Hualien on the east coast so we could make a trip to Taroko Gorge National Park — the second time for both of us. We stayed in a really lovely bed and breakfast, which Laura arranged (actually she did almost all of the planning for this trip and deserves a public thank-you). The owners took us on a bike ride at sunrise down to the water, and later in the day Laura and I borrowed their bikes and went up to the gorge to hike and, on Laura’s part, swim.
Cingshui cliffs.
On the right, one of our lovely hosts. She is getting a master’s degree in social work (if I remember correctly) at WashU in St. Louis, actually. The family that owns the bed and breakfast are members of the Taroko ethnic group, one of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples — the social condition of which is largely analogous to that of Native Americans in the US. She plans to use her degree in Taiwan to help improve that situation. Her father was pretty great, too — he had taught himself English out of dictionaries, and he spoke so well it sounded like he had spent some time living in the US.
Hiking.
Joyous Laura. That water was freezing.
We also went whitewater rafting (or, since this is Taiwan, “whitewater”) with — well. Our B&B in Hualien arranged for us to go rafting. We got picked up in the morning by a bus, drove around for half an hour, and then filled the rest of the bus with social-work students who were about to graduate and spent the rest of the drive singing karaoke with great enthusiasm (this was about 8:30 in the morning). We arrived at the rafting place, which was swarming with people, and milled about, attempting to understand the instructions and being forced into some pretty appalling safety gear (see photos). The guide gave a demonstration of how to paddle and then said “Now get into groups of eight or ten.” At which, of course, Laura and I looked about in a bit of a panic. However. Taiwanese people being the nicest in the world, and always looking out for the confused foreigners, we found ourselves invited to join a group of vacationing officers from the military academy, who gave a cheer for “our foreign friends” and called us “teacher” for the rest of the day, which we spent communicating in pidgin.
Laura and I are in the back. All of these photos were sent to me later by Ethan, who’s in the front right of this picture.
And that’s the story of how Laura and I went whitewater rafting with the Taiwanese military.
