With or without the planned four-lane Suhua Expressway, the East Coast is more accessible than ever – and offers some spectacular ocean and mountain views.

story and photos BY MARK CALTONHILL

Eastern Taiwan is less developed and less spoiled than the west, which often seems like one long strip of urban-industrial sprawl from Taipei through Taichung to Kaohsiung. But the pristine nature of the east may be about to change, with the government set to construct a new expressway after two decades of planning.

Sandwiched between high mountains on one side and sheer cliffs plummeting into the Pacific Ocean on the other, Taiwan’s eastern counties were the last lowland portion of Taiwan to be colonized by Han Chinese. Even after becoming part of the Qing empire in the nineteenth century, this area was still relatively inaccessible. As the sea routes to China’s Fujian coast were more convenient than the mountain trails to Taipei and Tainan, the region remained an outpost and retained many of its distinctive features.

Thus, to this day eastern Taiwan retains the clearest vestiges of Pingpu (Plains) aboriginal culture, and Yilan uses a unique variant of the Hoklo Taiwanese dialect (in which, for example, the word for “eat” is jia-bwee, whereas the rest of the country says jia-beng). In addition, the same bowl of noodles you might order in Taipei or Kaohsiung will be noticeably sweeter in the east, and vast stretches of mountainous and coastal terrain are almost untouched by human presence.

But the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung are gradually being made more accessible. The series of tunnels cutting beneath the ancient mule-trails from Taipei to Yilan have allowed the new National Highway No. 5 to reduce travel times between the two areas from two or more hours to around 40 minutes.

For locals this has raised property prices as Taipei citizens buy weekend homes in the area. For foreign residents and visitors, it means that Yilan’s hot springs and mountain waterfalls, historic towns and National Center for Traditional Arts, cute fishing ports, and famously rainy weather are now within an easy drive.

There are currently moves to extend the expressway from southern Yilan another 86 kilometers to Ji-an (吉安) in Hualien County. Actually, such plans have existed since 1994, but political considerations and opposition from environmentalists caused the project to be announced, shelved, and revived several times.

This debate centers on ecological concerns – whether the road might destroy the very scenery it is supposed to provide access to – as well as economic ones, such as the potential impact in improving living standards. In particular, there is disagreement as to whether the highway would help promote Hualien’s tourist industry as the No. 5 did for Yilan, or whether enabling visitors to come and go in a day would instead actually reduce income.

In either case, the reappearance of the issue on the political agenda provides a good excuse to check out the area. In addition to hot springs – and more unusually, cold springs – the region is home to the Yilan Green Expo, bird-watching and whale-watching sites, a theme park, various museums (and more commonly, product showrooms masquerading as museums), innumerable eateries, a winery, cycle paths, and more.

At the northern end of the proposed road (that is, the southern end of the existing expressway), visitors will find the Yilan Green Expo at the town of Wulaokeng (武老坑). Now in its tenth year, the Expo is a government-sponsored, privately organized, environmentally themed day-outing for the family. It runs from March to May, while for the rest of the year the valley site operates as a barbeque, swimming, and camping area. For the 2009 Year of the Ox, the theme was “Cows (牛),” which imaginatively included everything from bottle-feeding calves, water buffalo, and the various “iron cow” (鐵牛) tractors that replaced them on Taiwan’s rural landscape, to snails (蝸牛, gua-niu) and even Sir Isaac Newton (牛頓).

On the coast before Suao is the Wuweigang (無尾港) bird sanctuary. With dunes, lakes, woods, and seashore, it has attracted around 300 species of indigenous and migrant birds. For those of us who cannot tell a great egret from a common egret (or a duck from a pigeon for that matter), members of the local council and bird-watching clubs are on hand at weekends with telescopes and twitchers’ manuals to help beginners. Their pride and joy this year is an osprey that has taken up residence.

Cold springs for hot weather

Nearby Suao (蘇澳) has a variety of accommodations ranging from NT$800 hotels in the old downtown to NT$3,000-plus deluxe motels on the outskirts. All promise piped spring waters, though this is nothing like the hot-springs capital of Jiaosi (礁溪) to the north. Indeed, for most of the winter these hotels are very quiet, coming to life – like the town – only in the hotter months when the cold springs offer cooling respite.

The 22oC springs were discovered by a Japanese soldier in the first year of the island’s colonial period (1895-1945). Legend says that whereas his comrades refused to sample the strongly flavored mineral waters, believing the local inhabitants who said they were poisoned, this Mr. Takenaka drank his fill. He returned a couple of years later with his wife and established a bottling factory producing naturally fizzy drinks.

After passing into Taiwanese ownership in 1945, the site has now been converted into a resort with cubicles for family use and a large communal pool, all executed in Japanese-era-style brick. Glass-stoppered bottles of fizzy drinks are once again on sale outside.

Suao’s best cuisine is found at the town’s old fishing harbor of Nanfang-ao (南方澳) a few kilometers to the south. Tourists compete with locals to buy fish as it is unloaded on the quayside, and some of Taiwan’s freshest seafood can be consumed in adjacent buildings, either by choosing from the menu or bringing one’s purchases from the market for the restaurant cooks to prepare.

The third floor of the Nantian Gong (南天宮) Mazu temple offers great views across its rooftops, including the masts of anchored fishing boats, distant hillocks, and the open ocean, while outside at street level colorful religious parades take place every weekend.

For whiling away an hour on a wet afternoon, visit the Coral Museum (珊瑚基金會博物館) in a back street (220 Nan-an Road) and the Fishing History and Culture Exhibition (漁史文物陳列室) at the Nan-an Junior High School (南安國中). A short distance inland a whole village is dedicated to pursuit of the tourist dollar: Baimi (白米), a small industrial suburb once famous for producing wooden clogs, which has now reinvented itself as Baimi Muji Cun (白米木屐村, “Baimi Wooden Clog Village”).

During a 50-minute tour of the museum/workshop, visitors learn all about the carving, sanding, and decoration of wooden footwear, about the village’s history, about Yilan women’s famously big feet, and about master craftsman Chen Hsin-hsiung’s 50-year experience, his 50 different types of clogs, and 100 pairs-per-day output. They will be invited to return for clog-dancing classes, and they will be ushered into the first-floor salesroom adorned with all manner of decorated clogs costing from around NT$1,000 per pair.

If wearing clogs is less your thing than learning about them, the exit is past the cash registers at the rear. Alternatively, if buying clogs is of more interest than learning their history, slip in through the back door for a tour-free shopping visit.

The highlights of this section of the east coast, however, better than all these manmade attractions, are the natural landscapes. Indeed for the next 100 or so kilometers, from Suao to just before Hualien, there are few human inhabitations and little indication of human activity apart from the road and the railway which it occasionally intersects. Both pass through steep-sided mountain valleys or cling perilously to the steep cliffs, and it is little wonder that construction of both are legendary not just in engineering circles but in Taiwan’s popular history.

Magnificent sights

Both road and rail also offer some of the island’s most magnificent sights. The first of these is after just a few kilometers, where there are picturesque views back toward Suao, and is quickly followed by any number that contrast the high peaks with the vast blue flatness. Bring your wide-angle lenses.

The first break in the mountains comes at Dong-ao (東澳, “East Bay”), which is of little interest but for its length of deserted pebble beach called Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This should really be pronounced in Hoklo Taiwanese, “Huan-jiao-na,” since it is close to nonsense in Mandarin (“Powder Bird Woods”), which is further evidence of the area’s settlement by Fujianese immigrants.

The next break is at Nan-ao (南澳, “South Bay”), which has a few mom-and-pop restaurants on the main street, a church spire in the distance, and a vast sprawling Atayal aboriginal township in between.

Also, having finally overcome financial problems, there is also the Nan-ao Atayal Cultural Museum (南澳鄉泰雅文化館). Unfortunately, while its budget covers trilingual translations (Mandarin, Atayal, and English) of exhibit notes, it clearly did not cover acquisition of the best examples of Atayal arts and crafts, which tend to be bought up by well-endowed private museums and individual collectors.

The museum offers a good introduction to aboriginal life, however, and also to the natural attractions in the area. These include the Aohua Waterfall (澳花瀑布), Shenmi Lake (神秘湖) and Siqu Hot Spring (四區溫泉), as well as the family rafting, fishing, and in-stream hiking facilities planned for the Nan River (南溪).

After another stretch of twisting wooded road, cyclists, car drivers, and train passengers finally cross the Yilan-Hualien county boundary at Heping (和平). With the world-famous Qingshui Cliffs (清水斷崖) still to negotiate before the flat run in to Hualien City, bicyclists in particular might want to refuel, and the small township has a number of family restaurants, all of which for some reason sell the same thing: beef noodles. All travelers should keep an eye on the clock, however, because it would be a shame to travel this section in the dark and miss some spectacular scenery. In fact, if time allows, make the 40-kilometer-roundtrip inland detour to witness the breathtaking beauty of Taroko Gorge (太魯閣), usually cited as Taiwan’s number-one tourist attraction.

Back on the provincial highway, the fact that a major tourist destination is approaching is clear from the “famous local produce” (名產) shops and “marble museums” (大理石博物館) – actually also just shops selling marble sculptures and knickknacks but which have decided to advertise themselves as museums – that line both sides of the road.

There is a similar “museum” in the suburb of Qixingtan (七星潭, “Seven Stars Lake”), a dozen kilometers north of Hualien. This one, the Chihsing Tan Katsuo Museum (七星柴魚博物館) is worth a visit, however, not so much for the information on show, or even the products in its extensive sales area, but because it is more like a theme restaurant. Established in a disused smoked bonito factory, the museum introduces the region’s once highly profitable fishing industry, which produced “firewood fish” (柴魚, Taiwan’s nickname for the finished product) mostly for the Japanese market.

The factory courtyard has been converted into a restaurant selling barbequed fish, deep-fried fish cookies, octopus taco (which, throughout Taiwan, are served with wasabi and shaved bonito), fish soup, and more.

Qixingtan still retains the air of a quiet coastal village (the “lake” part of the name is another way of saying “bay”), though it is rapidly being turned into a mini tourist destination. Restaurants and cafés are springing up, and the Giant bicycle company operates a shop and bike-hire outlet catering to the 20-kilometer bike path that starts nearby. Despite its one or two hills, the path is easy and cycling to Hualien and back makes a pleasant half-day outing.

Its route also goes past the Hualien Winery (花蓮觀光酒廠; basically another sales showroom, but there is also a new microbrewery facility making an as yet immature “craft beer” as well as the more established rice wines). Then it reaches the Qilaibi Lighthouse (奇萊鼻, the “nose” – meaning promontory – of “Qilai,” which was the original aboriginal name for Hualien), and finally goes past the city’s harbor and into Hualian’s southern suburbs.

Despite the rapid development of recent decades, the marble quarries and fishing and shipping ports, and despite the outsiders who flock to the Ocean Park (海洋公園) theme park and search the night market for the best “famous local produce” such as mashu (麻糬, rice flour cakes), bianshi (扁食, dumplings) and Hualien shu (花蓮薯, sweet potato cakes), Hualien is essentially still a sleepy frontier town.

That is as it was before the Qing government built the first road here in 1874, as it was when the Japanese widened the road in the 1920s, and no doubt as it will be if and when the current or future administration builds a four-lane expressway.

Pros and Cons of the Expressway Project

A summary of the debate going on in Taiwan’s media.

For:

1. This section of the Provincial Highway No.9 is frequently blocked or disrupted by landslides.
2. The new road will provide safe, fast, sustainable transportation.
3. It will relieve traffic pressure on local roads and aid the east coast’s economic development, which lags far behind the rest of Taiwan (and is one reason why aboriginal employment, income, and education lag behind those of the general population).
4. More companies will expand their business into Hualien, bringing more job opportunities.
5. Opinion polls show Hualian residents support construction of the expressway.

Against:

1. The proposed route passes through 17 ecologically sensitive areas including Taroko and Cisingtan, as well as through or near culturally sensitive aboriginal sites.
2. The arrival of unprecedented numbers of tourists will impact the environment, without necessarily improving Hualien’s tourism economy (hotel business will shrink as Taipei citizens make one-day trips and trips to single rather than multiple destinations).
3. Rather than bringing development to the east coast, the road might take skilled workers away.
4. New roads tend to increase all road use, and there is nothing to suggest that congestion on the Provincial Highway No. 9 will be eased.
5. Key support for the new road comes from the gravel and quarrying industries, which is ominous for the environment.
6. The costs of building and maintaining the expressway are enormous.
7. Investment should be focused on improving rail transportation instead.