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coming up on this episode of welcome to Taiwan Damien and I explore the colorful and natural marvel that is Hualien we have some incredible adventures and we learn a lot about a very special culture here that we had no idea existed this mr. Edition is festival system and putting it on fire spin on each other that's like life and we also track one of the world's most unique and dangerous nature trails I think this is the craziest hug I've ever done in my life so buckle in because this episode is going to be next level epic
this episode is brought to you by Skillshare to find out how to get two months free access to their wealth of online classes make sure to stay tuned to the end of this video and we're back welcome to another episode here in Taiwan and we are in Hua Lian this episode as you'll see it's got lots of like cool adventurous stuff planned hua Lian is kind of like the capital of adventure and trekking and watersports and things like that and hopefully fingers crossed the weather's going to hold out for us yeah it's gonna be a great episode and we're looking forward to explore why Lian so what do you reckon
when we go and get dip yeah freezing yes it was great to be finally here in Hua Lian this is the place with most been looking forward to because here you can really immerse yourself in the indigenous glocal culture and stunning nature and what a better way to start our first morning and by taking a dip in this local stream just 10 minutes cycle from downtown these map mate tracks you see here are for the fish to swim up during spawning season as many of the rivers here have been widened to help combat flash flooding this human input means that the wildlife here needs a little help to get back to
their proper breeding grounds this spot is also perfect to just come and cool off and enjoy some peace and quiet and to really connect with Taiwan's nature it's also great to hang out with a handful of locals who also come down here for a morning dip OPA remember self arrives back to tisha if you're gonna be in a while the end and you want an afternoon dip just come up here we'll leave the location in the description and we'll just call it the fishery Wharf all because it's all in Chinese better than a really good cool place especially when you see the locals that's coming here with their swimming goggles to come
swim it's beautiful and then this Chinese couple we're just like okay that means get in the truck we'll try this teacher on chicharrón yeah but Sesame Boston no that's so good ouch it's wrong no try to love that what look very good ah that's the one chicken eh yeah let us introduce you to Jason he's the two artists from hua Lian and newly made hostel owner he's also freaking hilarious and one of the most colorful characters we've ever met and yeah as you can see he really welcomes travelers as family guests he was also very keen to teach
us about his indigenous tribe who mostly live in and around this area but before he took us to meet a local tribal family he wanted me to try a special kind of nuts called betel nut the local tobacco equivalent so usually you just yeah whole thing whole thing and then chewing naturing gun yeah my first time betel nut yeah you're not okay keep chewing and then I have a lot of just come out and then until you cannot hold it you just spit it out - 4 3 or 5 billion you will feel like everybody warm and your thumb in life mmm ok well it's not that bad can the beginning of like but is it like cigarette is
it doesn't have another it's just like I'm chewing a piece of wood yeah later that evening Jason invited us over to his friend's family's place as he was keen for us to get to know some of the local tribal families try out some of their foods and to just dive a little deeper into this unique part of Taiwan's culture lemongrass and chicken soup this super-cute family welcomed us into their home and even though they didn't speak any English with the help of Jason we were having great chats about life here in Hualien and we wasted no time in getting stuck into the huge amounts of food lying
around but different kind of Christian Bon Apetit whatever dude how do you say I enjoy your meal No welcome to Taiwan bit why did they dismiss because apparently I look indigenous the older you get the more feathers you get no but that's only like warrior like oh so clay so you are sick and label the or stream like okay like father's label you can get this one after that isn't it off and how to show you like how tough you are how good you are we can see this feather this side they show that because we get weak we have this hunting per
season so when you've got that special spurt means I got good skill so you show everything like this year what kind of special thing you hunt you can put that thing in this that in this spot so I will show the people like yeah how tough I'm I'm I'm a badass mother lover and this one is means a year that's the one you haven't had you got here can listen if you're a kid you don't listen you don't understand so you don't have a year yeah hey let's swag right here what like I don't want to offend anyone show me how to do like I don't like this don't know
you don't do that okay we just be cool and look what - dude show me what to do hey man yes yeah too much to face too much nature we finish dinner I feel all the only for you dude after a fun-filled night and with our bellies set to burst and our arteries blocked for eternity with cholesterol it was time to head back to the hostel because we had a very early start for the next day yeah good morning from a Qin Shui cliffs these mountains rise up to over 2,000 meters and dive directly into the Pacific Ocean to create these incredible structures this is something you have
to come visit if you here in Hua Lian there are a lot of ways to see them you can drive along the coast and even take a train but I had arranged something extra special we were going to see the cliffs from below with a kayak on the ocean to get up really close to these big giants we had a 3 a.m. pickup and a one hour drive so that we could learn the basics of kayaking and driving ATVs as we would need to drive along the pebble beaches to reach the starting point we reached the ocean's edge and pushed out to sea to get our first glimpse as the Sun was rising
due east the weather was Moody and with the dark clouds and the low-lying mist an eerie atmosphere was surrounding us as these majestic cliffs were brought to life in the morning light we paddled around for some time before the couple that we came with had to call it off early as seasickness was setting in but instead of calling off the entire adventure the Tool Company decided to take us back to shore so we could continue exploring the coast on the cord bikes all we had to do was make it back to dry land first
yeah that landing wasn't the smoothest and we had to lick our wounds a little while but we got over it and jumped on the ATVs and didn't let being cold and wet get in the way of us having some adventure you know what just a weird morning swim it feels bloody great I'm fine so i'm random morning turtle
try one beautiful is hard to mean anything lucky we jumped back on the ATVs and we rode around some more the guides gave us a tour of the area for about an hour and it was a total blast from the start to finish by the time we got to the hostel had our lunch and had a well-deserved nap it was already the evening and Jason came round and picked us up to take us to a very special local tribal festival here in Hua Lian there are six distinct tribes and this one in particular is the sakis ayah tribe the sakis ayah are a Taiwanese Aboriginal tribe with a population as little as five thousand they are
most culturally linguistically and genetically tied to other Austronesian ethnic groups that can be found in the Philippines Malaysia Madagascar and Oceania and these are the Zaki's ire witches as you can see they are going around spitting rice wine on everyone this is just a local custom a blessing and a way of cleansing any curses that you may have on your soul they also cast spells and call upon the spirits to bless the offerings that you can see here that will be later burnt as part of the climax of the evening
yeah the local songs and dances were incredible to watch and I started to feel really at home here since being half Filipino I'm certain that I have a little tribal blood running through my veins my little Aboriginal brother here feels very at home people are looking at him like this tradition is festival system of putting [__] on fire and spinning rice out of each other so what we're gonna do is we're gonna carefully walk around make sure we don't get in anybody's way and just enjoy this awesome experience this festival is called polymer in the language of the sake SIA means to be reborn back to glory sadly this tribe was almost completely wiped out during the Japanese invasion the last few remaining
survivors had to hide within another tribe called the amis tribe and so today both of these tribes come together or once a year the sake sigh I give thanks and blessings to the amis tribe for saving the lives of their last few surviving ancestors hi-yah before the climax of the evening with the traditional burning of the house the witches were called back out to pray to the gods to stop the rain they must have been out there for 20
minutes in the pouring rain praying spitting loads more rice wine and calling for the rain to stop incredibly the rain did stop and the burning of the house could begin this is a replica of one of their old tribal homes and they make prayers to call back to the spirits of their ancestors to invite them to the ceremony and once they felt the spirits of the ancestors around them the elders of both tribes walked slowly to the house and set it on fire
as the house burned everyone felt the warmth of the fire and the warmth of being connected back to their ancestors this was a privilege and a huge pleasure to have been able to witness and to learn something completely new about Taiwan and this surprisingly rich cultural heritage we had no idea existed early next morning it was her last day in Hualien and we were super excited because we had saved the best for last we made our way towards the terrico National Park because we had a permit to walk the jail ooh all trail
taiwan's most breathtaking nature trail and a true nerve-wracking sensation not good morning and welcome to Telugu National Park it is gorgeous here absolutely taroko is the name of the local try people use the live in this National Park or the taroko try there are dozens of trails in this National Park and you can do all of them at different levels of ability and skill and difficulty but the only one you need a permit for is this trail it was quite complicated and I'm not going to bore you with the process but if you are interested in doing this trail I'll leave the information below there was a really useful bulldog post that I used and
it was completely free to get the permit we only had to pay $200 or about five US dollars to get in to do the trail you needed your passport and the permit and look at this at the start of the trail whoo beautiful and apparently gets pretty gnarly up there so we'll bring you along and show you because we're really excited and this suspension bridge really bouncy are you excited yes sir what a beautiful day as well we've chosen not much clouds or mist yet
this trail is extremely special for several reasons and because of that only 100 people a day are granted permits to enter the most important reason as you will see is that the path gets pretty freakin dangerous so if bad weather hits the trail it will be closed and all permits will be cancelled so just pray for good weather and get on the trail as early as you can sweaty oh so fast they're good it is actually more like a jungle trek we were just saying then a mountain pass just because at this altitude it's still very thick jungle humid hot monkeys yeah don't lie monkeys poisonous snakes were on the lookout for and spiders
famous last words but listen to their bugs pretty cool after the initial hot and humid jungle stage you appear through a much darker forest and the path becomes a little bit more mysterious you know that you're super high up but the views down below are constantly blocked by thick forest but eventually out of nowhere it reveals itself to you and you finally realized just how high you really are
welcome the middle of the cliff this is about as now as it gets right so far hope so but if you're scared of heights it's a little bit dodgy but luckily they've got this you can see the cars down there they look like ants you see that feeling in your balls imagine how it must have been for the people who made this well I heard that they widened it oh no what yeah like yeah exactly like it used to be like only 30 centimeters wide imagine 30 centimeters that's like 30 centimeters phrase like this scary bro-bro
earthquake peasant wondering like what kind of stewardess I'm stomach just comes off and this is what we're walking on yeah feel safe feel so secure right now Wow nevermind oh my God look at this ah this is a trial like this anyway I don't think so this is amazing I think this is the craziest I've ever done in my life
oh my god I have a fear of heights I conquered it but now I think I didn't contro yet there wasn't really much we could say to each other on this trail we were just totally blown away by the extreme beauty all around us turn after turn there were just incredible views and we just took it slow and steady keeping a very close eye on our footsteps
we were trying to compare this earlier well me but there's nothing you can pass to you know yeah this is like sure unique yeah it's not like you can go all this reminds me of that I did a lot of hikes but incredible we should have brought some beers back down the main road we picked up her bags and decided there was no more scenic place to hitchhike than taroko national park we wanted to head out to our very last destination here in Taiwan and give ourselves enough time for the final and biggest challenge of this series okay this is the end of the Hualien episode we are here on the road we're heading to a new destination for
the final episode we have a very big our biggest challenge in the final episode so stay tuned for that we're not gonna let you know what it is just yet but we'll see you in the next one hua Lian was amazing and wasn't there so much to do here I really liked learning about the aboriginal and the tribal stuff here especially with you being so into it and having a bloodline in there somewhere and how everybody was like oh baby what tribe are you from who's like now I'm Filipino did anyway we're gonna try and do this and we'll see you in the next episode bye we would also
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