This time we are going to the

East Rift Valley. The East Rift Valley

is located in

eastern Taiwan and it's a very

very beautiful place. Let me show you on the map.

This is Taiwan, you can see the central mountains in the middle

and the East Coast is here on the

right side. Let's go a bit closer.

You see Taipei is up here. From there we took the train

down the East Coast to Yilan,

Su'ao and then further down to

Hualien.

This is the train we took, the Puyuma Express. Between Su'ao and

Hualien, there is a very nice highway,

but if you take the train you cannot see much of

the scenery because it's all tunnels. There you have Taroko Gorge,

for me the best

place in Taiwan.

And in Hualien we rented a car, this one

a Mitsubishi Colt. Then we went on to

Liyu Lake, on to Fenglin, Lintianshan,

an old logging town (village) and then

to Ruisui where we spent the night,

On the second day

we visited a farm there in Ruisui, had some

hot pot for lunch

and then we went down the road to

Yuli where we did some

trainspotting, then we went further down

to the Walami Trail, a very beautiful trail

into the central mountains

and then we spent some time at the Antong

hot spring resort, and

back to Yuli, we spent the second

night at Yuli. On the third day we went to Sixty Stone Mountain,

very beautiful place and then further down to

Chishang, a town famous for

rice production. This is as far

south as we got. You can see Taitung

own there. We didn't go south as far south.

If you go further you can see

Green Island and Lanyu.

Those two places we will visit in a few

weeks time. Can't wait for it. Then we went all the way back up to Hualien,

returned the car there and

took the train back to Taipei.

So it was

a 3-day trip

and it was a good one.

The train we took was a Puyuma Express.

We took the one at 9:50 and it took two hours

to Hualien and it costs 440 bucks,

NT dollar. You can see the train was full, you have to make reservations early

to get a seat.

And there in Hualien we rented this car,

a Mitsubishi Colt for 1500 NT dollars a day

and for gas we spent 1000 NT dollars

for three days. Then we went straight down the road

from Hualien to Liyu Lake. But before we got to the lake we went to this shop.

This is a knife maker. And it's a bit difficult

to find, so I show you on Google, Google Map.

Here you go down the Highway 9 (9 Bing)

and then there's a bridge over the river, and

shortly after that there's a small road

to the right.

And let me show you on Google Street View.

Then it's all clear. So you come down there

and then there's

a small road on the right side.

And then you have to drive about

one kilometer.

You come to

a bend there in the road.

And then you can

this nice

little shop. And the reason, why you should go there is because they have

very nice knives,

hunting knives,

used by the aboriginal people in Taiwan.

They are very heavy and very nice,

very useful.

They also have small knives

as souvenirs and the sheaths they do, have nice

pattern. There you can see the knife is very nice in the hand.

You feel like a warrior immediately,

but be careful. Then we went to the Liyu Lake. It's a very beautiful lake,

southwest of Hualien (City). And at the time

we went there, they had the black

rubber duck sitting there, floating on the water.

I'm not sure if it's still there.

It's black, not like the yellow ducks, you could see elsewhere

in Taiwan, earlier in the year, and

people like to make pictures there.

You can see the lake is surrounded by mountains,

and you can rent pedal boats,

and even without the duck, it's

a very nice place. You also can rent bicycles,

there is a visitor center there, and very lovely scenery there.

I'm not sure why they have chosen black for the duck, I think

they say, black ducks are common in Hualien.

I'm not sure about that.

It's not a bad duck, as ducks go.

We went a little bit up the hill to see it from above,

and down there you have a love sign,

people like to make photos,

selfies. And that's the last picture of Liyu Lake. A very nice place.

If you are in the Hualien area, check it out. From Liyu Lake we went down the Highway 9 to

a town called Fenglin, and there we

saw this interesting building. Its a

tobacco building, used to store

tobacco leaves, during the time when they had tobacco

tobacco production in the area.

For me it looks a bit like

it could be in England, but I am not sure if England has this kind of

houses. You cannot go inside

They have stored some stuff in there.

Just an interesting building to see,

cause it is not common in Taiwan.

And a 50 meters or so down the road they have another

similar building. This one is actually a guesthouse

and you can go inside and drink coffee, but

interestingly we didn't see anyone there. This is inside, you can sit there.

And from Fenglin we went down the highway to another

place called Lintianshan, an old

logging town and they have old

trains there, old railway, you can go inside and have

fun, and

Lintianshan, a small place with

houses made of wood and

they have these old railway tracks

for logging, narrow-gauge tracks.

And you can go

inside and take some photos.

There's also a waggon

behind the locomotive, you can go inside as well.

Then you can see, they have these wooden buildings,

looks a bit like a train station, but it's actually

an office building of sorts.

We did make some photos there as well for the magazine.

And they also have a little

tower up the hill there.

A little tower from where you can see the railway tracks

and the village.

Very clean and quiet.

Mountains behind and there is a river behind the houses.

A lovely place. We liked it.

And if you go up these stairs, on the right side, there is a cafe.

And you can go down to the tracks

and have fun, fooling around a bit.

We did make

some photos there as well. And then we went further down

the valley to... Ah, no,

we went to this, this is close to Lintianshan.

This restaurant, which is known for pork (pig)

trotters and they also have

vegetables and

sausages and chicken. And these

these pork (pig) trotters are said to be very

good. I'm not sure, I'm not a big fan of pork.

And then we went down the highway to

the town Ruisui where we would spend the night.

And we spent the night at

this place, the Sunshine Hot Spring B&B.

By the way I will post all the information about the

places where we stayed and ate in the description under this

video, so you can check it out.

And this guesthouse has a hot-spring area

in the back.

It's very simple, basic, but nice.

It's hot, the water is really hot and they even have

a little waterfall behind there.

And there was no one

else there, so we could play around a bit.

And it was really hot.

You cannot see it on this picture. It was hot.

And we had fun

as usual, and in color it

looks even better.

But like I said it's very basic and

then it was time to rest and we stayed in

this room, very clean and very simple.

And the next morning was great weather,

the sun was coming out and we had

breakfast, very simple breakfast,

sandwiches and coffee. Prepared by

this man. It's the owner of the guesthouse, a very friendly man.

And they also have tatami-style rooms,

Japanese-style rooms.

Then we went on.

We went east of Ruisui to the rafting center there.

And behind the rafting center is this

dairy farm, called J. J. Valley Farm.

And they have farm animals, like

ostriches and

ponies,

lovely ponies. And the ponies had breakfast

as well. And right beside the farm is the Xiuguluan River

This river is very famous for white-water rafting

trips. And they start at the rafting center we saw earlier.

At the time we were there

there was not much water, but you can raft throughout the year.

Then we saw some cows. They had breakfast too.

Busy eating.

And what else, ah you can rent a bike there.

The bikes are not

in very good shape, but it's a nice place to go

for a bike ride.

The farm is nothing special if you are used to farms,

but if you haven't been close to cows, it might be something for you.

They also have water buffalo.

Then we went back to Ruisui, to the

railway station, and just beside the railway the station is

a restaurant, this one. The Bamboo Village

Japanese Cuisine. And there we had

hot pot.

Milk hot pot, because Ruisui is famous

for milk.

This restaurant also in Ruisui and serves milk hot pot

as well. It's a specialty you have to

try when

visiting Ruisui.

Here you can see the hot pot.

Then we went back on the road

and we took the County Road 193.

And there we saw some farmers planting rice,

interesting,

planting rice with this

kind of machine.

And you will see

lot of rice fields in the valley,

its part of the scenery,

and a beautiful part as well.

We saw this farmer planting rice. So we went there early in

March, rice-planting

time. We also saw a lady doing it by hand,

much more tiring I would assume.

You can see the mountains of the Central Mountain Range in the background.

Then further down to the town of Yuli.

A very lovely town. There, south of Yuli we went

to a bridge, a railway bridge, which is

well-known among local photographers,

cause it's so lovely red. You can see

trains coming. We waited for 40 minutes or so

to see this one-waggon train,

one-carriage train.

It wasn't actually so fast,

much slower. Then,

another train came back from the north, this one,

this train was headed for Taitung.

This one was a little bit longer.

So this is a famous spot for taking photographs.

The train and the fields and the