Rafting in Ruisui
I went rafting in Ruisui today...more pics and story will come later...
Early sunday morgning. looking north on road no 9...
The only burgerbar is closed...
At the local 7-11 they have Ruisui milk...
The fulong lookalitke trainstation is empty...
My breakfast for the day...7-11 coffee and some european chocolate cake...au usual I wonder if they even had this in europe...
The local TV showed some canadian having a bread store in hualian...I missed that...
100km to Taidong, and 27 to Fuli, where they have a high waterfall I want to see...
A taxi helped with transportation from the train station to the rafting area east of the village...
Xiuguluan River...
The rafting is heading to the museum i visited this february...
Some days one can go further, maybe all the way to the ocean...
It is a long river (for beeing in taiwan)...
Many ppl come here for rafting....even munks...
Omg, a universal advertisement...just change the product in the girls hand...
Our group was special, hosted by aboriginals (Qimei/Amei tribes)...with local food etc..
The big tourist groups are going extra fast down hill...
First an interoduction movie...
The heading to the river...
Many boats were waiting...
So touristic...
Our group had 3 boats...
This guy is an aboriginal...
And this guy too...a leader in his tribe...
We were suppose to wear clothes...and still walkin the water...
Bettercover up, the sun is strong...
And some gray helmets...
We started a little earler...than the other groups...
Paddling, paddling...
This guy was from main land china...
The stream wasnt that stron yet...
But there were some waterfalls ahead I could hear...
And the middle range...
We had this rope in the middle, to hold on to, in case of a bumpy ride...
"Zuo hua" (left side paddle) or "You hua" (right side paddle) were things i heard fromthe guy in the back, who was incharge of the boat...
Many other boats were approaching, Ruisui was in the background...
I think out boat was the fastest...
"Hold on to the center rope!"...the ride is getting bumpy...
Another calm area...
We had a motor boat following us all the time...
Monkeys in the terrain...this is the same area as the "monkey bridge", which I visited last year...when I went to taidong...
The sun was strong, I had to put on more sunblock every 30 mins i think...
Tired boats...
This guy looked like my old classmate Henry...
We got stuck on a stone, so the other boats passed by after a while...
The ride was like4-5 hours maybe...
Buffalos at the river bank...
Waterfall...
This guy fell in the water twice...not sure why he never held on the rope...
More waterfalls...
The season for rafting is in the summer...
The assiscance boat took a break...driving up on the bank...
More buffalos...
After a while we went up on land...
The aboriginal guide wanted us to show some stones that we needed to pick...
A member of the Qimei tribe...
Tis boats guide jumped into their water to push the boat into the side...
Everyone were wet...
The stoned we were suppose to pick were volcano stones...since they survived heat, and can stand temperatures up to 500-700 degrees...
Some other assisstance boat...
Suddenly many boats passed by, and i realized how touristic this thing is...25 million taiwanese ppl, and if jus some percent wanna go rafting on this small island, these aboriginals earn alot...
This is the black stone that we needed to pick...
Yep...it passed the smash test, no cracks...this good to heat up...
More by passers...
Some people didnt find any black stones...
More boats...
They did barely pabble, their assistance boat were pushing and pulling them...
But i guess these people are not used to exersice...
Time to continue...
More sunblock on...
But this time we did some floating exersice...
A floating train...
It ws fun...and went as fast as the boat...
Pretty fun...
An aother aboriginal...so cool...
Paddle time again...
After another 30 mins of paddling, we did another stop...
This was some qimei camp...
They just adjusted the boats first...then we were suppose to se how they catched shrimps and eat fish...
A shrimp trap...
Omg, alot of shrimps...
More boats passing by...
Pulled...by a boat...i wonder if they call this rafting...?
After the shrimp trap checking, we headed up to the camp...
Muddy...but interesting, it must have been fun, living here 500 years ago...
More ppl, most probably from taipei I was told...
The hosts prepared some food...
No one saw us from here...Its prettyy cool to be in the jungle of taiwan...
The taipei people were very noisy...
The guide spoke chinese...
We got some bambo mugs...
More noisy boats pulled down the river...
By some fast motor boat...
We also got some flower juice of some kind...
The instructor told us about how the aboriginals use to do...
I later got to keep my mug, finding out after some month that it was a worm in it...eating it up from inside...
Some fresh water fish...
So professional, river tracing shoes...these guys had the right equipment alright...
Then they showed us how to catch fish the old style...
It didnt seem that hard...
But no fish in the net...
More boats comming...this is surela a big business...
Our group were more for aboriginal culture...theirs were just "going down the river"...
Many people...
Once in a while people fell down...
These guys were more combat with helmets...they were heading further down than others...in the future it will be possible to go all the way down to the ocean...they told us...
Now we coulod try to catch fish...
Another poor guy falling from the boat...
City people...
Back on our boat...
Omg, the river speeds up...
We also tried to just go with the stream...
floating by ourselves...it was fun...
especially since we were paddling, the other boats that were pulled passed by, over and over...
I just tried not to get un burned...
Yingxiao...
Some animals along the river side...
More bumby road...
Some animal again...
This was the end...
It was the same village I passed when I drove scooter aroung taiwan...i visited an aboriginal museum here...
Most boats stopped here...
Then the boats and visitors drive back to the start...and new visitors comes...
Some aboriginals helping us out...
This guy was funny...
Amis...the chinese name of their sub tribe Amei...the japanese people forced them to wear special colours of their clothes...long time ago, to separate them from the south people...
More city people who were pulled down the river...
It was a fun ride...
But I want to go all the way down to the ocean...
So many boats...every day...this is an intersting place...however, taiwan has more people than scandinavia...so i guess its not that many visitors, from a national point of view...
Everyone has to stop here...
Some organisor telling the city ppl what to do...
Qimei, is the name of the tribe in this village...
We later on took a shower...
Omg, leaking...
My shoes and sox were wet, but in 30+ deg, they will dry pretty fast...
Here is the museum I visited before
Binlang trees...
At the museum we had lunch...
Some nice food...
Not sure...but i guess its aboriginal food...
but it was pretty similar to normal food...atleast most of it...
But this was not...
This i tried some time before...
We also revisited the museum with a guide...
This guy is from mainland china...but studies in singapore...
This guide is aboriginal...
Somedecorations...
This is an instrument...
And some necklaces...
The black one belongs to a shaman...they dont have a shaman here anymore...but north of hualian there lives one...
This is some other tool...
And some clothes...
And the codex of how to wear clothes...
Depeding on age...they have differnt dresses...
They are mostly very colourful...
And also some traditions...
These guys are also on the pics...
It seems to be a small society after all...
This guy is also in the tribe...
This girl is some admin, she collects money...
This pic I like...i think i took a pic of it last time i was here too...
On the way back, we could se the river again...I remembered that i went here by scooter before...
A bumby ride...
And alot of landslides...
Some cool antenna...I wonder hoe they put it up there...maybe by helicopter...
Another slowdriving tourist bus...
And the reef vally between Hualian and Taidong...
I like this place of taiwan...pretty isolated and peaceful...
And untouched, taiwanese people prefer city life...and convenience...
Kater at ruishui I found a giant store...nice...
The ticket system is in chinese...
I treid to find out how far the waterfall is, in Yuli, that I want to visit so much...or luoshan waterfall found at http://taiwanswaterfalls.com
The trainstation of Ruishui, they dont have any electrical trains here..from hualian they only go by diesel i think...but they are currently building a new railway to change that...
Nice view of the valley...
Not far on the other side is the ocean...maybe I will buy land there in the future...
I later passed by some local ice cream store in hualian...
Tomato or something and chocolate...not important, i just to supposrt local production...
It was close to the trainstation...
I also went for a walk, trying to find a burger bar...but without result...
Back on the train I saw the road up to taroko gorge and also the place where my counsin johan lives...
Its a very peaceful place, he told me that I could live there from some days if i want, and I might do it...its fun with new perspectives of life...
I also bgouth a beer, for the train...i like going by train...
And some peanutbutter M&M´s...the day is saved...
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