High Speed Rail to Banqiao
I walked to the nearby main street to catch the bus to Taichung HSR station which arrived a little late, after 0900. On the ride, I notice plenty of cottage industries to service traditional Chinese beliefs such as palanquins for deities and giant joss stick urns for temples. There were more temples big and small.
Today, I needed to take the “all stops” bus rather than the tourist bus that ran along the highway. We went through Changhua station where there were lots of Indonesian workers gathering to celebrate Eid or Lebaran together. There were a number of Indonesian restaurants too but sadly I couldn’t stop to eat.
At Taichung HSR station, it was a 20 min wait for the first train to Banqiao (outskirts of Taipei) where I would catch a pre-booked normal train to Hualien. There was a queue as there hadn’t been a train for a short while but now there’s three all bunched up within a 10 min window around 1030.
The 50 min ride took me through city, residential and agricultural (rice) areas. The Taiwan high speed rail is very frequent and it’s generally not necessary to book. The train filled up at Hsinchu, becoming packed with standees and it was jam-packed from Taoyuan. It’s the weekend!
Normal train to Hualien
At Banqiao, I have a normal train booked for Hualien. I had about an hour to kill and bought a boxed meal for NTD100 which was awesome value! It had a large piece of pork steak and enough vegetables.
The 1233 train departed full, so it was good that I had made a booking in advance. It was a very new and nice train, more so than the high-speed train but narrower with 2+2 seating rather than 2+3. There were quite a number of tunnels along the way. The ride of around 2h20 took us up to 125 km/h at times; well, at least that’s the highest speed that I noticed.
As we approached Hualien, I noticed that announcements included an indigenous language.
Walking away from the train station, I called into the nearby bus station to check-out the buses for tomorrow’s outing. It was then a 10 min walk to the Bayhouse Comfortel hostel.
For dinner, I found a Vietnamese place with lots of menu items that I liked. I had the papaya salad and actually ended up eating every meal in Hualien there.
I finished the day at the supermarket and 7 Eleven to buy some fruit and sandwiches for the outing to Taroko Gorge tomorrow.