We visited Taroko Gorge for a couple of days, which is totally packed with tourists, but as with most of these touristy places there's a good reason for it. It's quite beautiful. However it's the kind of place you want to have a scooter to get around and there's no scooter hire within the park. We managed with bus, a taxi service provided by the hostel, and walking, but a scooter would have been great.

On the way back to Haulien we hitch hiked. We've done it before, but this time it was almost accidental. The next bus was in an hour or two and we were waiting for a taxi when a young Taiwanese couple just stopped and offered us a lift.

Hitch hiking sounds like a fairly scary activity to some, but Millerine and I have hitch hiked in Estonia, Wales and now Taiwan and it's nearly always been a breeze. Once we had a strange pot smoking born again christian pick us up in Estonia who worried me a little, but otherwise the people who have picked us up have been very friendly. The guy in Wales even took us on a tour of his town when we arrived (and told us his entire life story).

When we've hitched a ride it's always been over a short distance of about 10km - 30km. In every case we've been waiting at a bus stop. Buses are infrequent, and can take ages to cover what it will take a short distance in a car, so it can be a big time saver.