Wulai (烏來)

Three days of sushi, ramen, Thai food, fro-yo, honey toast, and other culinary delights in Taipei left our pants feeling a bit more snug than usual, so our day trip out to Wulai was a welcome change.

Getting out of the city and into this lush, tropical jungle is a simple matter of taking the subway to the last stop on the green line and then jumping a 40 minute bus to the end. As we wound our way up the narrow streets, we looked out over mountains of dense, tropical forest, extending back to misty peaks in between which the city of Taipei sat, growing ever distant.

The small town of Wulai has one main road, full of little souvenir shops and small stands selling chewy rice cakes drizzled in condensed milk, sweet potatoes on a stick, Japanese mochi of every flavor and coating, and fresh fruits so ripe they must have been snatched from a nearby tree. From town you can follow signs to a nearby waterfall, which springs forth as if from a large hole in one of the flora-covered mountains, shooting downward like a powerful faucet rather than cascading over rocks and brush.

Deciding to make this a more active day, we continued on by foot toward the park, which boasts a bigger, more famous waterfall. The walk, mostly along a main road and then "over the river and through the woods," gives you a good idea of how lush the area really is. The aboriginal-inspired stone fence separating the walking trail from a drop-off into the stream was covered in green vines and moss, as was the stone wall which lined the other side of the road. Palm trees, big ferns, and drooping banana trees overlapped and intertwined. Everything on all sides was a deep shade of healthy green.

The waterfall inside the park is beautiful. Wide and intricate, it flowed over multiple levels unlike the smaller waterfall we had passed just outside of town.

However, having seen so many smaller cascades on the way into the park we did not feel the need to dwell on its beauty. After three and a half hours of continuous walking, the waterfall was the end of the line, and we called a taxi to take us back to the town center for a bit of lunch and a bus ride back to Taipei.