Preparation: entertainment

3 days 14 hours 42 minutes. That's how long it takes to travel from Toronto to Vancouver by rail.

Assuming no delays, a solid seven hours of sleep a day, that comes out to 2 days 10 hours 42 minutes (or, 65 hours and 42 minutes.) That's how long I have to keep myself entertained. A difficult task, perhaps, given my incredulous short attention span.

But fear not! I brought A Song of Ice and Fire (Vol.1-4,) Sherlock S2E01 and S2E03 (which were due for a re-viewing,) and a documentary about the Art Nouveau movement, all of which should keep me nice and distracted, and away from any further tempering of the travel itinerary. 

The iPad is loaded, cellphone is charged, I got my travel documents. Everything is a-go.

T-minus 3 hours 15 minutes until departure.

Travel Books

One of the most important tips I got from a train travel blog is: get a rail travel guide. It has all the sights listed by mileage so you'll know what to expect as the train chugs along the track.

ViaRail offers its own official travel companion guidebook but at $24 a pop, I just couldn't bring myself to buy one. Surprisingly, no electronic version could be found on the internet, legit or otherwise. And after surfing for hours, I was forced to admit defeat. In desperation, a more retro approach was needed.

I don't say this enough but "Huzzah for the public library!" 
Not only was I able to find an older edition at the library, I also found a copy of the Trans-Canada Rail Guide. That $24 is going towards a much better use: .


Ding ding ding! The Throwdown - ViaRail Guide vs. Trans-Canada Rail Guide (TRG)
Round 1 - Appearance (Winner: ViaRail Guide)

There's something to be said about high-gloss colour pages. So purrrty! The whole "not judging a book by its cover" is overrated. Of course you should judge a book by its covers. That's why there's a cover! Yes, I'm extremely superficial when it comes to books. However, the glossy pages also mean the ViaRail Guide is much heftier than its TRG counterpart.

My biggest peeve about TRG is its small print, which makes it hard to read, especially on a moving train

Round 2 - Content (Tie)

TRG includes more sights and it is surprisingly candid in its descriptions.My personal favourite passage - Mile 139: Sioux Lookout "sounds as if it's going to be interesting but it's not." I found some of the TRG sights listed to be somewhat odd, like the orthodox churches, and miscellaneous small towns. TRG also includes a brief travel section on each of the major cities, not particularly useful to me. 


ViaRail, on the hand, includes everything from the history of the rail to the different types of freight cars and rail signs. Not sure what to do with the latter info but it's there. Several sections read like a pamphlet advertising ViaRail. Not exactly an impartial source material now is it?


Frankly, I'm surprised that there are so few reference books about train travel in Canada. I supposed train travelers are a dying breed, like people who use the postal service.

P.S. After watching a YouTube documentary on North Korean workers in Russia, I feel strangely relaxed about my upcoming train trip. After all, it can't possibly be worse than the filmmaker' experience on the Trans-Siberian Railroad... At the very least, I'm pretty sure there are not going to be a bunch of drunk Russian ex-cons slamming back vodka and yelling at me on my trip.

P.P.S. Did you know that you can ride the railroad from London, England all the way down to Singapore? Isn't that cool? 

 

Great Expectations

"With great expectations, comes great disappointment." 

Okay, I took some artistic liberties with the Spiderman/Peter Parker quotation, but the quote still works.

I am trying really hard not to expect too much of VIA Rail. After all, it is a government-owned company. Videos like this one are certainly not helping. Look at the pretty mountains! Listen to that majestic music! And the food!

The overall consensus seem to be that the train will run late. The degree of lateness, however, is a matter of luck, ranging from an hour to 10+ hours. That's not exactly a good sign of things to come.

And while most of the reviews I have come across have been constructively positive, the negative reviews were scathingly so.

Doubt. Worried. Panicky. Jittery. I feel like I've just thrown the dice. The rest, is up to Fate. Let's hope she's feeling kind and I don't get an ambsace in return.

Doubt aka "Crap! What did I just do?"

Almost immediately after the ViaRail ticket purchase, reality/doubt sank in.


I stared blankly at the "NON-EXCHANGEABLE AND NON-REFUNDABLE" on the e-ticket for the better part of half an hour.

What the hell did I just do?

I can't afford this trip. What was I thinking? No matter how I added up the numbers, the train+accommodations+return flight alone was already going to cost a pretty penny. And to do this alone? WTF was I thinking?

Making matters worse, I converted that amount to Taiwan currency (a bad habit that I really need to break) and freaked out even more.

Breath.

"Go West Young Man"

Those who have seen the film One Week will no doubt know this scene. Those who have yet to see it, stop reading and go watch it now.  

I mean it. Go now. 

Although I have yet to see any such profound message in my own roll up the rim cup, traveling westward has always been on the list.

And what better way to see western Canada than on a train? Especially when you manage to snag a heavily discounted ViaRail ticket?

(A lot of thought went into this. Traveling by car is more expensive - factoring gasoline and overnight accommodations - and not to mention dangerous since I'm traveling solo. An one-way flight ticket from Toronto-Vancouver is faster and marginally cheaper but where's the fun in that? If nothing else, I got time. And while traveling on horseback would be highly entertaining, I imagine knowing how to ride a horse beforehand would be of somewhat vital importance. Cycling across western Canada would be awesome, but I doubt I have the patience/stamina to make it across the Prairies alive.)

Here it is. My train ticket (or rather, the precursor to my actual ticket.)

No turning back.

Weekend 7

Hualien and TAROKO!!!!!!

This trip had been in the plans for the better part of the summer. Given how popular Taroko is, I was pretty pessimistic about the entire outlook of the trip. Luckily, my friend came through and he managed to score train tickets to Hualien. This is also why we ended up leaving Taipei in the dead of the night one Friday.

Our train was one of the more "vintage" models (left). Look how shiny the new models (right) are ! They even have the words "Taroko" on the side! Beggars can't be choosers.

 

We arrived in Hualien a little after 1AM and promptly checked into the youth hostel and went straight to bed. Checking out the place next morning (when I was much more lucid,) it had a pretty cool vibe. The lobby is a combination of a bar and a library. You could tell it used to be someone's home once because they still had wedding photos and knick-knacks in the cabinets. It is definitely a departure from my perception for youth hostels.

Waking up in a room with nine other people was "interesting," let's just put it that way.

Up bright and early to grab the bus from Hualien to Taroko.

Two hours later... we're finally here. Taroko National Park.

This is where we started. If all went to plan, we should have arrived at our final destination a little before dinner, just in time to grab the bus back to Hualien. But you know what they say about plans right?

We went down to the water's edge. It was so cool standing at the bottom of the valley and just looking up around you, taking everything in.

Just look at that water. It was unbelievably clear.

During our walk, we went through three or four tunnels. Not my favourite thing walking in the dark with cars whooshing by, but it had to be done. Kudos to my travel buddies who made walking in those dark dark tunnels a semi-enjoyable experience.

The "Beware of Falling Rocks" sign was everywhere. We probably should have worn protective gear. Instead, we just walked extra fast through the most "dangerous" areas while keeping our eyes upwards for any "loose-looking" rock.

Lushui Trail

Great view from the trail.

One of the suspension bridges we encountered.

Purrrty. There's also river-rafting at Taroko but we didn't have enough people. It should be a pretty neat experience. Something to definitely consider next time I'm at Taroko.

Tunnel of Nine Turns (九曲洞)

Unfortunately, the path was closed off for repair due to recent heavy rain. This particular path has one of the best views in the park but it's also extremely prone to falling rock. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

Swallow Grotto (燕子口)

With all the traffic, the swallows have all but deserted this place now. Hopefully with better conservation, they'll come back again. A lot of tourists, many of which were wearing helmets. Surprisingly, none of the native visitors were wearing helmets.

Gah! My camera ran out of battery after this point. Anyways, it took us about six hours to walk a little over 7km (three times longer than anticipated.) I found out afterwards that the distances marked on the map is that of direct distance from A to B and not the actual road distance inbetween. So we prob. walked A LOT more than just 7km. We gave up about half-way to our final destination and took the bus back to Hualien. Just as well, since  we prob. would have had to camp in Taroko for the night had we persisted, something we were definitely not prepared to do.
We actually did a bunch more stuff that day: we went to the coast; watched the Pacific Ocean; lit a sky lantern; watched the fireworks; and hung around the night market. No pictures unfortunately. You'll just have to take my word for it. It was an exciting night!

On the way back to Taipei, we finally got to ride the newer Taroko train! Shiny! 

We enjoyed some "seeded" tapioca in Luodong. There's a bean inside every tapioca. Really chewy and utterly delicious.

Weekend 6: Saturday (Part II)

The Two Halls - Theatre Hall
I've been wanting to visit the two halls for a while now. But getting a guided tour for just myself was next to impossible. Instead, I ended up tagging along a group of elementary school students and their parents.
The tour was obviously simplified for kids but I was glad just to be able to go inside.
Both halls were modeled after the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. However, the interior of the music hall has far more western influences. One of the elements where this is the most evident is the chandeliers. Whereas the chandeliers in the theatre hall are fashioned like lanterns, the chandeliers in the music hall have the more conventional and western styling.

A close-up of the lantern chandelier.

One of my favourite photos from the theatre hall.

The Two Halls - Music Hall

My art appreciation skills are not quite up to par because I couldn't make heads or tails of this calligraphy masterpiece. Supposedly eight characters but it looks like a mess to me. Need to work on that, appreciating good calligraphy.

Note the chandeliers.

We got to see the VIP room. Even the doorknobs are super fancy.

We even got to see an orchestra practice. Pretty cool. Hopefully the next time I'm in Taiwan, I can take in a play/performance of some sort.