Wulai hot spring village

Saturday (the 27th) was a rainy and a bit cool day but seemed to be perfect to try out one of the nearest hot springs. So me and Jesus took the bus towards the Wulai hot spring village which lies in a valley 25 km south of Taipei. The bus was full of people from the rural areas who like to have a closer view on foreigners by guessing where are they from…? …we got used to it…but once an indigenous look like men full of tattoo remarked that my Spanish neighbour is similar to Jesus…ok… but when Jesus showed up his name, all the bus – including us – was burst into laughter…:)

When we arrived, the Indian man who made fun of Jesus invited us into his mother’s restaurant. What a nice gesture to foreigners…ha? The food was very delicious. The rice prepared in bamboo had an excellent taste with the pork and other salads…
After lunch we went to look for the free hot spring what the guide book suggested. This is actually consists of a few little pools on the river side and it was built by local villagers to utilise the rich hot water for their own health. Different pools have different temperature what they regulate with cold water. But most of them are still very hot around 38-45 C. Anyway, sitting in the hot water during the rainy hours was a pretty cool feeling…
Later we went up to the mountain by taxi to see a water fall which is the biggest in Northern Taiwan. It was almost 5 but the Yun-Hsien Resort at the top of the water fall was too attractive to miss out. We got up there by a cable car which looks likes a ski lift. This park is basically an excellent place to spend a nice weekend enjoying the green Taiwanese nature all around. But at that time the rain was so heavy that we didn’t have too much time to enjoy the beautiful sights of the park. We were just running up on the stairs to reach the hotel’s swimming pool which looked great in a picture at the cable car station… Finally we found it with also some Jacuzzi…so than the “day of complete relax” was absolute plenary!

Pictures about the tirp are in my google web album as usual:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tamasintaiwan