Taiwan - Eastern Taiwan & Taroko National Park (PDF Chapter)

This is the Eastern Taiwan & Taroko National Park chapter from Lonely Planet’s Taiwan guidebook.

It was sightings of the east that led the Portuguese to call Taiwan Ilha Formosa, meaning ‘Beautiful Isle’. Steep ridges of thickly forested mountains rise from the Pacific in wave after wave, often leaving only a narrow strip of oceanside land.

• get beyond the tour-bus viewpoints in Taroko Gorge, Taiwan’s most celebrated area of spectacular canyonland
• maps
• zigzag up past a monastery viewpoint, through thick woodlands and onto rolling upland fields that blaze orange with blooming lilies in August on Sixty Stone Mountain
• transport
• meander through Chishang’s rice fields and lakesides on gentle, bucolic cycle rides
• restaurants & accommodation

Coverage includes: Taroko National Park, Hualien, Central East Coast, Fengbin, Shihtiping, Chenggong, Dulan, East Rift Valley, Ruisui, Yuli, Chishang, Luye, Taitung, Chihpen, Green Island, Lanyu.