Jan

Monkey Mountain – Kaohsiung, Taiwan

So…I went to Taiwan for 10 days during my Winter break. This is just one experience from my visit….I will post another entry about more of my Taiwanese experience (I really will because I have already written it in a notebook!!).

Monkey freakin’ Mountain!

While I was in Taiwan, a few people told me about some MUST do things while traveling in Taiwan. One of those “must do” activities was to visit Taroko Gorge, but I wasn’t able to make it because of time constraint and there isn’t much else to do around that area.

Another must do activity was visiting/hiking Monkey Mountain in Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan. To get to monkey mountian, you can ask around or the bus/subway/train stations have some maps (but they don’t show Monkey Mountain). Once you start getting close, there are 6ft tall yellow banana signs with arrows pointing you in the right direction. You are a moron if you can’t follow these signs…

Once I got to Monkey Mountain I started hiking. There is a zoo area and then the trails to hike, I definitely wanted the hike instead. The weather was absolutely perfect! About 70 degrees, sunny and a little bit of a breeze. The day before was rainy, a little cold and pretty much shit…so I was pleased. I forgot to buy some bottled water before my hike, but they had some rest/water stations along the way.

The hike started out like the hikes in Korea where there is a single trail that has some ropes/steps and is wide, but off of the main trail, there were LOTS of little trails.

I figured I would take the little trails because it would be more fun.

Oh ya…I forgot to mention that only 15 min into the hike there was an open area with a pagoda (with a wooden monkey on top) and some benches….and a bunch of flippin’ MONKEYS!!! They were only about a foot away from me. The Macaque’s have had enough human interaction that they aren’t really scared. As I continued the hike monkeys were EVERYWHERE…it was quite amazing.

I got lost on a few of the smaller trails, but managed to find my way to the summit. The summit was nothing like in Korea, where there are pagodas, markers telling the height, lots of Koreans drinking and eating, and who knows what else (like a security camera). This summit had a small man made rock formation and a first aid kit…that was about it. I could see the next mountain over there was a military radar station.

During the hike down, there were just as many monkeys. I would suggest to anyone who visits Taiwan, to head to monkey mountain. Very awesome day in Taiwan and lots of good pictures.