Wild Taiwan

A lady of leisure writes about wildlife in Taiwan.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

內雙溪聖人瀑布 Nei Shuangxi Shengren waterfall

While I was surfing through the web looking at ManYueYuan, I found this weblink to the Shengren waterfall (meaning Saint's waterfall). http://www.pse100i.idv.tw/n/neasn/neasn001.htm
If you go to the link, don't you think the photographer's work is really beautiful? So being attracted to this kind of scenery, we decided to go this afternoon. It was real easy to get to. Unlike the bus that leaves every top of the hour to Manyueyuan, the 小18, runs every half hour from Jiantan MRT see bus link http://www.capital-bus.com.tw/busline/index.htm
The ride was very scenic. It reminded me of Manyueyuan and Wulai. I supposed because these are all catchment areas. There were green hills all around. The air was fresh and there was a nice cool breeze. After we alight from the bus at the last stop, we took a long route to the right and walked along the waterways (probably constructed since the Japanese occupation to channel water to rice farms). Then as the path disappeared along the waterway, we walked on the road. There were some cars parked on the roadside and children with nets catching butterflies or fish. After passing by a huge brown house, which sure looked out of place there, we took the road on the right and walked back to the main road. This road was parallel to the waterfall but we couldn't see it but we could hear it. There was a brand new education centre beside this road just after the falls.
When we got back onto the main road, we walked to the shengren chiao, saint's bridge and walked through the river, 內雙溪, to get to see the watefall. We didn't get ourselves wet because the waterlevel was low and there were huge flat boulders which we could step easily to cross the river.
When we did see the waterfall, it didn't look as nice as those in the photos. There was also a wooden barrier with green wires to prevent people from going right to the falls. Of course, people climbed right over the barrier and sat beside the waterfall. This was also BBQ season so there were crowds barbequeing on any and every exposed boulders. The people tend to leave the charcoal, BBQ pits or food behind so it won't be doing a lot of good to our drinking water in the long run.