Kuanshan--Bicycle Playground

Kuanshan Township is located on eastern Taiwan's main north-south highway. The township is ringed by a 12-kilometer bicycle trail, three to four meters wide, with a concrete surface all the way. The trail is marked off with red bricks, and every 100 meters colored bricks are set in the ground in all kinds of patterns, to remind you that you have advanced another 100 meters! Much of the trail follows the Peinan River, the Hungshih Creek, and the Kuanshan Irrigation Channel, so that all along the route visitors are accompanied by the sound of water and can enjoy beautiful waterside scenery.

As you advance along the route, the farmland scenery changes too. Eight kilometers along the trail, you can see a model pig farm to one side, while to the other, endless paddy fields stretch into the distance. Here you feel carefree and happy, as if transported into a Jean Millet painting. So this is the home of the famous Kuanshan rice!

Down a slope, and the trail passes under the Hualien-Taitung railway and Provincial Highway 9. With luck you may even see a train speeding overhead. In fact, most of Kuanshan's bicycle trail follows farming access roads between the fields. Only bicycles and agricultural vehicles are allowed in; motorcycles and cars are completely banned from using it.

Picturesque scenery

After a short but stiff climb, the Kuanshan Irrigation Channel appears before us. The trail follows the clear waters downstream past rustling groves of swaying bamboo, whose little leaves carelessly flutter down onto the water and float along with the stream. Amid the chirping of crickets, you can lean on quaint-looking railings made from old wooden railway sleepers and look out at a poetic landscape full of blooming hibiscus and Alpinia. And at the lookout pavilion at the ten-kilometer point, you can savor a panoramic view of the whole of Kuanshan Township.

In the mahogany plantation alongside Kuanshan's cemetery, we have the delightful experience of winding our way through a garden carpeted with fallen yellow leaves. As the trail passes among the mahogany trees, we hear the rustle of dry leaves under our wheels and the song of black bulbul and Chinese bulbul in the trees. The people rushing by in their cars on the main road miss out on this kind of experience completely.

After a long downhill, we come to a spot where some Amis housewives who live by the trail are selling tasty snacks and drinks. They cheerfully recount how many cyclists have come by this morning.

Near the end of the trail we come upon a field full of flowering rape. The travelers all stop their bicycles and hurry to take each other's photos amid the beautiful golden rice fields, recording the joy in their faces after this half-day's journey full of interest and excitement.

Into Kuanshan

Kuanshan Township is located in Taitung County, in the flat bottom of the East Longitudinal Valley. The Hsinwulu River runs through the township, and there are high mountains to either side. The majority of the residents are involved in farming, in particular growing Kuanshan rice, which is especially tasty because of the pristine local water. Such industrial activity as there is is of a low-polluting kind, allowing Kuanshan to retain its good natural environment.

If arriving by rail, you can alight at Kuanshan Station on the Hualien-Taitung railway; if coming by road, follow Taiwan Provincial Highway No. 9. The bicycle paradise of Kuanshan is around an hour's journey from Taitung City. At the entrance to the bicycle trail you will see over 10 bicycle rental shops, where you can take your pick from standard bikes, lady's bikes, bikes with gears, tandems and children's bikes.

Li Yao-jung, owner of the Heyi bicycle rental shop at the entrance to the trail, says that when the bicycle circuit was completed in 1997, it started up a whole tourist industry in Kuanshan. In these three or four years, the number of bike rental shops in Kuanshan has increased from just a couple to over 10 today. Says Li: "Even on weekdays we get many visitors from Taipei, Kaohsiung and Tainan, and at weekends and holidays we often hire out over 1,000 bikes." The number of bicycles available for hire at the Heyi rental shop has increased to around 1,000.

A high-school dream

Over the past four years, Kuanshan Township's widely praised bicycle trail and Chin-shui Park have attracted a million visitors, rapidly making Kuanshan into a well-known Taitung County tourist attraction. Amazingly, all this sprang from the wishes of a senior high school student. The mayor of Kuanshan, Hsu Jui-kui-a Kuanshan local to the bottom of his boots-is deeply appreciative of Kuanshan's fine scenery. In the 1970s he studied at Kaohsiung Middle School, and when he returned home on holidays he loved to ride around the little back roads of Kuanshan by bicycle. Today's bicycle trail follows his favorite route when he was a senior high school student. Back then he thought: Why shouldn't others share in the pleasure of these rides?

In the 1980s, Hsu Jui-kui became a teacher. He began to take groups of his pupils out along this favorite cycle route of his, and the rides were immensely popular. So in order to enable his dream of a bicycle trail to become a reality, he decided to run for mayor, on a platform of "building a modern, park-like new Kuanshan." He was finally elected in 1994. After taking office, he began to implement a series of programs to build his dream, under the name of "Beautiful Kuanshan."

However, little Kuanshan Township did not have any funds to allow Hsu Jui-kui to carry out this kind of township remodeling program. But Hsu did not abandon his dream. Once, when with some pig farmers from Kuanshan he attended an Environmental Protection Administration award ceremony for environmentally sound pig farms, he explained his ideas for a "green" township to the then EPA head Chang Lung-shen. Chang suggested that the plan could be expanded, to create an environmental park.

After a series of appraisals, the EPA's assessment team finally approved a budget of NT$234 million to create an environmental riverside park in Kuanshan, and work started on the project in May 1996. In one year the circular cycle route was completed, and within three years the park itself had more or less taken shape. In 1998, Taitung County received a National Urban and Rural Renewal Creativity Award-mainly on account of Kuanshan-and Hsu Jui-kui himself received a Local Booster Award; and in 1999 Kuanshan received a Finest Scenic Township Award. Hsu Jui-kui's enthusiastic promotion of his native place has brought Kuanshan over NT$10 million a year in park ticket sales alone; it also offers a ray of hope for the rural economy throughout Taiwan.

A stroll through the park

After enjoying Kuanshan's bicycle trail to the full, when you get back to the trailhead don't be in too much of a hurry to return your bike to the shop, for not far away from the bike trail entrance Kuanshan's other big attraction, Chin-shui Park, is waiting to be explored.

Just inside the entrance, which is shaped like a ship, is the "water activities" section of the park. Apart from the central square with its fountain, the twisting paddling path and the amphitheater for aboriginal festival performances, there are also many differently styled areas for visitors to play in the water, soak their feet or have water fights, providing fun for all the family, old and young. If you climb up the spiral staircase of the lookout tower, you can get a bird's-eye view of the whole park. The park's visitor center is also an excellent place to fill the needs of the inner man and satisfy your shopping urges.

After passing through the "water activities" part of the park, you arrive in the "ecology" area, which provides many opportunities to observe nature. There is an energy house, which allows children to compare the growth of plants in light and shade; a Solar Terms area, where one can calculate the 24 Solar Terms of the Chinese calendar from the shadow cast by a pole; and a sundial, to teach visitors how to tell the time by the sun. And if you climb up to the lookout pavilion, the whole of the East Longitudinal Valley is laid out at your feet, and on a clear day you can easily see the Tulan Mountains in the distance.

Even more noteworthy features of the ecology zone are the birdwatching hides and the "ecology island." The hides enable visitors to watch birds close up without disturbing them, to quietly appreciate their life. The island attracts many birds to the park. The number of bird species seen here has increased to 13 or 14, and the population of resident birds, including ring-necked pheasants, is over 1,000.

Other scenic spots worth visiting in and around Kuanshan Township include the fascinating and highly educational mud volcano in Kuanshan's Tienkuang neighborhood; the Chihshang Farm Holiday Center and Tapo Pool in Chihshang; and the Kaotai tea gardens in Luyeh.

Spring in the country

Coming to Kuanshan takes one unconsciously back to the carefree serenity of childhood strolls in the country. Why not take advantage of a two-day weekend to escape the clamor of the city, and take a bicycle ride around Kuanshan? For a little while, your bicycle will seem to grow wings and carry all kinds of youthful dreams which seem never to grow old, flying along amid warm sunshine and scudding clouds.

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An endless expanse of flowering rape under a blue sky studded with white clouds is a delight to bicycle-roaming visitors.

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The majority of Kuanshan Township's residents are farmers, which is why the place has kept its homey appearance and friendly atmosphere.

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As soon as you get into Kuanshan you can see over ten bicycle hire shops offering a wide selection of mounts.

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From the top of the three-stories-tall "lookout tower" in Chin-shui Park, you can get a panoramic view of the whole 30-plus hectare park.

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The wafting scent of areca palm flowers and the sound of the rushing waters of the Peinan River make riding Kuanshan's bicycle trail feel like being in a large garden.