Winter Warmth--Wulai Hot Springs

Thanks to the riches bestowed upon the area by the Nanshih River, the sleepy valley of Wulai has been able to stake a claim for itself, keeping a warm sense of spring about the place even in the depths of winter.

Mountains carpeted with cherry blossoms await the winter visitor to Wulai. In 1995, the town began to plant a range of Oriental cherries around the area, and come winter, like magic the lush green mountains and deep blue waters of Wulai are given a beautiful touch of red.

Bathing the the open-air springs, everywhere you look you're surrounded by lushly forested mountains and deep green water, a truly magnificent sight. (photo by Pu Hua-chi)

Cherry blossom meets hot spring

Turn right from the Taipei-Ilan Highway in Hsintien, head straight down Hsinwu Rd, and you'll find yourself in Wulai. Along the winding mountain roads you'll see cherry trees brightening the path, and all the way from Kueishan hot spring resorts of all sizes sit alongside the Nanshih River, beckoning visitors.

Sitting just across the road from Wulai's township office is Wulai's newest hot spring resort, the year-old Pause Landis. This resort is also currently the only one in Wulai to have been awarded an operating license.

With the resort's sales and marketing officer Ivy Wu, we visit the variety of pools the facility has on offer. Looking out over the deep green mountains and the rich blue of the Nanshih River, sitting in a hot spring with a few friends taking in the scenery... now there's a picture of real happiness. Wu notes that occupancy at the resort, on an average day, is as high as 90%, and at weekends it's virtually impossible to find a room.

Around Chinese New Year, Wulai gets a surge in visitors thanks to the annual Hot Spring Cherry Festival. In order to really pull in the visitors this year, they're changing the focus a bit from past years. Instead of being mostly about the springs and the flowers, the main emphasis will be on Atayal Aboriginal culture and environmental tourism. Says Mayor Chang Chin-jung, the hope is that this way people will get to understand more about the many faces of Wulai.

Wulai is home to all kinds of delicious Aboriginal meals, like wild boar meat, millet wine, and other wild foods, and while visiting the township you'd be well advised to give some of them a try.

Taipei's back garden

The name "Wulai" originally comes from the Atayal Aboriginal name for the area, Ulai. The story goes that the ancestors of the Atayal would hunt in the area, and on one such trip some of them spotted a mist rising into the sky. Going over to check it out, they discovered hot water bubbling from the rocks, and yelled a warning to their companions: "Ulaikirofu!"-Atayal for "Careful of the hot water!" Since then, the place has been known as Wulai, the Sinicized version of Ulai, thanks to the area's hot water-the springs, which have now also become the town's economic lifeblood.

Wulai sits at the southern end of Taipei County, northwest of the northernmost peak of the Hsuehshan mountain range, the highest point in the Taipei basin. It has an area of 321 square kilometers, making it the largest township in Taipei County. Although it's four times the area of Keelung City, and roughly the size of Taipei City, only 7% of Wulai is actually habitable land, the rest being uninhabited mountain areas.

The township is surrounded by towering mountains, with Mt. Ayu to the east separating it from the Ilan township of Sanhsing, and the other mountains in the area averaging 1000 meters in height. The tallest, Mt. Taman, is Taipei County's highest mountain, standing 2130 meters tall. The geography of the area is stunning, with ravines, cliffs, and waterfalls dotting the landscape.

Wulai sits along the Nanshih River, which springs from Lake Sungluo in the Hsuehshan Range, between Mt. Tsuntoumu and Mt. Tsulan. After flowing through Hapen, Fushan, Hsinhsien, Wulai, and Chungchi, it runs out of Wulai Township and into Hsintien City, where it merges with the Peishih River, becoming the Hsintien River.

Gullies and waterfalls, along with the Nanshih River, are the most distinctive natural features of the Wulai area. With the increase in weekend leisure travel, the ecotourism industry is developing these into the area's big selling points, introducing mountain hikes, birdwatching trips, and foot massage paths to help people make the most of Wulai.

Bathing the the open-air springs, everywhere you look you're surrounded by lushly forested mountains and deep green water, a truly magnificent sight. (photo by Pu Hua-chi)

Ecological treasure-chest

Running from Wulai to Fushan is the 20-kilometer Hapen Trail, which was once known to the local Aborigines as the "wedding trail." Township mayor Chang Chin-jung, himself of Atayal heritage, remarks that the Atayal of Wulai and their compatriots in the Ilan township of Tatung would often do business with each other, and intermarry, and the Hapen Trail was vital for this.

The scenery of the Hapen Trail is outstanding, and it is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. At dawn, kingfishers, grey-cheeked fulvettas, black-browed barbets, and brown dippers come out for breakfast, and sharp-eyed visitors may catch a glimpse of the Formosan macaque, Reeve's muntjac, or red-bellied tree squirrel. Also swimming around in the Hapen River is the Taiwan shoveljaw carp. At night, glowworms dot parts of the landscape. The whole area is like Taiwan's own Amazon.

"At the moment we're in the process of training guides to show people around, and we plan to build shelters along the trail too," says Chang, who is overflowing with ideas about how to market Wulai.

Late last year, the Japanese fashion for "negative ionization" at waterfalls, said to promote metabolism and counteract acidity in the body, hit Taiwan. This seems set to boost Wulai's tourism levels even further. When the Forestry Bureau announced the top six waterfalls for this activity in Taiwan, Wulai's Neitung Falls took the top spot, and the Wuchung River falls, originally not included in the study, took second place. According to the measurements conducted, there are over 20,000 anions per milliliter of water in Neitung Falls, and although this figure is still unofficial, the waterfall's purported revitalizing effects have drawn huge numbers of visitors. "After the news got out, even visitors from central and southern Taiwan started to come up here," says Chang, and this has been a big thumbs-up for the drawing power of this anionic waterfall.

Wulai is home to all kinds of delicious Aboriginal meals, like wild boar meat, millet wine, and other wild foods, and while visiting the township you'd be well advised to give some of them a try.

An Aboriginal metropolis

In addition to the unique scenery and its other natural drawcards, Wulai is also Taipei County's only Aboriginal township. Over one in three of Wulai's 4867 residents is Aboriginal.

Wulai's Atayal Aborigines are of the Malepa line of the Seqoleq branch of the tribe, and their ancestors originally came from what is now known as Jen-ai Township in Nantou County. They were driven north by population pressures, and had taken up residence in Wulai by the middle of the Qing dynasty.

The most easily accessible and enjoyable aspects of Atayal culture in Wulai are their food and their weaving.

It's said there isn't a single Atayal woman who can't weave, and that weaving was traditionally to Atayal women as hunting was to the men. In 2000, a "tribal classroom" was set up in Wulai to help Atayal residents pass on their skills in traditional weaving.

As well as the tribal classroom, which serves as both a school and an exhibition hall, Wulai is home to 12 weaving studios, where one can find dolls, backpacks, and cellphone bags all done in the style of traditional Atayal art, and all demonstrating the detailed, vibrant, distinctive Atayal aesthetic. Tsai Chiu-feng points out that the diamond is a common motif in Atayal work, representing the eyes of the ancestral spirits, and that this shape is the main feature in their traditional artworks.

All kinds of mouthwatering Atayal delicacies can be found in the stores on Wulai's old streets, such as "banana rice" (made by cooking rice and bananas wrapped together in plantain leaves), "bamboo rice" (glutinous rice packed into a stick of bamboo and steamed), "magao revitalizing soup" (mountain pepper and chicken soup), mochi balls, millet wine, wild boar meat, and others. Also on this old street can be found a brand-new building-the Atayal Museum. This museum is scheduled to open in May, when as well as enjoying the weaving and food, tourists will be able to understand even more about the culture behind these treats.

Calling itself "Taipei's back garden," thanks to its position near the city, Wulai has built itself into a place where people can escape the rat race, relax, and unwind.

The rise and fall of Wulai

Under Mayor Chang's plan, Wulai won't just draw people in, it'll also get itself better known in the outside world.

In late November last year, Wulai formed a sister city partnership with the Japanese city of Oyama in Oita Prefecture, Kyushu. According to Chang, the current mayor of Oyama visited Wulai 15 years ago, and the place left a huge impression on him, so he organized the sister city agreement between the two through the Interchange Association, Japan.

Actually, back in the 1960s and 70s Wulai was up with Alishan and Sun Moon Lake as a big tourist spot, ranking among Taiwan's top ten. At that time the main visitors were Japanese, and to entertain these guests the local Atayal put on show after show, part of a boom the likes of which haven't been seen since. As the Japanese visitors started to dry up, so did the performances.

On one bank of the Nanshih River is Wulai Falls, over 100 meters tall and known throughout Taiwan. A cable car runs up to the top of the falls from the river's opposite bank, traveling a distance of 382 meters, and is a huge hit with visitors. Also up at the top is Yun Hsien Holiday Resort, home to many a childhood memory.

In the 1980s the popularity of huge man-made gardens and amusement parks started to take hold in Taiwan, and the ecotourism industry took a huge blow. This was the beginning of Wulai's downward slide.

In 1999 a trend for all things Japanese caught on, and hot springs and cherry blossom viewing came into vogue. Wulai started to come back to life. The introduction of the two-day weekend in 2001 helped Wulai even more, and the area gradually became able to live off tourism once more. Visitor numbers have repeatedly broken 1 million people per year of late, the majority being Taiwanese tourists.

"There's no problem with unemployment here in Wulai," says mayor Chang, "only laziness." For 200 years the people have just relied on the supposedly "inexhaustible" hot springs to get by.

Wulai's spring water is colorless and odorless, containing carbonic acid and sodium hydride rather than sulphur. About 80 spring resorts are now in operation, 85% of them funded and built by non-locals.

Last November, media reports stated that some Wulai springs were recycling their water, and that bacterial levels were high. This caused visitor levels to drop by almost half. Later, a member of the Control Yuan came to investigate Wulai, and verified that there was no recycling of water. As a result, visitors have been gradually returning to the area.

But with that return has come a downside: much of the hot spring industry of Wulai is drawing from the river illegally, and the snaking hot spring pipelines have wreaked havoc on the famous mountain scenery of the area. Fortunately, an official communal pipeline is planned to begin operations this year, and the illegal ones will be removed. Users of the water will have to pay, but the water will also be accessible in family homes, and no longer the sole preserve of big corporations and industrialists, so now even the townspeople will be able to fully enjoy the wonders of Wulai.

Wulai is home to all kinds of delicious Aboriginal meals, like wild boar meat, millet wine, and other wild foods, and while visiting the township you'd be well advised to give some of them a try.

Looking forward to relaxed controls

As of January, the one thing long described as the biggest hurdle facing Wulai's future development, the ticketing charges for the scenic area, will be scrapped. These were set at NT$50 per person, bringing in over NT$40 million a year for the Taipei County Bureau of Works, but Chang Chin-jung says it was "losing more than it was making." This system not only caused traffic jams, it also ended up reducing the number of visitors, as people chose rather to spend their money in resorts outside the scenic area. With the removal of the fees, it's still expected that traffic access will be the biggest problem facing Wulai's development.

The only major road connecting to Wulai is Highway 9. Fushan, the most remote village in the township, has been cut off four times by landslips caused by typhoons, so that aid had to be flown in by helicopter.

In 1995, the Taiwan Provincial Government was planning a scenic highway from Wulai to Taoyuan's Fuhsing Township, via Sanhsia. However, due to the downsizing of the provincial government, the plan was nixed. Chang Chin-jung recently commissioned a thorough environmental assessment and intends to revive the road plan, to help resolve the traffic jams that Wulai faces during every holiday period.

Additionally, Wulai has been the source of part of Greater Taipei's water supply since 1981, and there have been tight restrictions on land usage in the area. "Thanks to those restrictions, we couldn't tend our fields, or even raise chickens," says Chang. Now, with the wastewater treatment system in the area at 85% completion, these controls should be relaxed, which will be of huge benefit to the future development of Wulai. But on the other hand, most of the local residents are sure that the relative lack of landslips and rockslides in the area when compared with other mountainous regions in Taiwan is thanks to those land use restrictions.

The Aboriginal view toward development here is split; those running springs and eateries can't wait for the increase in visitors, but as Tsai Chiu-feng, who married into a Wulai family 25 years ago, says, although the development will bring more visitors, this will bring with it an increase in pollution. "The river water isn't as clean as it used to be, and the big trucks that come up here already are damaging the roads."

Renowned as "Taipei's back garden," Wulai needs to find a way to develop while protecting its natural uniqueness. This in the common interest of the government, the tourism industry, and environmentalists. The choices the people of Wulai make today are crucial to the area's long-term future. But today, why not make the most of the Chinese New Year and head to Wulai, to enjoy the rare sight of the cherry blossoms, soak in the springs, and take the opportunity to recharge in a way so hard to find in Taipei.

Weaving is one of the main traditional arts of Atayal women, and one of the major functions of the Wulai tribal classroom is to pass on this skill.

About Wulai:

Wulai sits at the southernmost end of Taipei County. Its eastern side borders Mt. Ayu and the Ilan County township of Sanhsing. Wulai is the largest township in Taipei County by area, covering a total of 321 square kilometers, and is the county's only mountain township. It is home to a population of over 4800, with over one third of that comprised of people of Atayal Aboriginal heritage. In its early days, Wulai was one of Taiwan's top ten scenic attractions, with its waterfalls and Yun Hsien Resort particularly well known. In recent years, cherry blossom viewing, hot spring bathing, bush walks, and anionic waterfall bathing have become the mainstays of Wulai tourism, and the township is once again becoming one of the prime tourist locations in the country.

Wulai is home to all kinds of delicious Aboriginal meals, like wild boar meat, millet wine, and other wild foods, and while visiting the township you'd be well advised to give some of them a try.

Weaving is one of the main traditional arts of Atayal women, and one of the major functions of the Wulai tribal classroom is to pass on this skill.

Wulai is home to all kinds of delicious Aboriginal meals, like wild boar meat, millet wine, and other wild foods, and while visiting the township you'd be well advised to give some of them a try.

Cherry blossoms, cable cars, and waterfalls are the trademark scenes of Wulai.

Wulai is home to all kinds of delicious Aboriginal meals, like wild boar meat, millet wine, and other wild foods, and while visiting the township you'd be well advised to give some of them a try.

With the growing popularity of anionic waterfalls, Wuchung Falls in Wulai-ranked the second best anionic waterfall in Taiwan-has attracted growing numbers of health-seeking bathers.