August 29, 2013 --- While staying in Yuli Township, Nathan and I planed to visit Yushan National park first and then Sixty Stone Mountain. Unfortunately the national park was closed on the first day we were there due to the typhoon, so we went to see the Day Lilies on the mountain instead.
It might sound like a bad idea to go up on a mountain during a storm, but this typhoon wasn't bad at all; we just had light showers and no wind. The only bad thing was the cloudy sky, and we couldn't tell if we would see anything on the mountain since it might be covered with fog or clouds.
Nathan and I hired a taxi from Yuli train station for half a day. He asked for $NT 2,000, but we bargained down to NT$ 1,800 for the 4-hour tour. At first I was kind of scared of the driver because he seemed weird and kept chewing betel nuts (probably over a hundred betel nuts) and made strange phone calls. I even though we was going to kidnap us! Well, it turned out that he was just really addicted to betel nuts and made phone calls to arrange the trip for us. He said he is a tour bus driver taking tourists to this mountains everyday, but today was a typhoon holiday, so he drove a taxi instead. He took us to many gorgeous places, and arranged and explained everything as if he were a tour guide. Nathan and I ended up paying him $NT 2,000 as he asked at first because we were really impressed by his service. :-)
Sixty Stone Mountain or 六十石山 in Chinese is located in the north of Fuli Township. There was no public transportation to go up there other than going with a tour or hiring a taxi (generally NT$ 2,000 for half a day tour and NT$ 4,000 for a full day tour). This mountain is famous for growing the Day Lilies or, as some people call them, Tiger Lilies. They are grown and in bloom only in August and September of every year. Taiwanese people use this flower in cooking and making tea. Nathan and I tried the fried lilies and lily soup, and there were DELICIOUS!
Driving up on the mountain was really tricky. There were sharp turns all the way to the top, and the road was so narrow. Moreover, the clouds covered the entire mountain, and the road was slippery from the rain. I didn't really expect to see much on this trip anyway because not only was the weather bad, but I also didn't know what else to see other than the flowers.
To my surprise, going to Sixty Stone Mountain during the light-rain storm wasn't a bad idea! We wouldn't have seen such a rare scenery if we just stayed in at the hotel. We were also very lucky that the wind occasionally blew off the clouds so that we could see those stunning views of the mountains, clouds, flower fields, and the rice paddies down below. Pictures describe better than words here!
