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Quick lookaround
Before anything else I'd like to first share a small video recording I took from the bridge on the panorama above. A bit further in this article there are some more words about Neiwan's bridges. The video was shoot at around 8am on the weekday - avoided crowds. It was a refreshing morning in the river valley and I was tasting fresh mountain air with just the right humidity and forest aroma. Yet in the burning sun.
Cooling breeze was softly blowing at my face while a loud sound of unstoppable flow of crystal clear water below was nicely flooding my ears. It is a great spot 30/40 min. away from Hsinchu City by motorcycle (atleast when I drive). And down the river is a fantastic place for a barbecue, which is a leasure activity quite often practiced here by both local and visiting people. As for my personal taste however, the greatest attraction by the river is not eating out, but river swimming! Unforgettable experience: persistent, almost stubborn motion of water stream in the scenery like one from the National Geographics Channel! One of my very favorite places in Neiwan. The time I was witnessing a rise of the sun over mountain tops from a line bridge with a hot coffee and instant noodles from the nearby 7/11 will always remain in my memory...
Information about the cruise
On the map below is the track of my today's bike trip (2010-09-08) from the downtown of Hsinchu City, via Cyonglin township to Neiwan:
Show Bike Trips: 2010-09-08, Hsinchu - Neiwan on a bigger map
內灣 Neiwan - the community
Neiwan is a small community in the mountains in Hengshan Township, Hsinchu County. In the 60. it was a prosperious mining town, which suffered a fall after mining industry retreated. It had its rise again around year 2000 as its touristic value was recognised. It hosts some well kept traditional architecture and historical buildings. Similar constructions didn't prevent in other places where modernisation transformed urban landscapes. In Neiwan one can also experience more original than in close proximity to Hsinchu City Hakka culture. The main local attraction for tourists is definetely 內灣老街 - the Old Street cutting from the main transit road into the town intself. Probably it hapens daily that visitors from Hsinchu (and on holidays also from elsewhere, often from Taipei) come to Neiwan Old Street to consume local food, local souvenirs, and just any commercial goods one can possibly find here. Not to forget about massive photo taking offcourse - after all it's Asian (pop)culture here ;) One of the souvenir stores is made in the building of the old Neiwan Cinema, which has now been converted to a museum/restaurant with a cinema theme. Not only will you find posters of Bruce Lee hanging on the walls, but also some good old american action movies that even I don't remember but I'm sure I saw them sometime at my child years. There's also a museum of all kinds of unusual/freaky things such as mutant animals with few heads, strange inventions from all over the world etc. The "Taiwanese Style" of being a tourist however pretty much focuses over eating and taking photos. Well, it's even more general, it's a "Chinese Style" I can say. Well, ok, fine, it's Asian style ;] White people here like to make fun of it, but after a trip it feels bad not to have so many memories saved digitally as those Asian people have. For those who decide not to limit themselves to all of commercial aspects described above, there is a really beautiful landscape stretching around, along the Youluo River (Chin. 油羅溪 pinyin: youluoqi) - a tributary to Toucian River. There are also some nice suspended bridges above it, of which there are two that I decided to introduce later on. First a bit of the history of the place:
Times of Qing Dynasty
Highlands of Western Hsinchu County were home to Atayal people (aka Tayal or Tayan, Chin.泰雅), second most numberous aboriginal tribal ethinicity in Taiwan (over 90k in the year 2000), whereas the lowlands on the East were inhabited by Chinese Han people. The Han presence in Hsinchu County was succesively developping deeper and deeper to the West along Toucian riverbed. To Atayal people however, they were intruders. Eventually, after reaching today's Neiwan, forestry and mining industry attracted lot of people from further Jianshi to come down to Neiwan after work. Local people were settling in the town of Neiwan together with Han people driving development in the valley. Later however, during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, it were Japanese people who invaded Atayal Land abruptly deeper than it was done before, especially encouraged by discovering rich natural resources there, such as Camphor Trees. Naturally there were acts of agression from Atayal tribes agains explorations onto lands.
Rise and Fall after railway construction
In 1951 a new railway connecting Neiwan to Hsinchu City was finished. It was originally launched to satisfy the needs of the mining and forestry industry, to transport wood and minerals. For around 2 decades there was a constant economical growth of Neiwan and a time of great prosperity. As more and more people were coming to settle down, so the local infractructure was growing along. Lot of shops were opened, lot of restaurants, bars and pubs, even a cinema. Later however, around 1970 governmental policy toward forestry changed. Mining in the region also dropped, besides resources were exploated so much, they started to run out anyway. Government reported lot of industrial accidents in the region, as further investigations showed, largely due to a bad condition of infrastructure. Furthermore, human's ingerence into a natural habitat togeter with nature forces often led to madslides around mining sites. The industry that Neiwan Town was running on was about to be pulled out of the valley. Once vigorous and vital life of Neiwan now was about to slow down dramatically, and soon, almost vanish.
Second rise of Neiwan
Since 1995 beautiful scenery of Neiwan and plans for initiatives like creation of investment zone, region was once again attracting visitors, this time mosty for tourism, which up until current day is the main force driving local economy. Neiwan was growing its popularity as touristic place among people from Taipei. In the chronological order four stages of progressive development can be pointed out:
1). 1999-2000: local authorities applied for governmental founds for a plan of renovation and restoration a Neiwan's local infrastructure (Chin. 「再造美麗新內灣」計畫).
2). 2000-2002: Establishment of business investment zone in the region, with governmental support.
3). 2002-2003: Local government of Hsinchu hired a well known comic art artist for a project of comic art themed district in Neiwan.
4). 2004: continuation of a comic theme plan by the local Hakka government.
Neiwan Railway Line
As already mentioned above, establishing railway connection to Neiwan trigered its development in the 60. The first works on the line begun in 1944, but the construction was holded during the Japanese occupation, to be restored afterwards. On November 15th 1947 the first section was finished, that only connected from Hsinchu to Zhudong (called Zhudong Line). On December 27th 1950 it was extended to Shifenliao (Hexing Station), which is 24.3km of the total length. Only in 1951, on September 11th the whole Line was completed and renamed to the current Neiwan Line. Although Neiwan Line is only a branch of the main rail road, it well keeps high standards of comparable level. It was not electrically powered though, until recently. Oryginal line was from Hsinchu Main Station to Neiwan at the total length of 27.9 km, with 11 stations along the way and a rail gauge of 1067mm. And it is a double track rail road at its whole length. In 2007 the section between Hsinchu City and Zhudong of Neiwan Line was closed to enable work on a construction of MRT-like connection between Hsinchu Main Station and Hsinchu High Speed Railway Station (in Zhubei). The original plan specified the year 2011 to allow to reopen that length of the Neiwan Line. So far it's still closed though :( Until then, in order to get to Neiwan, one must first get to Zhudong on anything else than a train and then transfer to Neiwan Line. The rest of the journey leads through beautiful scenic areas, with tunnels drilled in solid rock, and a part of the track running just aside the Youluo River bed. Also the look of the train itself differs from other taiwanese trains both on the outside and the inside, which makes it a touristic atteaction in itself. On the weekends Taiwanese Railways sell tickets for the whole length of a rail road between Neiwan and Taipei (well, used to, now the section between Hsinchu and Zhudong is closed).
Suspension Bridges in Neiwan
Neiwan sits aside the Youluo River. Where is a river, there will be a bridge. So as here, there are bridges. Some are strictly practical, help cars to get across the river, some hold more of a touristic value. Those second cathegory would apply to suspended bridges in Neiwan. Among them two closest to the Neiwan town, also two most popular among tourists in the region.
內灣吊橋 - Neiwan Suspension Bridge
The bridge of the same name as Neiwan Town is suspended on two stone towers and links the town with the South side of the Youluo River. Its total length has 147 m, and it's 2,6 m wide. Its traditional design attracts attention from visitors to Neiwan. It can be crosses on foot, but to drive through there is a second bridge built more recently closer to Neiwan Old Street to the East.
This is also a suspension bridge, hanging on two stone pylons emedded into rock cliffs on two opposite sides of the river below. Was opened in the 80. and is 80 m long, 1.1 m wide. Surrounded by the forest and rocky scenery. On the Northern end the bridge starts from the sideway of the main transit road in Neiwan, in the place of a narrow turn, which only makes this scene more interesting visually. There is also a wooden cottage right next to the Northern entrance with the coffe shop/restaurant and with a nice wooden platform stretching out and off the rock cliff towards the river. By crossing the bridge over to the Southern end you basically enter to the forest on the hill. Right at this end of the bridge there is a forest path starting with narrow stone stairs up the mountain. It is said to be leading on a 1,5 km long mountain trekking path called Nanping (Chin. 「南坪古道」) connecting Panlong Bridge with the Neiwan Suspension Bridge to the West - so far I didn't get on the path myself - there will be time to check it out on the next trip to Neiwan ;]
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| View from the Panlong Bridge to the West |
In the recent years one of two main steel ropes supporting the construction was observed to be somewhat longer from the other, which was explained to be due to the age of the bridge. It makes the floor of the brige a bit slanted to one side and probably makes the bridge more susceptible to wave on a strong wind. The local authorities didn't close the bridge but to protect visitors they warned them by putting up an information panel at the entrance stating that the bridge is danger and entrance is at one's own risk. I was also able to come across a note in Chinese regarding the origine of the bridge's name:
Source in Chin.: 其名稱由來是因橋的對岸山頭屬於當地風水的「龍脈之龍首」處，所以「吊橋通往龍頭」可謂「攀龍」。
As I understand the information above, the bridge opens itsef to the local Feng Shui zone called "The Head Of A Dragon" (Chin. 「龍脈之龍首」), therefore "a bridge leading to the head of a dragon" (Chin. 「吊橋通往龍頭」) was named with two Chinese characters: Pan (Chin. 攀) which means "to climb" or "to lead up to" and Long (Chin. 龍) which means "dragon". The view from the Panlong Bridge, especially to the West (on the picture above) is one of the most stunning ones in this valley. Furthermore, it gives a refreshing dose of a thrill when enjoying the view from a narrow platform swaying and waving under one's own foot steps and steps of other people passing it at the same time. It all adds a quantum of an adventure flavor to the overall magnificent ambience of this place.
In this article it's all, but at the nearest possible future I will take my next trip to Neiwan, this time on the train - the described Neiwan Line. I will also focus more on Neiwan Old Street, will go there at the peak time when visitors fill the scenery up, also bringing some introduction to the local food in Neiwan.
I have something extra for the end, I discovered a new great spot, and it was totally accidentally and unplanned as I got inspired by some sudden curiousity to get off the main track on my way back to Hsinchu. I found a recreational area with a beautiful open air scenery at one of tributories to Toucian river - a beautiful small stream with perfectly clear water ideal for a magnificent refreshing swim. The place is also tagged on the map. Few pictures of the place below: 
