Taroko Gorge, Taiwan
While I was walking in Petra, Jordan, last weekend, I had flashbacks of another awesome (in the true sense of the word) place. A place which nestles high in mountains made of solid marble. Where a shrine with crystal-clear pure water commemorates the men who lost their lives building the dangerous roads, blasting their way through high gorges and treacherous mountains, prone to earthquakes, mudslides and floods. The name Taroko means "magnificent and beautiful" in the Truku language of the Truku indigenous tribe. Long ago a Truku tribesman saw the beauty of the azure Pacific when he walked out of the gorge. On seeing the magnificent scene, he cried "Taroko!". And so it became the name of the place, in a fashion not dissimilar to how the island, Formosa , got its name. The gorge itself was carved into the marble by the erosive power of the Liwu River. The force behind the steep valleys and narrow canyons is a (geological...