Messing about on the river at Kaohsiung’s Calabash Valley

Liuguei (六龜), on the other hand, is just like countless other unexceptional mid-size towns around the island, yet the majority of visitors to the area make a detour through the place to see its one claim to fame: the nearby Fire Mountains (火炎山).

Although “hills” would be a better name for these modest heights, which rarely exceed the 500-meter mark, they’re a thoroughly impressive sight. This series of crumbling, rounded domes, pinnacles and towers — also known as the 18 Arhats, although there are actually 72 peaks in all — stand in a line 5 kilometers long, high above the west bank of the Laonong River. They are one of the best known, and certainly one of the largest, of Kaohsiung County’s natural tourist attractions.

Apparently, the best time to see the hills — and to understand how they received their name — is at dawn, when the light of the rising sun strikes the brownish-red rock of the cliffs. The second-best way to see the hills is probably from the river itself, on one of the rafting trips that race down the white waters of the swollen river — Taiwan’s second whitewater rafting location, after the Hsiukuluan River in Hualien County — during the summer months. Boat trips can be organized at the town of Laonong (荖濃), 14 kilometers upstream from Liuguei.

After a quick look at the Fire Mountains, many visitors speed through Liuguei on their way north into the Central Mountain Range via the spectacular South Cross-island Highway, or head eastwards to the deep canyons, hot springs and butterflies of Maolin National Scenic Area. As always in Taiwan, however, there are plenty of less well known but worthwhile places to be discovered by those content to move at a slower pace.

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