I had half an hour before a bus arrived to take me back to Hualien, and Tianfeng pagoda beckoned on the other side of a bridge. Xiangde temple belonged to the Lin Ji Zong Buddhist sect and was only built in the 1960s because of the construction of the Central Cross-Island Highway. Later, the white Guanyin statue was added.
I crossed Pudu Bridge where below, the Tacijili and Dasha Rivers joined and became the Liwu River. The Dasha River flowed from its 3440 metre high source — Nanhu Mountain. This explained why the water rushed at such a fast speed.
I stood near the entrance to the temple before a myriad of steps and knew I wouldn’t have time to reach the top and back before the hourly bus showed up. I turned back to the centre of Tianziang that was once the site of a Taroko tribe’s village not long before the second last bus of the day arrived.
From here to there 