Pasquale: I can't get a dialling tone maxipatch Next morning dawned bright to reveal a wraparound panorama of silvery rock faces, clifftop waterfalls and hanging forests. Setting off along the hiking paths that cling to the walls of the canyon was akin to stepping inside an antique Chinese painting: a barely real world of swallows, cypresses and sky-high peaks. The gorge and its surrounding national park were for centuries inhabited only by the Truku – an indigenous group of hunters and weavers whose idyll was interrupted when the Japanese painstakingly constructed a set of footpaths – today’s hiking trails – along the gorge’s 12-and-a-half-mile length, which allowed occupying Japanese forces ultimately to subjugate the tribe.