Taipei Rivers.

Here's a question I'd really like answered. What up with those two rivers in Taipei?

I mean, here is a city with two perfectly good rivers and yet they're both surrounded by seven foot high walls?

Like, why?

Just double click on these photos to see what I mean:

Dahan River.

Keelung River.

See those stretches of empty riverbank in front of those enormous walls? Yes, you are totally unable to either see or get to those rivers. And, as far as I could tell, there are only two places with tiny gates through that wall that lead into parks where people are allowed to go fish, or stroll, or walk their dogs, or whatever.

Why aren't they using their rivers? You just have to jaunt over to any other place in the Asian region - like Bangkok or Saigon - to see how well used and loved their rivers are.

Yet Taipei-ians aren't allowed that option?

We were all talking about this and Gina was saying how Australia, for nearly a century, hated its rivers, seeing them as little better than sewers, and how all its cities had turned their backs on them, but then, when they finally opened them up with bike paths and cafes and such, they suddenly realised just how pleasant life became when you had a river nearby.

And here in Hong Kong, over a century back, the old streams and creeks were turned into "nullahs" (drains) and covered over so they could be used as sewers, yet within decades of stopping the sewerage flowing into the harbour, all those nullahs have again turned into streams and creeks, with wildlife and fish life and tree life:

Just look at the water quality
of this former HK sewer!

Seems Mother Nature is very forgiving.

A HKU Professor has been slowly working on getting these nullahs uncovered and the areas around developed into public parks, and with the ones she's done already, everyone is now commenting on how much it's added to their quality of life ...

Old folks fishing.
Double-click to see the fish he's caught.

... so much so that folk living around the still-covered nullahs are asking that their covers are taken off too.

So if that's the current mood around the rest of the world, what's the story with Taipei?

All I can say is that, if this city isn't under constant threat of flood, pirates or sea monsters, I find this barred-river-access totally inexcusable.