The hotel, Yu Hot Spring Hotel, provided free breakfast - two toasts, two eggs, and a glass of very diluted orange juice. After looking at the breakfast, I knew I needed to continue my journey. A small village without a real restaurant was not a pleasurable place in which to spend your precious vacation time for more than one day.
I stopped by a 7-11 for coffee and Japanese oden (關東煮). 7-11 stores in Taiwan were having a promo on its oden. For NTD $39 (about USD $1.30), you can pick four items from a simmering oden pot. Selections usually consist of fish cakes, daikon radish, tofu, cabbage wrap, meatballs, fish balls, and more. For my trip, I often stopped by 7-11 stores to have oden as a snack.
In front of the 7-11, the rain never ceased for one minute. When I rode in the rain this morning, raindrops were so big and heavy that my arms actually felt painful from the pounding of raindrops, and I wore a long sleeve bike jersey covered with a plastic poncho.
After pedaling for about 12 kilometers in heavy rain, a disaster stroke. The inner tube of the rear wheel blew off. I hastily pushed the bike to a gas station about 500 meters away and looked for help.
Unfortunately, gas stations in Taiwan are usually staffed with gas pumping attendants only, neither are they outfitted with a garage. I had to fix the tube myself. I have previously fixed an inner tube once in LA a month ago so I was somewhat vaguely familiar with the procedure. After disassembling the wheel, not only did I find that the inner tube needed to be replaced with a new one, but the rim of the outer tire was also ripped and the whole tire was in bad shape. I managed to put in a new inner tube (I carried two spare ones) but decided I needed to find a bike shop to help with the tire itself.
I pedaled another 6 kilometers to reach a bike shop in a town called Yuli (玉里). The store confirmed that I needed a new outer tire. It also found that the spare inner tube I just put in was defective, so I got a new inner tube too. Parts and labor for both tire and tube were NTD $1100 (about USD $37).
While in the bike shop, I got a call from Rudy, my brief partner from two days ago. He told me that a rockslide has occurred at Suhwa Highway (蘇花公路) and the highway has been shut down. Another partner, Mr. Chang, was actually already pedaling on Suhwa Highway not far from the rockslide area and was turned back by the police. Rudy suggested that I hopped on a train to go directly to Yilan (宜蘭), bypassing Suhwa Highway. Maybe we could meet and join as a group again at Yilan. I heeded his suggestion and headed immediately to Yuli train station (玉里火車站).
I checked in my bicycle at Yuli to have it shipped to Yilan train station via the same train I would be riding. The freight fee for the bicycle was about NTD $220 (USD $7.33). My train ticket from Yuli to Yilan was NTD $319 (USD $10.63). Here I was at Yuli station waiting to board the train with panniers and gears in tow.
Inside the train car. I was anxious to get to Yilan, meet my partners, and continue the journey. But 30 minutes into the train ride, the conductor announced that because of flooding ahead, the train would stop at Hualian (花蓮) station. All passengers needed to get off the train and a separate train going in the opposite direction would take anyone back to where he/she started.
I was forced to get off at Hualian train station and found that all train schedules have been suspended and there was no sign of them resuming soon. I found a hotel in front of the train station and decided to stay and wait until the train schedules resumed. Here is a picture of me in front of the Hualian train station being bewildered and slightly annoyed.
No sooner had I put down my belongings in the hotel room than a phone call from my sister-in-law came. She informed me that a land warning for the possible landfall of Typhoon Megi had been issued. It was unwise to wait out the typhoon in an area expected to receive the hardest onslaught. Given the dire circumstance, I then decided to suspend my cycling trip and returned to where I started 5 days ago, my base at Kaohsiung. I would stay at my in-laws’ house, wait out the storm, and resume in calmer days ahead.
The train ticket on the left was for the first leg of my train rides of the day, Yuli to Yilan. Since I didn’t get to complete this leg because of the disruption of train services, I was able to get a full refund. The ticket on the right was for the second leg, Yuli to Kaohsiung. I hoped to eventually come back to Yuli to complete the loop of cycling around Taiwan.
On my way back to Kaohsiung, the train passed a town called Chi-Shan (池上). Its train station had vendors selling bento boxes (池上便當) that were famous for their scrumptious contents. The cost was NTD $75 (USD $2.50) and I had one for dinner.
A local English newspaper, China Post, would report the rockslides and road closures the next day.
Typhoon Megi triggers rockslides in Taiwan
Taiwan dispatched helicopters Friday to rescue some 400 tourists trapped on a coastal highway by massive rockslides unleashed by the torrential rains of Typhoon Megi.
The storm, which killed 26 people and wreaked havoc when it crossed the northern Philippines earlier this week, has dumped a record 42 inches (106 centimeters) of rain in northeastern Taiwan as it makes its way toward China's southeastern coast with winds above 100 mph (160 kph)……..
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Torrential rains brought by Typhoon Megi have seriously affected the eastern county of Yilan, with 287 people from eight tourist groups stranded on the Suao-Hualien highway, and 1,070 passengers caught on the north-link railway system, according to the Emergency Management Information Center.
Interior Minister Jiang Yi-huah said that as of 7:30 p.m., some sections between kilometer 112 and kilometer 117 of the Suao-Hualien highway collapsed, standing 287 people on tourist buses and other vehicles there……..
The first map shows the full island of Taiwan. My bike ride for the day is from 4:30 position to 4 o’clock position. The second map gives a closer view of my ride.
Vertical profile of today’s ride.
Summary of today’s ride.
-Joe
Next: 20101025 Day 06 - Joe's Cycling around Taiwan (Kaohsiung 高雄 to Budai 布袋)
Landed on your nice blog from Drew's site. I also followed the destructions and residents/tourists that were impacted by Megi. Hope you can complete your journey soon on a better time. Can you provide the names of hotels you stayed at various locatiions?
ReplyDeleteJust got back home in LA. May need to recuperate before recounting my journey. I'll try to provide names of hotels, in which I stayed, in later write-ups. But some of the places were not good I now have vague recollections of them. I'll do as best as I can. Thank you for coming to my blog.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading about your bike ride through southern Taiwan. I lived on the island from 1996 to 2004. My wife an I plan to return for retirement, which is still a good 15 years away. I'm an avid mountain biker and enjoyed my time cycling in Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you enjoyed reading my blog. It is never too late to ride a bicycle around Taiwan. I was nearly 60 when I did my ride.
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