20101025 Day 06 - Joe's Cycling around Taiwan (Kaohsiung 高雄 to Budai 布袋)

Typhoon Megi had finally left the vicinity of Taiwan but the torrential rain had caused severe damages and some fatalities.  The local English newspaper, China Post, had the following story on today’s front page:
One more body found as Taiwan searches for typhoon missing
TAIPEI -- Taiwanese rescuers on Sunday discovered a body as they continued their search for 25 others missing after heavy rains brought by Typhoon Megi sparked landslides. Megi, the strongest storm to hit the northwest Pacific in two decades, is now known to have killed at least 13 people in Taiwan as it churned towards southeastern China…….

After resting for the weekend, I needed to be on the road to finish the bike ride.  I have booked a returning flight back to LA for Nov 10. I couldn’t wait any longer.

There were two slight problems related to weather for bicycling this week.  One was that the torrential rain brought on by Typhoon Megi had flooded some northeastern parts of Taiwan.  The area was still wet and might be inconvenient for bike riding.  The other problem was that a very strong seasonal northeast wind (東北季風) was forecasted to gust across Taiwan this whole week.  To lessen these problems, I decided to resume the bike ride clockwise around the island this time, starting on the west coast.  Hoping that by the time I reached the east coast the area might have been dried up.  I was also under the impression, wishful thinking on my part, that a northeast wind would only affect the northeastern area of Taiwan and the west coast would be spared of the wind gust.  I couldn’t be more wrong.

I also took the brief time-off to restock the stuff I carried in the panniers.  Last week I put too many items in the panniers and had to ship some back while on the road.  For example, I wore a pair of leather bike shoes on the first day.  When it rained the second day, the bike shoe was rendered useless because it was not waterproof.  I ended up buying a pair of sandals on the third day and shipped the bike shoe and some clothes back to Kaohsiung (高雄).

After cycling for 5 days last week, I have had the following observations for what things to carry in panniers:

1. Most panniers are not voluminous to carry lots of stuff, so be judicious of things to put in there.  Prioritize each individual item that seems useful at first glance.
2. From my experience last week, spare inner tubes shall be high on everyone’s priority list.  GPS (Garmin 500) that counts my mileage is high on my list too; so is the beacon device that sends coordinates of my whereabouts to a server, from which my family and friends in real-time know where I am located.  The beacon device was rented from a cycling organization in Taiwan.  I also carried an Acer netbook to Skype with my home in LA.
3. For bike jerseys, bike pants or shorts, and socks, there is no need for more than two sets.  When on the road, look for hotels or hostels that provide a washing machine or at least a water extractor (脫水機).  Washed clothes should be dry the next day if they are washed and water is extracted properly the night before.  Hang the clothes near the AC unit.
4. Bring a swimming trunk and cap.  Don’t forget the cap because it is taken seriously in Taiwan.  No cap - no admittance to any public hot spring or the pool.
5. Put any expensive bike shoes at home.  Buy a pair of sandal suitable for raining days.
6. Most hotels or hostels provide free disposable toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair comb, shampoo, soap, and razor.  Large bath towels are provided and sometimes disposable washcloths are available.  There is no need to bring your own toiletries if your routine necessities are basic.
7. Sunblock lotion and muscle pain relief lotion are a must.  For the latter, I found BENGAY lotion to be effective.
8. Most hotel rooms have electrical sockets, but usually no more than two.  If there are many electronic devices (GPS, beacon, digital camera, netbook, cell phone, etc.) to charge overnight, bring a power strip with multiple sockets.
9. Ask before check-in, if the hotel/hostel provides internet connection if there is a need for it.  Some hotels have a wired connection and you need a cable, or you can borrow one from the front desk with usually 100 Taiwan dollars deposit.  It is easier to pack an Ethernet cable yourself.

I resumed my bike ride on a clear Monday morning at 6 AM, starting from the front of my in-laws’ house.  On the west coast, there are basically three highways that go north-south bound.  I would take Highway 17 (台 17), the coastal highway, and go north.  There was no particular reason why I picked this highway other than that it passed through many townships that I seldom heard of.


The overpass on top of the highway and with a dish roof on the right is a bike path.  Kaohsiung has many nicely built bike paths. I have ridden on one by the riverbank of the Love River (愛河) and found it very enjoyable.


Kaohsiung is a large city and its surrounding areas are very developed and densely populated.  After riding for a very long time, I thought I should have passed the city boundary, and artifacts of a metropolis should have subsided.  But the same street scene, similar to the following picture, seemed to last forever.  It was impossible to tell where a city ended and the next township began.


The city traffic brings inescapable car fume.  I tried wearing something to fend it off but had to take the mask off because I couldn’t breathe normally and it was getting too hot.


A statue of Buddha for a township called Mituo (彌陀), named after Namo Amitabha (南無阿彌陀佛)?


I met four other cyclists who started their first day of cycling around Taiwan.  They worked in a nearby oil refinery (中油高雄煉油廠) and belonged to an in-plant cycling club of more than 70 members.  In their club, only one group ever previously finished cycling around Taiwan, so this new group of four was very excited about their current attempt at doing the same.

We stopped by a seaside rest area, Lover’s Wharf (情人碼頭), and took some pictures together.  Friendly and talkative, they were a terrific company but they had planned to finish about 120 kilometers for the day and had to rush their pedaling.  Disappointingly I had to say goodbye to them and saw them sped off.



Highway 17 runs alongside Taiwan Strait and is wide and well maintained.  It is very flat with no hill to go up and down.  A cyclist, on any given day, would be able to ride on this highway at full speed with ease.  But today was not any given day.  The seasonal northeast wind had started to descend soon after the daybreak.  The wind blew from north to south, directly at my face.  My notion of northeast wind would only occur on the northeastern part of the island turned out to be wishful thinking with painful consequences.

On one side of the highway is the ocean with muddy beaches and not easily reachable.  On the other side of the highway is a flat plain with bare land or farms of low lying vegetation.  The view is as exciting as the one from looking out a car window on the way from LA to Las Vegas.



A bike path was then available next to the beach along a good section of Highway 17.  The bike path has an appealing name, Golden Coast Bikeway (黃金海岸自行車道).  The sea and seashore at this section of the coast allegedly throw forth glistening sparks that give a golden hue at sunset.  Unfortunately, I was there way before sunset and couldn’t witness the gleaming glory.


The bikeway was built on top of dikes along the coast.  Since there is no tall tree to give any shade, there are several pavilions with roof coverings.


A view of the ocean from the bikeway.  There are barriers on the beach and the shore is not easily reachable by a bicycle.


The bikeway abruptly ends in front of a Coast Guard compound.  On the fence next to the compound, there were maybe a hundred bicycles lying around, a mystery.


A bike path, Canal Bikeway (運河自行車道), leads to the Anping (安平) district of Tainan City (台南).  Tainan was the formal capital of Taiwan since the Ming dynasty for about 200 years.  It is a city with a rich history and cultural significance.  I would only get to spend a few hours in Anping, the coastal area of the city.


A grand structure with many elaborate details is the courthouse for the city of Tainan.


Eternal Golden Castle (億載金城), an artillery fortress built in Qing dynasty.  I last saw this fortress when I was in fifth grade.  The shape of the structure looked the same but the size seemed much bigger when I was little.


A view of Anping harbor with numerous bamboo rafts (竹筏) stacked in the foreground.


A memorial park near Anping harbor honoring Lin-Mou-Nian (林默娘), a filial daughter, who bravely recovered the body of her fisherman father after a storm.  She herself later died from sadness while sitting on a cliff overlooking the coastlines.  It was believed that her spirit stayed in coastal areas and kept a vigilant watch over the safety of fishermen everywhere.  Over several centuries and many dynasties, various sanctifications elevated her to be known as Mazu (媽祖) – a goddess widely worshipped in Taiwan.  There are more than 500 temples dedicated to Mazu in Taiwan.



The view of a canal in Anping.


Anping is famous for its street food.  I have read about a particular bean jelly store called Anping Bean Jelly (安平豆花).  I didn’t find that store and instead found one called Chou’s Bean Jelly (周氏豆花).  The jelly was very good.


The owner of Chou’s has a cousin selling Tainan tamale a few doors down the street.  It was good too. The tamale was paired with a bowl of miso soup.


An old and narrow shopping street in Anping.  Many famous street food vendors are located on this street.  But it was too early in the day and not many vendors were open.


Anping Fort (安平古堡), a Dutch settlement established in the 17^th century.  The structures in the picture were later rebuilt by Japanese when it occupied Taiwan in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.


I didn’t have time to go inside the city proper of Tainan, which has very many interesting places to visit.  It would take at least a full day to tour Tainan and I was running short on time.  Once getting out of Anping, I continued on Highway 17 going north.  This section of the highway is dotted with many industrial buildings.  By this time the northeast wind has also picked up its speed and pedaling was becoming harder.


A giant complex appeared on the left of the highway. I didn’t know what it was, and I tried to ignore it by riding past it at first.  But curiosity got a better hold of me and I made a U-turn and headed toward the gigantic buildings.


It is the Orthodox Luermen Holy Mother Temple (正統鹿耳門聖母廟), one of the 500 plus Mazu temples in Taiwan.  This one, I believe, is the largest among them.  There are multiple palatial buildings modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing.  The sheer size and extravagance of these buildings in this temple are unbelievable and they are really over the top.

It was an unexpected find for my trip and I am very happy about making the U-turn.



Many fishing farms showed up on the side of Highway 17.  The wind was very strong and I was in continuous struggles to cycle forward.  Somewhere around here, I was so intense on pedaling that I missed the turn to go to the Salt Mountain, a pile of sea salt stack up four-story tall and gleaming like a snowing mountain.  I needed to turn back and look for it.

But for the whole afternoon, I was only progressing forward at no more than 15 kilometers an hour with heavy pedaling.  My usual speed was about 20 kilometers an hour with light pedaling.  I was losing more than ¼ of my speed at fighting against the wind with the full strength of my legs.  At this rate, I was not willing to give up an inch of my hard-won distance to go look for a fake snow mountain. We have real snow mountains in LA.


An elaborate archway of Nankunshen Dai Tian Temple (南鯤鯓代天府), one of the most significant temples among 700 plus Royal Lords Temples (王爺廟) in Taiwan.


On one side of the main temple is a garden modeled after Da-Guan-Yuen (大觀園), a fictional garden from the Chinese novel “Dream of the Red Chamber” (紅樓夢).



On the other side of the temple is a hotel, Kang Lang Villa (槺榔山莊).  It welcomes visitors from any religion, not just the worshiper of the temple.  The building was built in Southern Fujianese architecture style (閩南建築).  The place looks classic and elegant.  I really liked the place and would have stayed there for the night if not for its lack of internet connection.  The fee was NTD $1200 (USD $40) for one night, very reasonable.


Various parts of the hotel are connected through beautiful walkways with artful ceilings.


The side of the hotel building has several characteristics of Southern Fujianese architecture style: white rock footing, red brick walls, red roof tiles, windows with vertical bars evenly spaced across.


My journey continued on Highway 17.  This section of the highway runs next to Expressway 61. The expressway on the left is on a higher platform and forms as a windshield.  I finally got some desperately needed relief.


Occasionally I would see some little egrets (白鷺鷥).  When I was a kid, large flocks of little egrets were commonly seen in the countryside.  I used to take a 30 minutes train ride to go to my middle and high schools.  Looking out the train window, I would stare at these birds, admire their graceful landing and take-off, and feel like living in a paradise.  In the mid to late 60s, the pesticide was adopted for farming en mass in Taiwan.  Many little egrets were killed and the species almost became extinct.  On this trip, I saw many of these precious birds on the side of the highway or at a distance.  Although they were not in as large a flock as I used to see them, it nevertheless was heartwarming to see them again.


By late afternoon, I was tired and found myself in a small fishing village called Budai (布袋).  I asked at a police station where I could find lodging for the night and the cop on duty referred me to the one and only hotel in town, Neptune Hotel (海王星旅館).  The place was very old but clean.  The fee was NTD $700 (USD $23.33) for a room with a newly remodeled bath.

When I came out of the hotel at night for dinner, the street seemed deserted with only dim lights emitting from a few food stands.  Put a couple of people with cowboy hats on the street, the place would have a desolate feel of a western outpost.  In a strange way, it gave me good recoil from the hustle and bustle I just experienced in the big city of Kaohsiung a few days earlier.

Dinner was a bowl of seafood congee at a small restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was good.


The first map shows the full island of Taiwan.  My bike ride for the day was from 7 o’clock position to 8 o’clock position.  The second map gives a closer view of my ride.



Vertical profile of today’s ride.  It was on flat land most of the day.


Summary of today’s ride.  Since I started early at 6 AM, I was on the road for 11 hours and managed to move forward 112 kilometers for today.


-Joe


Next:  20101026 Day 07 - Joe's Cycling around Taiwan (Budai 布袋 to Sihu 溪湖)