There are two alternatives to Highway 17. One is Highway 19 (台 19), which is about 8 kilometers east of Highway 17. The other is Highway 1 (台 1), which is further to the east, another 10 kilometers east of Highway 19. I weighted these two options and decided to take Highway 19 mainly for the following two reasons. First, Highway 1 is very busy with heavy traffic. I’d rather prefer a less congested route. Second, Highway 19 is closer to Lugan (鹿港), a historic town that I have hoped to visit. In hindsight, this decision was based on two irrelevant reasons. I had forgotten the main reason for changing the course. It was the WIND. I should have tried to stay away from the coast as far as I could to avoid the wind, disregarding other seemingly compelling reasons. I would later kick myself for not choosing Highway 1 while struggling desperately on Highway 19.
A technical glitch happened this morning. For this trip, I used a Garmin Edge 500, a cycling GPS, to record my ride. At night, I would upload the cycling data to a Garmin website. The maps, the elevation diagram, and the ride summary at the end of my travelogues all came from these data and the website. Last night I’d forgotten to upload the data to the website and this morning the GPS unit had difficulties starting up. It wouldn’t reset all the counters to zero to record today’s trip anew. The unit then hung itself on the same screen for the rest of the day. Only after the battery drained out, did the unit turn itself off. I was then able to recharge the unit at night to bring it back to life. Fortunately, I also carried a Dakota 20 GPS as a backup and was able to get cycling data from it.
What seemed to be a desolate street in the town of Budai last night turned out to be a busy street market in the morning.
The wind kicked up early in the morning. Notice the tree on the right side of the picture tilting to one side due to the wind. In addition to a long sleeve bike jersey, I put on a vest, a pair of arm warmers, and a face mask to guard against the cold wind.
I spent about an hour on a country road to get to Highway 19, from Highway 17. Along this road, many people were working on oyster shells. It was a side job for many in the area to supply de-shelled oysters to restaurants. Oyster omelet (坷仔煎), a popular dish at many night markets in Taiwan, may have the main ingredient supplied by this area.
Once I reached Highway 19, the first city I rode by was Puzi (朴子). The city has a cute city mascot.
The Puzisi Bridge (朴子溪大橋) was rebuilt in 2007 with an added lane for motorcycles and a dedicated rightmost lane shared by pedestrians and bicycles. Along the riverbank around this bridge was a bike path built on top of a dike. I stood at the end of the bridge and looked down at either direction of the bike path as far as I could and there was no end in sight.
Highway 19 passes through several small villages and townships. Occasionally buildings and people can be seen. But most of the time, the highway runs straight through farm fields of low lying vegetation and bare land - the middle of featureless nowhere. I took the following two pictures not because the scenery in the picture was special, but because of the curvy shape of the highway. It shows how exciting the place was: the curvy shape of a highway even got a nod.
On this section of Highway 19, there is another long bridge, Mazu Bridge (媽祖大橋). On the other side of this bridge is a township called Beigang (北港), in which one of the most revered Mazu temples is located. I have visited the temple, Chau-Tian-Gong (朝天宮), once when I was in college. It would be fun to see the temple again.
On the way to the Mazu temple, tall palm trees could be seen kowtowing to the wind.
The Mazu temple, Chau-Tian-Gong, has colorful rooflines. The front of the temple is walled and seems small. I have thought every major temple in Taiwan would have an expansive plaza, but not this one. The structure looks smaller than I remembered it. I didn’t want to leave the bicycle outside, so I didn’t go inside the temple to see the details of the building.
Many street food stands can be found around the perimeter of the temple. I picked one food stand that had many pictures of TV celebrities hung on the wall. The bowl on the top right was Mi-Suan-Go (麵線糊), a local version of white vermicelli. It was cooked way too soft for me to feel the texture. The bowl on the top left was white rice with stewed minced pork (魯肉飯), a humble Taiwanese dish. The bowl at the bottom left was meatball on top of a piece of bitter melon (苦瓜肉丸). The same Taiwanese dish usually has the meat patty stuffed in the hollow core of a bitter melon. This vendor had a slight variation.
A billboard on the side of the highway was blown apart by the wind. The wind in the afternoon was getting very fierce. I had great difficulty pedaling forward. One motorcyclist took pity on me and slowed down his speed to ride in front of me in order to shield me from the wind. But the fume from the motorcycle was suffocating and I had to thank him and beg him to let me struggle with the wind by myself.
A short section of the highway had a row of windbreak trees (防風林). The trees did do wonders to block off the wind. It was a welcome relief.
Most of the time, the highway looked like this picture with hardly anyone on the road, and trees being gusted to one side or the other. The lamp posts looked tilted too.
Suddenly, a sandstorm appeared ahead. It looked scarier in real life than in the picture below. I didn’t know what to expect and had no clue what happened. It was too late to bring out my face mask. I held my breath and waited for it to pass.
I yelled out to a passing motorcyclist and inquired what happened. He told me that watermelon farms along the highway were not planted during the wintertime. The vacant land with bare sand soil frequently caused sandstorms when the seasonal wind came. He told me to carefully wash, after the windstorm, my face, inside the nostrils, mouth, and ears. And don’t open the mouth and yell.
Several hours after the sandstorm, I started to feel very tired and a little disoriented. I have been under the sun for several hours fighting a wind gust that kept pushing me backward. My feet never stopped pedaling and they have become numb. I have also been turning my head sideways the whole time to avoid the wind blowing directly at my face, and as such have lost a keen sense of direction. I didn’t quite remember where I was going. I only knew that I needed to keep pushing on before I found a town to rest.
Finally, I arrived in a town called Sihu (溪湖). Looking puzzled and helpless on the side of a town street, I pondered about my next move. I was then startled by a car pulling up beside me. A stranger at the driver seat told me he was a cyclist too and asked me if I needed help. I told him about my predicament and was in need of a shelter for the night. He called a few places displayed on his car GPS and found a hotel a short distance from where we were. He then asked me to follow his car and he would lead me there.
On the way to the hotel, he stopped at a food stand selling lamb hot pot and told me it was the place locals go, just in case if I needed to have dinner later. When we got to the street in front of the hotel, he called the front desk again and made sure there would be someone at the front desk to check me in. I couldn’t have met a nicer person in this time of trouble. He left me with his last name, Wei.
Mr. Wei, I couldn’t thank you enough from the very bottom of my heart.
The hotel, Jhan Ya Hotel (展亞商務旅館), was super. The front desk girl was waiting for me when I walked in. She was helpful and cheerful, reminding me of the girl at the hotel service desk in a Taiwanese movie, Cape #7 (海角七號). The room was spacious and tastefully decorated. The bed was very comfortable and the bedding felt soft and of high quality. The room rate for the night was NTD $1180 (about USD $40). It's worth every penny.
For dinner, I went to the lamb hot pot place Mr. Wei recommended. It was great.
The first map shows the full island of Taiwan. My bike ride for the day was from 8 o’clock position to 9 o’clock position. The second map gives a closer view of my ride. The Garmin Connect website, where these maps were generated, changed its map supplier from Google to Bing. I much prefer the old Google map.
Vertical profile of today’s ride. It was on flat land most of the day.
Summary of today’s ride. Today my moving time was about 8 hours and advanced 87.6 kilometers, with an average speed of 8.3 kilometers/hour.
For comparison with yesterday, my moving time from yesterday was also about 8 hours. I advanced 112 kilometers with an average speed of 10.1 kilometers/hour.
Today’s wind gust was much stronger than yesterday.
-Joe
Next: 20101027 Day 08 - Joe's Cycling around Taiwan (Sihu 溪湖 to Fengyuan 豐原)
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