Escaping Taidong

Instead of writing about my holiday in one go (as it will take to long for me to write about it and upload all of the photos), I am going to write a small post about each place I visited.

First stop, Taitung (Taidong).
Taidong is one of the main cities along the east coast, however, its very small; not much activity during the day, and even less at night.
Most people come to Taidong to see the attractions in Taidong county (lots of greenery, moutains and aboriganal villages) and not in Taidong city. The city is quite old fashioned compared to Taiwan's other big cities, it has some of the big stores that other cities have, but has a slower pace of life and a rural feel to it.
My plan was to rent a scooter and see the attractions out in the county. However, as I don't have a Taiwanese driving license, they wouldn't let me hire one (that's never been a problem before), even when I said I had an English license (which I don't) they still would not give me a scooter.
So, I had to rely on buses, which was a pain as I forgot how much of a nuisance it is to have to wait for a bus.
On my first day of holiday, I went into the county and visited xiao ye liu (similar to Jialeshuie - in a previous post) which I enjoyed, but nowhere near as good as Jialeshie. Lots of stranged shaped rocks for me to take photos of.
From there I headed to Shan Yuan beach, which I was looking forward to visit as it was a stinking hot day and my LP book made it sound so good 'soft yellow sand, crystal blue water.' I even walked for an hour in the midday sun along the highway to get to this beach as I twice in a row I had missed the bus because I was talking to people, and so just could not be bothered to wait any longer.
Well either I went to the wrong beach, or times have changed since the LP wrote about this place because it was a dump. I didn't even bother getting my camera out. Part of the beach was a huge construction site which made the place loose its appeal. There was no soft yellow sand and no crystal blue water. Still, I gave swiming a try; dove in, couldn't see a thing and immediately walked out. Then waited an hour for a bus to turn up.

As that was a bad start to my holiday, I wanted to leave Taidong and move on to Green Island (Lu Dao). But as it was the weekend, I knew Green Island would be busy with tourists as it is a really popular place and so the hotels would be more expensive (as they hike prices up on the weekend).
So I resigned myself to staying in Taidong for another day and visit its sites which I enjoyed and kept me busy for the most part of the day.

1. Temple in Taidong 2. Rock formations at Xiao Ye Liu