Day 8

Fulong to Jilong

We had high hopes for this day, we wanted to do a big cycle and get over to the western side of Taiwan so that we could finally have the wind behind us. That didn't happen. What did happen was the complete opposite.
When we left the hotel in the early morning, it was (still) raining and cold. Looking at the map there were two routes to Jilong, one along the coast, and one through the countryside. The coastal road looked a little longer and we figured the wind and rain would be worse, so we chose the country road. I knew the country road was going to be hilly as I had been in this area before, but we figured we had been on higher mountains, so it wasn't going to be a big problem.
At first the journey wasn't so bad, even though it was raining, the countryside and small villages were really quite picturesque.
Leaving the small villages, the road began to ascend, but not too far up I stopped at a police station to get some water. When I enquired about the water machine, the policeman barely took a look at me and waved me to the back of the room. He was too busy keeping the electric heater and TV safe from crime whilst reclined on the sofa, he made multitasking look so easy. I left the station with a slight pang of jealousy.

We continued cycling up, and up, and up. We couldn't see how far the road went as it was hidden in cloud, but we knew that Jilong must be near as the distance on the map was quite short. Jilong was near, there was only one problem, there was a very big mountain between us and it. The higher we went, the wind got stronger, the air got colder, and the rain got wetter! Soon we were lost in cloud. It didn't help that we wore sandals and no gloves; our hands and feet were freezing. When we reached the peak, we seemed to be the only idiots people up there. It really felt like we were atop a huge mountain. However, we were glad we were at the peak as we could now go down.
Going down didn't help, it actually made us feel a lot worse. The cold wind bit our hands, feet and faces a lot stronger.
After cycling a few minutes downhill, out of nowhere civilisation hit us with a bang. We found ourselves at the entrance of Jiufen old street, which was thronged with hundreds of tourists, all wanting to do what we wanted to do, get off the mountain!! There was an 7/11 at the entrance of the old street, so we all ran inside to devour whatever hot food there was. We could barely hold our drinks our hands felt so numb.
There were no gloves for sale at the 7/11, so we decided to buy some socks and use them as gloves. At the 7, we discussed what the plan was for the rest of the day. We were all cold, wet and eager to get warmer. So we decided to call it a day and go to the nearest city (Jilong) and get a hotel. Leaving the mountain was easier said than done, taxis, buses, scooters and us were all fighting for a space on the narrow road.

When we arrived in Jilong we checked out few hotels before we found one that was neither fully booked nor too expensive (thank you Chinese New Year!). After settling down, showering, and putting on warmer clothes, we headed out to get some food.
And yet even in warmer clothes, the cold rainy dampness of Jilong still managed to seep through our clothes and into our bones. I tried to do some sightseeing as Jilong seems like an interesting city with lots of cool alleys to explore, yet the bad weather sent me back to the hotel and has put me off from EVER going there again. I'm sorry Jilong, you had your chance and you blew it!