Taiwan cycle, Day 3

Kenting to Dawu, or 'from the southern point to the eastern coast'.
This was one long day, so long that I'll keep the writing part short.

We left the hotel before sunrise to make the most of cool air as it quickly got hot after sunrise.
First stop of the day was the southern most point of Taiwan which strangely enough was full of mosquitoes. Thankfully, I have learnt to NEVER leave the house without my repellent.










Cycling on, we passed by some cliffs that gave an amazing view of the surrounding area.








My favourite part of the day, second breakfast. After eating 'first breakfast' in our hotel room (fruit, yoghurt, cereal), by the time 8/9am rolled by I needed something a little more substantial, so a stop at breakfast shop for a tuna sandwiches with egg and a tea was essential!









Cycling through the hills we passed some great sights, plus we also came across this great looking lizard that you can see more of in the video.








The midday heat was just too much to take, so at first we hid in this little pagoda and chewed on some snacks. However, hunger was urging us on, so we cycled on through the heat to stumble upon an amazing little restaurant in the middle of nowhere that catered for cyclists!!

The manager told us that from her restaurant onwards, it was going to be a long uphill journey to reach the cross-island highway. She wasn't wrong.

We popped into the shop next to the restaurant to buy some snacks for the uphill journey where I was surprised to see an Axolotl kept as a pet.








The journey uphill was tough and hot and humid. However, the views were worth the toil.

















Finally, after hours of going uphill, we reached the end of the 199 which connects to the cross-island highway. The rest area that was offered didn't really look particularly inviting nor open.








The moths were about the size of my hand, insects here are just bigger! Then one last photo from the top of the mountain before the journey down to the east coast.








And after a long day's ride there is nothing better than a filling and delicious meal.









I think I kept this write up quite brief! Quite the opposite of the video!

Taiwan cycle, Day 2

Chaozhou to Kenting

This day was going to be a much simpler journey as we just had to follow the one road all the way to Kenting.
We set off quite early in order to take advantage of the cooler morning temperatures.








As we cycled towards Kenting, each town we passed produced/sold a local product that is best suited for the area. There is the onion town, water caltrop town, squid town and in the photo below you can see hundreds of wax apple trees. Each town has many stalls each selling the same produce, so it's hard to imagine that people make a profit when the other twenty people next to you are all selling the same food.








By the time it was midday, the roads were much emptier as people were hiding from the sun. We also felt that was a good idea as the heat had become unbearable. The county of Pingdong is well known as being the hottest and sunniest in Taiwan, the winters are quite mild here and its pretty much possible to swim all year round.
We found a nice spot near a hotel that was along the beach to hide out in.








The nearer we got to Kenting, the smaller the mountains became and the closer the road got to the sea. We took a few breaks were we could find shelter as although the worst of the sun was gone, it was still pretty hot.



When we arrived into Kenting, I was approached by a woman on a scooter who offered a 'very beautiful room'. At first I just told her no thanks as Kenting is full of hotels so it is always a good idea to just go from hotel to hotel and check out the prices, plus, I wasn't in the mood to be pressured into a room. However, she approached me again and really emphasised that the room was 'very beautiful'. So i caved in and followed her.
Well, when we entered the room we were all pleasantly surprised, the room was amazing, three large beds, a wide screen plasma TV, they allowed us to put our bikes in the room, and they even washed our clothes, all for the bargain price of $1,200 or $400 a person (that's £8 a person!). Bargain!! A few days later and we would have had to pay around $7000 (around £140 in total!)

After showering and relaxing for a bit, we headed out to join the throngs of people that were slowly walking up and down the high-street looking at the night market. We had no plan to do the same, we were hungry! We headed into a very nice Thai restaurant and feasted ourselves till we couldn't eat any more. Once we had our fill, we began to browse the stalls until we had enough and sleep began to take over.

Another weekend in Kenting

Only a couple of weeks after I had visited Kenting for the first time, I found myself there again, in the company of Matt, who has now left Taiwan, and so wanted to do a bit of sightseeing before he left.
The previous time I visited Kenting, I mainly went to its beaches. However, this time I wanted to see what else Kenting had to offer. So we rented a scooter and headed off into the countryside to see what we could find.
Driving around Kenting on a scooter has to be one of the best ways to see the area; its a good way to relax and unwind. However, butterlflies were out in full force that day, and while I was driving, I was doing my best to avoid hitting them. At first it was because I did not want to kill them. But afterwards, it was just to avoid the pain of being hit in the face by butterfly whilst driving at 80km. Matt was the unfortunate test subject who discovered this fact!

The country roads throughout Kenting
















A fun suspension bridge to walk along
















The plants in Kenting
















These are natural fires that are produced from gases underground. However, they did not look as impressive as my book made them out to be; probably due to the guy cooking baked potatos on them.









Matt atop Dong Men (East Gate), an old protective wall that surrounded a town
















Jialeshui; this place is great, lots of strangely shaped rock formations.
















Honeycombe shapes









Matt on the rocks









The Pacific ocean - my first time to see it










Matt can't move anymore

















The cliffs and neon lights of Kenting