Kaohsiung Part 1

When my friend Danyall was here, we left Xiao LiuQiu to spend a couple of days in Kaohsiung (crazy old-school spelling- it's more like Gaoshung I think), the 2nd-biggest city in Taiwan. I'd only ever passed through there on my way somewhere else but from the subway or the windows of a bus, it looked like a great place to visit. We got rooms at a nice hotel right next to the beach.
Our first day there was rather inauspicious. We wound up taking a taxi from the port to our hotel- somewhat at my insistence, as I didn't want to walk far through the heat- it was actually a van with a few other people. We got dropped off at our hotel just fine, then went to get our bags, which we'd left at the train station.
One of the things I thought was so cool about Kaohsiung is that is has a bike-share program- swap a card, ride a bike, then return it to a number of conveniently located spots around the

city. There was a bike station right near our hotel and we decided to ride to the subway station to save time.

Yeah. You see how Danyall is hot and frazzled? That's cause we got to the subway stop, which had 2 exits, and circled the station a few times without seeing the bike dock place, asked a few people where it was, finally found it at the other side of a speedy 4-lane road from the subway... I think this would be a convenient thing if you lived there and had a card to use (if you do, it's free for the first 30 minutes) but since we had to use credit cards to pay like $1 for the first 30 minutes, even bike nerd me was willing to walk for the rest of our time in that city.

The subway was pretty easy to negotiate, and we got our bags, and I was hungry but I knew the train station had a Starbucks and figured a quick sandwich would be great. Except the Starbucks had closed since I was there 2 months ago. On the way back to the subway we did find a MosBurger with a very friendly worker so that cheered us up, or at least held back my low-blood-sugar anger. Did I mention it was really hot in the south of Taiwan? Like, really, really hot.

There are only 2 lines of the subway and we did have to switch lines. This was not a problem on the way to the train station. Somehow on the way back I led us in the wrong direction and we fought our way through crowds of people and even walked the suitcase up a flight of stairs to realize that we needed to be back where we came from. This is me, banging my head against the wall when I came to that realization.

We were, however, rewarded with this sign, advertising help for blind passengers:

OK, maybe our blood sugar wasn't totally stabilized because we found that hilarious. I also got to eavesdrop on some other passengers talking about us in Chinese: "Look at those foreigners! They're so tall!" "Yes, but it's because they're wearing high heels." "The one is, but the other one isn't. And even without the high heels, they'd be very tall." (This was funnier because the word for high heels in Chinese is actually tall shoes, and because of something that happened the next day.)

We made our way back to the hotel and decided that since we are old, 8 pm wasn't too early to stay in, enjoy an adult beverage each (purchased from 7-11, cause we're classy like that) and get ready for a fun day on Thursday. And this was the view from our window:

Little Liu Qiu, Part 3

The theme of Day 2 on Little Liu Qiu was Hot.

We bought a pass to 3 tourist attractions for NT$100 each. I think we only went to 2.

First up was the Beauty Caves. These were mostly boardwalk footpaths and stairways heading to some small caves:

There were also some nice views of the water.

But we were already wilting a little.

And yes, my outfit is entirely inappropriate. To be fair, those are linen pants. But I was quite unprepared for the heat.

After that it was onto the "Pig Ditch", which sounded unpromising but turned out to be a number of short, interlocking hiking paths up the side of a hill. The map promised walks of 20-50 minutes for each path; each one generally took us a few minutes, even with stopping to comment on how unbearably hot it was.


There were, however, some spots that were difficult for foreigners wtih backpacks.


There was a perfectly-located ice cream stand. I was quite excited. But I couldn't quite eat the whole thing.

Since the ice cream stand doubled as a betel nut stand, I got a close-up of betel nut being processed. They take the actual fruit, put on a glob of lime (the chemical, not the fruit) and roll it in the green leaf. I'm not sure if the leaf comes from the betel nut trees or not.

Then, it was back to the port for our ferry back to the mainland.

Overall, it was a nice place. I liked that it wasn't such a hike to get to, like Kenting seems to be. There was a nicish beach and snorkeling that I didn't take advantage of- oh, well. It also seems to be set up with bike routes on all the major roads. I'm not sure if I'd want to bike there, though- honestly the English maps were all incomprehensible, and Dany and I are pretty good map-readers. I didn't see any Chinese maps that were any better, but they may exist.

Little Liu Qiu Part 2

The ferry ride over was easy- around 20 minutes and no seasickness. It’s common in touristy areas to have an old woman (“ama”) harrass you into buying/renting/doing something, and as soon as we got off the ferry, ama was there to offer us scooters. I gave Danyall a quick lesson and we were off! She did quite well once she got the hang of it.

The ama took us to see a hotel room which was OK and not too expensive, but she was kinda driving us nuts and I had a few numbers written down from the Little Liu Qiu website (which is the best tourist website I’ve seen in Taiwan, hands down). A few phone calls and a quick scooter trip later, we found a very cute hotel right next to the water (although it was kind of on a cliff) where we each got our own bed! Here’s the view from our patio:

Looking all the way across to mainland Taiwan! Here’s another view, I think maybe from a different point on the island?

We rode our scooters around kind of randomly- the island is small but has a lot of roads that all seem to interconnect, and maps and direction signs proved to be not terribly helpful. But basically we were never more than 15 minutes from our hotel and never had to worry about being lost, even though we never really knew where we were!

The famous “vase rock” and a shot of beautiful waters:

Me, imitating Dany’s slimming model pose:

The model-free view from the pagoda (there are these little pagodas all over that aren’t a temple in that no worship is conducted there, they’re just there for… rest? I don’t know).

The sun sat on our day…

We had planned on having BBQ at our hotel, but when I called to confirm that we would come they were like “It starts in 10 minutes! Get here now” so we settled for a very Taiwanese meal of fried noodles, cabbage, and papaya milk. Dany had been beginning to think I never eat Chinese food!

Then it was back to the hotel. We relaxed a while in the chairs overlooking the ocean, then headed to bed early. The hotel people knocked on our door and told me about some special excursion to the sea that would take place at 11 pm. It was free and we would see something special. OK, I didn’t totally understand everything they said. They were so surprised when we said we were too tired. They also kept bringing us stuff- weird Taiwan soup which I did eat, and fried blood rice, which uh we didn’t.

Little Liu Qiu- Part 1

I gave Danyall a few choices for short trips in Southern Taiwan, and she chose this island of Xiao Liu Qiu because it would be a chance for her to ride a scooter.

We rode the High Speed Rail down to Kaohsiung- I am quite the HSR addict as it's faster and also so much pleasanter than the regular rail, in that there are no random Taiwanese people without seats standing over you and coughing.

From the HSR station we made our way to a bus station near the Kaohsiung Train Station. We had to ride a bus to the port town of Dongguan and then a ferry to Little Liu Qiu. It was pretty easy to get a ticket to the right place and we only had to wait a few minutes for the bus. When we got on a man had a little discussion with the bus driver and then asked us (all in Chinese) if we're going to Little Liu Qiu (yes) and told us that the bus didn't go to the port, just to the bus station, and did we know how to get from there to the port? (no) So he said he'd take us to the ferry place. I said he was too polite, we don't want to trouble him, etc, but he was very nice and insisted he'd help us. It was funny, I heard him on the phone later telling someone he'd be a little late because he was going to help some foreign friends (waiguo pengyou, which is what they often call us foreigners).

So we got off the bus and he was like "Follow me!" We walked after him at a pretty fast pace and arrived at a bank. Apparently he was a boss there and told two workers to take us to the ferry terminal. This kind of random helpfulness is not entirely without precedent but a little over the top even for Taiwan. There wasn't much discussion- by the time I figured out what was going on our bags were on scooters and we were being beckoned to jump on the back. The south of the island is a little different from the north in that they don't really believe in things like "helmets" and "traffic laws." But I think they took it easy for our sakes!

Here's Danyall with our drivers in their bank uniforms- I'm sure they had a funny story to tell about their workday when they got home- "So we were having fun because our boss wasn't there- and they he showed up with these 2 enormous foreingers and told us to take them to ride the ferry..."

Later I'll tell you what happened when we actually got to the island. But seriously, having Danyall here reminded me of how darn nice Taiwan people are.

Taian Vacation Part 1

This is the bike trip I took in early June.  I wrote it a while ago but I just got around to adding pictures.  I still can't believe I rode in all that rain!  But it had been raining for weeks and I so wanted the challenge of a long ride, and I so needed a vacation.

I got up at 6:30 Tuesday and figured I was in no big hurry.  While I'm eating breakfast and starting to pack, it starts to rain.  Dang.  But I have a raincoat and a plastic bag to put over my stuff to keep it dry, right?  Pumped up the tires and headed out.

About twenty minutes into it started to rain really hard- ugh. This is what it looked like then.

I decided I'd ride for an hour total and if it was still raining hard I'd turn around or head to Jasmine's and ride in her car.  After 40 minutes it totally stopped!  Then started again.  Drizzle, then rain.  I discovered my tires are cleverly designed to create a stream of water that shoots right at my face if I'm going fast enough- not pleasant.  So that's what the fenders on bikes are for! 

The rest of the ride was OK.  I had packed some PB&J from home and was lucky to find a Family Mart that had an tables under and overhang where I could park my bike, and a bathroom inside!  The area north of Fong Yuan gets a little remote so that was a great break.

Not 20 minutes after that I reached the turn-off for Tai-an.  Sweet!  I actually pumped my arm in triumph.  Only 13.5 km until the end of that road, and surely I wouldn't ride it to the end?  And 13.5 km is nothing!  I forgot that I'd only ridden about 45 so far- that would make the leg left to go 1/5 of my trip.  Hmmm.

I started rolling up some hills, then Jasmine called me and said "Are you there yet?  Cause I'm here and I don't see you."  I was like, how in heck did we miss each other?  I am surely the only biker on this narrow winding rainy road.  She said she was at the 7-11, and I was like, dang, I have not seen any 7-11, I must not be to there yet.  10 minutes later we're on the phone again, turns out there was a 7-11 I totally didn't see at the turn-off, so she caught up with me and offered to put my bike in her car, but I was like, I'm wet and filthy, my bike is wet and filthy, why don't you go ahead and find a hotel and I'll catch up.  I had been following the signs okay up to this point (some only in characters but my character recognition skills are pretty good now.  really!) but there is this split, and the sign says, like, "To Tai-an Hot Springs Village," and shows arrows in two directions.  Whaaa?  For some reason I took the one that went uphill instead of the level one, crossed some mean dogs and decided not to turn around and cross them again, then Jasmine called and said my way wasn't right so I turned around.  She drove her car back to find me right as I got back to the main road and I told her, "If you drive your car at like 20 I can keep up with you."  After 1 minute we hit like the steepest hill ever- I was going 3-4 kph up the whole way.  Then I would get up to like 6.  At one point I had to walk the bike and she drove up by me and said she'd found a hotel someone recommended, and rooms were cheap, and hot spring was included in the price, and it was no-bathing-suit hot spring.  I said OK because what did I care?  I was walking my bike in the yucky rain.

At long last we got there.  The lobby was next to the dining room and it was just filled with noisy young people with crazy hair but the check-in lady said they would be leaving in like half an hour.  In spite of it all the scenery was beautiful and I was looking forward to a shower, (and a hike?) and a hot spring.  Naked or not.

In my "professional biking clothes" (Jasmine's words), getting ready to leave on Wed.  It looked like it would get sunny so I donned my blue arm tubes.  And UV-protecting gloves!

Tai-an Part 2

Turned out the room was nice- 2 big beds with sheets (not something you always get in Taiwan), and it overlooked the river with a little waterfall.  It was all wood and always pretty humid inside, I guess because of all the steamy hot springs?  Also the general humidity.

I showered, had another pb&j and chocolate milk, and it stopped raining so we decided to go for a little hike.  We asked the lady at the front desk which one would be the least deadly after all the rain and she said the waterfall one (I was worried because my Lonely Planet said you had to lower yourself down by ropes to get to it) so we headed out.

  Here's a picture of Jasmine just outside the parking lot (yeah, I rode in her car, finally!)  You can see the cool mini-waterfall across the river.  It was a nice walk- Jasmine always says she is in the worse shape but I kept slowing us down.  No ropes on the way to the waterfall, just stairs and more stairs.

There were tons of little waterfalls everywhere, because of the rainy season I guess.  I think this was the one we were after though!

After that nice stroll, we drove in search of a longer trail to maybe do on Wed.  It was like a drive straight uphill and it got narrower and narrower.  Finally we found a guy and asked him- he said the road was all washed out with rockslides.  His hand was all wrapped up and Jasmine asked him what had happened.  He shook his head and said ruefully, "I drank too much.  I really shouldn't drink so much."  So funny.

Finally we headed out in search of some food.  They sold instant noodles at the hotel and Jasmine said she was fine with that but I wasn't!  We found a place that was in the Lonely planet.  It overlooked the river and was very pleasant.

Like most touristy places, you ordered dishes to share around the table (like family-style).  We ordered fried rice, vegetables, and fresh fish.  The fresh fish is usually the whole fish (head and bones and all).  There was a time when I couldn't even think of eating something with a head but now, as long as I don't eat the head, it's cool.

But when the fish came it looked like this:

Uh-oh!  Can you see?  Just little finger-sized fish, bones and all, deep-fried.  Jasmine was into it but not me.   I was starved so I ordered what Jasmine translated as "boiled chicken," and turned out to be poached chicken with an amazing citrusy glaze.  One of the best things I've eaten in Taiwan.  The owner was like, are you sure you can eat all that?  We said we'd take some home but we wound up polishing it off- I think he was surprised!

After that it was back to the hotel for the hot spring- we were the only people in the place.  (It was separated into male and female).  It was pretty- all stone, 2 hot pools and 1 cold, and overlooking the mountains a little (bamboo screen in between us and the outside).  No pictures of that, of course!  :)

Taian Part 3

We got up in plenty of time for the breakfast- which was breakfast sandwiches and tea.  But the breakfast sandwiches consisted of white bread, fried egg, dried pork (which is every bit as vile as it sounds), lots of mayo and some green vegetables.  So not really something I was gonna eat.  (As the only things on that list that I do eat are bread and veggies.)  But Jasmine loved it.

I'd been thinking about staying over another night, but I knew hiking wouldn't be good as most of the trails were closed for the landslide, and getting food in me would've been tough, as no one in the whole town spoke English and I didn't like the breakfast.  So we hit the hot springs one more time and hit the road.

By then I was famous as the girl who rode her bike from Fong Yuan.  The lady at the hot springs offered to lend us her binoculars if we wanted to go bird-watching- so sweet!  Then a worker at the hotel wanted to give me advice about how to go home- he said I could go to this town called Sanyi (famous for wood-carving) and it would hardly be any further.  The way he knew involved a lot of turns but he had a map and we saw another road that cut across called 132.  I figured that would be easier.

I stopped at the 7-11 I'd missed on the way out and fueled up with some chocolate milk and a snickers bar- don't know if that counts for nutrition?  It didn't rain and it was actually a comfortable temperature.  The riding wasn't too bad- lots of flat, a few hills I climbed without too much trouble.  My gears were making the crazy we-need-lube noise, but I was stuck- no bike shops, and even before my trip, I would go into a bike shop to buy some lube and they would squirt my bike up for free and not sell me any.  Oh well.

I turned onto the road 130- extremely easy to find- and immediately started climing uphill.  And climbing.  Well, up ahead is a curve.  And it obscures another hill.  So I climb some more.  And some more.  I never would have taken that road if I'd known that I would climb straight up for over 8 km- and I learned the hard way that when you go slower than 8 kph, it takes you over and hour to go 8 km. 

Beautiful views though.  I stopped and had the best peaches I'd ever had- apparently that road is known as the peach road- and then an expensive cup of iced coffee at the "Mile High Cafe" (maybe a literal mile?  Maybe not.)  I was drawn in by the English sign saying, Welcome!  Enjoy a break!  But no English inside. I could have used some food but I can still only read the basic characters- pig, chicken, cow, meat, rice, noodle.  Which you'd think would be enough, but does that mean pig intestines or cow feet?  No way to know.  So iced coffee it was.

I would've taken pictures of it all but with the humidity and haze they come out not well.  So quiet out there too.  I think I rode into the clouds!  Or at least into some higher fog.

The ride down was awesome!  Part of the way was just a slight downhill so I could peddle- I always go faster on those than on straight downhills because I'm such a wimp.  Before my highest speed was 46 kph but there I hit 49!  I hunkered down and pedaled like crazy but couldn't break 50. 

Then, I was in Sanyi.  Lonely Planet warned that it was as ugly as any other small town in Taiwan.  I bought some noodles from a stand, then hit a wood-carving museum.  But I realized quickly that I'm not really interested in wood carving, nor do I particularly want to buy any carved wood.  Lonely planet talked about a pretty trail near town but there were mean dogs at the start of what I thought was the road going to the trail, and I gave up pretty easily on that.  (Actually,  I was pretty tired.)

On the way out of town I found a bike shop- he lubed me up and sold me a can of lube!  Yay!  The bike sounded so much better.  From there it was an easy trek through another ugly town, and then home!  And a nap.  Even though it was hard I'm glad I went home that way.