When Jack reached out and asked if Ferda and I were interested in a bicycle tour in Taiwan, we didn’t hesitate. It would be Jack’s first time leaving the US since he was diagnosed with leukemia. Since then, he’s had a real adventure including chemotherapy and stem cell treatment. Taiwan wasn’t highest on our list after our short visit to Taipei only nine months earlier, but we were thrilled to be able to go on another adventure with Jack.
Ferda and I had a happily uneventful flight from Narita to Taoyuan (the city with Taipei’s international airport, as Narita is for Tokyo) and left our bicycle boxes at warmshowers hosts in Taoyuan, Julia and Yuhsi.
Dealing with boxed bicycles (in taxis, trains, buses, airplanes) and what to do with those boxes while cycling is often the most stressful part of a bicycle tour. Julia and Yuhsi (and big taxis between the airport and their house) made this very easy for us.
It was a flat, fun ride the next day with a bit of a headwind to get to the centrally located hotel where Jack was waiting for us in Taipei.
Finding restaurants and ordering meals was sometimes a bit of an adventure in Taiwan. This day we found a tasty lunch of rice, eggplant, tofu, cabbage, and as usual a few unidentifiables as well.
And across the street, what a surprise, isn’t this Portuguese pastel de nata?!
Well, why not? It arrived in Taiwan via (Portuguese) Macau.
This fancy-looking bridge was built only for non-motorized transportation:
Ferda and I rolled into Taipei in the fading light,
and pedaled out of the city the next day with Jack.
We were still in the city when this kind, outgoing woman treated us to lunch.
Only later did I realize that it was Thanksgiving Day!
Remember about five months ago in the mountains NW of Cevizli (Akseki, Antalya) I ruined a derailleur and replaced it the following day with a cheap, used, crappy derailleur? Well, that fix lasted till this day, heading east out of Taipei.
Expecting such an event I’d been carrying around a new spare chain and derailleur ever since. It was a fairly quick job and turned out to be biggest repair of the trip.
The next day we fought a headwind through Keelung and around the NE corner of the island. We rested near this Buddhist temple in Keelung.
In Nanya the only thing we could find to eat was steamed rice with spices and meat wrapped in corn husks, sold at a small store. These trekkers had bought them all and kindly shared with us.
The forecast called for lots of rain so we spent two nights at a hotel in Fulong and walked the Caoling Historic Trail the next day. It was Saturday, and as we learned later, the Silver Grass Festival of the Caoling Historic Trail, so the trail in many sections was very crowded.
I guess you’re supposed to see silver grass views like these:
The trail ends (or starts) at a temple in Dali where they were giving free food to hundreds of walkers that day.
It ended up raining much more the following day as we rode south with a tailwind through Toucheng where we had a fantastic lunch — three dishes: cabbage, eggplant, and pork with veggies in a yummy sauce. The young woman who worked there was great, helping us with the order and making recommendations.
We were very happy to find a sheltered campsite that afternoon as it rained a lot while we were cooking and eating dinner.
The next day we spent a few hours at the National Center for Traditional Arts in Lizejian. It was part amusement park, part gift shop, part museum. We watched some acrobats and a play with fun costumes. There was some beautiful lacquerware, silk weaving, and other crafts, and we learned about the traditional arts of lacquerware, wood carving, basket making, bamboo woven lacquer, and tin work. It was a fun stop, and we were able to get some lunch there before pedaling on.
We pushed on that afternoon to a nice campsite at Dong-ao usually on roads with too much traffic.
It was kind of a repeat the next day — some pretty coastal views, too much traffic, and a pleasant campsite (at Heren this time).
Looking back on the whole trip, I’d give this entire bit around the NE coast of the island a miss. There was simply too much traffic for it to be enjoyable. In retrospect we should have looked for smaller roads from the airport south to one of the cross-island roads and descended into Taroko Gorge.
That’s speculation, of course, ’cause we didn’t go that way. Taroko Gorge, however, is definitely worth seeing. That’s for the next post.
Looks great, though too bad about the traffic. We get to miss that, seeing just these pictures 🙂