機車環島! (Ji Che Huan Dao)

Ok, here's my trip report for ‘Ji Che Huan Dao’ ("Round the Island on a Scooter" - it sounds better in Chinese). I'll be putting up a link to my photos when I upload them but that may be a few months away as I'm travelling at the moment.

Day 1, Tainan-Lugang

We left Tainan at about 2pm, stopping briefly in Cigu for a late seafood lunch and then rode up the coast (on the 17) to Lugang. It was quite a nice ride with not much traffic, just going through little villages and towns. We arrived around sunset and stayed in some motel listed in our guidebook (it was really nice and only 1700 a night) and ate at some noodle place near the market recommended by the guy in the hotel. We also walked around some of the old streets which look quite nice at night.

Day 2, Lugang-Sanxia

We spent the morning seeing the historic sites of Lugang - temples, museums, old houses, which really are interesting even if you've seen temples before. We could have easily spent more time there but by around 12 thought it best to get going. We headed north on the 17 (not the best choice - I'd advise going inland to the 3 ASAP as we ended up riding around Taichung Port amongst all the giant container trucks). Once we'd finally made it onto the 3 it was quite a nice ride. We had a late lunch at a 'winery' somewhere before Dahu, which served a Hakka set meal for 200 each (about 4 different dishes) which was probably the best Hakka food we've had in Taiwan. Despite the restaurant owner's opinion that it was too far, we continued on up to Sanxia on the 3 (although I would consider taking the diversion around the reservoir instead of riding through Taoyuan at peak hour). We arrived at around 7pm and again stayed at a place we found in our 7-11 guidebook (which also has great maps for navigating through all the towns and cities). After dinner we wandered down the old street and over a bridge in front of the temple where everyone seemed to hang out.

Day 3, Sanxia - Danshui

This was a short riding day, to make up for the day before. We slept in then rode up to Yingge and wandered around the pottery area for a bit. After an ice cream and the realisation that we're really not that into pottery, we then rode up to Danshui in time for lunch. We stayed at a hotel directly opposite the MRT stop (we needed to go into Taipei early the next morning) and had some really good burgers and salad at a place I can't remember the name of, but was advertised on our map. We then spent the afternoon just wandering around Danshui, wondering why we'd never thought to visit there before.

Day 4, Danshui - Yilan

After making it in and out of Taipei by 10:30, we continued up and around the North coast on the 2 (?). We hadn’t been anywhere there before so had fun stopping at beaches along the way and looking at the views etc. We made it to Yilan before dark which surprised us, we thought it would take much longer.

Day 5, Yilan – Xinshe (South of Hualien)

It was raining when we left, so we just had a brief visit to the distillery and gave up on Yilan’s other attractions. The trip down to Suao was uneventful, we had wanted to go to the cold springs but as it was cool and rainy we decided that can wait until our next trip. We had a really nice ride through the mountains after Suao, the sun came out and there were hardly any big trucks etc and just a few cars (maybe this is because it was lunchtime or others had been put off by the morning’s weather), we saw quite a few going in the other direction though. We got to Hualien and decided we didn’t really want to stay there so, after eating some beef noodles, we continued South for a few hours. It was a great ride down the coast, and we found a b&b opposite the beach in Xinshe (‘Ocean View Minzu’), with a good seafood restaurant up the road.

Day 6, Xinshe – Taidong

After viewing the sunrise from our balcony, going back to sleep, then later a swim and breakfast, we were on our way to Taidong. There wasn’t too much traffic around, and we stopped at lots of attractions along the way, including some caves where you go in a boat to see bats, more caves where cavepeople lived, the tropics marker, the wavy bridge, some beaches, ‘famous’ pork bun shops etc. As long as you’re into Taiwanese tourist attractions there’s plenty to see along here, and if you’re not the coastline is nice enough anyway.

Day 7, Taidong – Green Island

We took an early ferry across to Green Island, and upon arrival did a quick circuit of the island just to see what it was like. We were glad to have brought our own scooter across as upon completing our lap we saw queues of people from our ferry still waiting to get petrol for their hired scooters. We found a room in a house that seemed to be rented out by a hotel around the corner, and then set off to explore the island. Our first stop was the prison (used during the White Terror era under Chiang Kai-shek), which was actually quite interesting, and then we went around looking at all the famous rocks and viewpoints. The hotspring area looked nice, but it was too hot for hotsprings so we settled on a swim at the beach near the lighthouse. It made a nice trip from Taidong, but for future visits I would try to go on a weekday.

Day 8, Green Island – Kenting

The first ferry of the morning was fully booked so we got to sleep in and take a later one back across to Taidong. We then headed for Kenting, although after a few hours it started raining and never really stopped. We took the 197(?) and then the 26(?) to come out somewhere near Jialeshui – it was quite nice riding amongst all the trees but would have been nicer with better visibility and drier roads. Once in Kenting we decided to celebrate our last night by staying at a fancy guesthouse along the beachfront with a bath/pool on the balcony overlooking the ocean, and had dinner and cocktails at Smokey Joe’s.

Day 9, Kenting – Tainan

Our last day of the trip was quite rainy, and we had to go really slowly most of the way due to poor visibility and the volume of rain. We stopped at one of the little cafes on the way up from Kenting to try and wait for the rain to stop a bit, but it didn’t so we continued on anyway (and saw quite a few ambulances racing past in the other direction). We took the 17 (?) up the coast as we had wanted to go to Dapeng Bay, but the weather was still terrible so we decided not to bother (the road at the turn-off was flooded anyway). The rest of the ride was not particularly exciting, we just wanted to get back and get out of the rain. As always we got lost in Kaohsiung, then somehow ended up on the 1 for a while, and later realised we were back on the 17. It finally stopped raining for our last stretch into town, thus completing our 1500km journey.

We rented our scooter from a great place, it’s about 50-100m down the road from the rear exit of Tainan train station. It has a big white sign with red writing, and is next to a second hand book shop. Whilst other places had laughed at us or refused us when we said we wanted to hire a scooter to ride around the island, this place thought it was a great idea and escorted us into the back where the better scooters were kept. They had plenty to choose from, we chose a 125cc Yamaha that was about 6 months old, and had no problems with it. The shop had insisted we take about 4 copies of their card so we could call them if we had any problems so they could arrange to pay for any repairs etc. They even paid for the oil change we got in Taidong. We went in the day before to organise things, and when we went to pick up the scooter it had been serviced that morning with new tyres, oil change, full mechanical checks etc. I have a Taiwanese licence, but they are also happy to hire if you just have an ARC. Whilst they are slightly more expensive than some of the other scooter hire places, they are really friendly and helpful, and don’t mind you taking their scooters on long trips.

The Quest for Umbrellas

A few weekends ago we decided we needed a traditional Chinese paper umbrella, as you do, and so set of for Meinong, a village of mostly Hakka people (originally from the South of Mainland China) famous for its umbrellas.

Sadly they don't make umbrellas with hidden swords like this

We'd been there and in the general direction several times before since it's in the same direction as Maolin. We went the usual way of just heading out west from Tainan towards the mountains, but once we started entering the foothills we saw a sign for a "mudstone" area or something, and decided to follow it. Later we realised we'd turned too early, but the turning we took lead up a small, dilapidated, very steep road through farms. We followed a different set of signs pointing to "Cao Shan 308 Gao", which we discovered was the top of a mountain ridge.

Entrance to the restaurant on top of the mountain

Right where the road levels out is a really cool garden restaurant with a great view overlooking the coastal plain - you can make out what we reckon was probably Tainan. Closer there are some other small foot hills and the weird, semi-desert, rocky landscape of "Moonworld" - a tourist attraction we have yet to visit but that we imagine involves moon buggies and is apparently famous for it's chicken. 

As well as the view, there's also a nice little playground including a purple horse ride, a garden with various animals such as geese, rabbits, dogs and squirrels (pet ones that is), karaoke (of course) and rustic though anatomically explicit indications for the toilet made from wood (sorry, didn't get around to taking photos). Only one area was open when we went, but it looked like in busier times there would be plenty of space.

The restaurant mainly served hot pot, but also some other expensive though very tasty looking dishes such as san bei ji. To start with we just had a coffee (pretty good) and sat admiring the view and watching a food journalist run around taking photos of everything, but it was so nice we decided to eat lunch. Though tempted by the live fish swimming in tanks, we weren't that hungry so settled for some hot pot. We chose the pumpkin one, and it was very good, though it's hard to go wrong with hot pot.

Half man, half bird, all kungfu

From the mountain top we headed down towards Neimen through a bamboo forest until we came to a  temple. The reliefs on the wall around it made it obvious that this was a kungfu temple, complete with a separate building housing a small exhibition of kungfu weapons and photos from a festival that's held there every year sometime in the second lunar month. 

Inside the temple it was fairly similar to most temples, though maybe with more fighting scenes, and a nice garden and pond or moat out the back. Back on the normal road, we now understood why there were kungfu statues along that stretch. 

Ice in Cishan

In a wide valley the other side of this first lot of mountains is the town of Qishan (Cishan on most signs). Many people don't seem to bother stopping here on their way to Maolin, Meinong, etc., but it has a really cool old street lined with Japanese colonial buildings, some really old temples and restored railway station (but not trains). We stopped there for ice with about ten flavours of ice cream in one scoop and about as many extra things (beans, jellies and so on).

The most convenient bridge across the river was still down from Typhoon Morakot, so we had to go along a bit to cross. It's a really long bridge, and the view from it, of Qishan backed by hills, the wide river and sheer mountains on the other side, is pretty impressive.

Rather than go straight to Meinong, since we had the whole afternoon we decided to go for a drive up the valley of another river towards Maolin. First it was through bamboo and forest, then after another really long bridge with supports shaped like butterfly wings took us to the opposite side small towns and villages amongst farmland. Big mountains loomed out of the mist and dark clouds the whole time, but it didn't rain. The big flat valley in the middle seemed to be from lots of rivers, low on water at the moment but you could still see a lot of damage from typhoons, so they must get pretty swollen.

Next we headed back to Meinong, stopping at one of the tourist areas they've set up. These look like a very fake mini-village, but are quite fun. Here is were you can eat traditional Hakka flat rice noodles and other dishes, buy souvenirs and make lei cha (擂茶 - pounded tea, see wikipedia for more). Lei cha is a type of tea: you get given your pot of tea, a big stone pestle and mortar, and a bunch of ingredients - sesame seeds, puffed rice, peanuts etc. - which you grind up, put some spoonfuls in your cup, at tea and you have lei cha - it's a bit like drinking cereal. We tried it last time, but didn't get round to it the second time.

Sunset in Meinong

These places are also where you come to buy paper umbrellas. There's a whole range of sizes from cocktail ones to some big enough to cover a table, and different paintings on them - most are flowers, landscapes or a little scene. The salespeople are generally happy for you to spend ages looking at different ones to find one you like, or if you have the time and skill you can paint one yourself, send it back to them and they will wax it for you, though we decided not to bother for now. Apparently they are waterproof, but it's probably best not to test them in a typhoon.

Fully stocked on flat noodles and waxed paper souvenirs, as there were still a few hours of light left we went on a search for Yellow Butterfly Valley. There are signs, but you follow them and come to intersections with no signs, so it a bit of a mission. We persevered through old town, catching glimpses of old houses behind the usual modern Taiwanese concrete blocks, then out into the countryside and towards the mountains

 We did get the occasional sign telling us we were heading in the right direction, but once we were getting close we followed some misleading signs and ended up at a disused hot spring. It looked like it would have been nice when it was running, with different pools spread out in a garden, but hadn't been open for a good while.

It was getting late so we decided we don't like butterflies that much and headed back, getting some awesome sunset views with the mountains reflecting in rice paddies. They trip back seemed pretty long though, especially for the person on the back, it kills the front of your legs.

Sally with our umbrella

Kaohsiung's Port Area

Kaohsiung is Taiwan's second biggest city and most southern. From Tainan it's only 30 minutes by train (if you get the fastest one), so we often go down there on the weekend. It also has one of the biggest ports in Asia, and that area is actually quite interesting to look around.

We took the MRT to Xiziwan (or Sizihwan as they spell it), and directly opposite the station entrance is a place to rent bicycles for 100NT a day. They give you a map with cycle route which is handy. We headed towards the docks, to where there's a nice cycle path along a disused railway, and passes through an area called the Pier 2 Art District.

We'd been here before to attend a gig by Taiwan's biggest metal band Chthonic (Joël reviewed it on his other blog here) but this time had more time to wander around. The area is made up of old warehouses which have been turned into gallery spaces, studios and so on, which sculptures and murals dotted around. Identical statues of a fat man and fat woman have been put along the railway, and it seems are regularly painted with new designs by different artists.

When we were there last there were several exhibitions by visual arts students, and the previous time one small gallery had one based around cartoon characters such as Tofu Oyaku, so they change quite frequently. Nestled amongst all the galleries, looking like one itself as it too is housed in an old warehouse decorated with murals of workers, as the Kaohsiung Museum of Labour. As it was just after May Day, they had a special exhibition, which was very nicely laid out, and would probably have been very interesting if it had anything other than the headings translated into English.

From there you can head towards the Love River, which has a cycle path free of scooters, and some cafés and bars, though in the evening it can get crowded. Before you reach the river is the Love Pier from where you can get a ferry to Qijin Island.  As well as fresh seafood the island has a lighthouse by an old Chinese fort on a hill overlooking the island, which is fun to wander around. There's also an OK beach and a good cycle path with views along the cliff.

Further along there should be views of the port but we didn't get that far. You can see the giant container ships from the cliff top though, and from the "Wind Park", one of those typically Taiwanese areas set up with colourful little statues for kids to play on, windmills to be the backdrop to your photos, a grassy area to fly kites on (despite the signs saying no kites) and some snack stall. Another ferry takes you  to near where you rent the bicycles, so you don't have to ride all the way round again.

Not far from there is Shoushan, also known as Monkey Mountain, a big hill covered in forest that contains a zoo and of course monkeys. If you have food, they might be aggressive, but when we went they were very calm and fluffy, not like the dirty aggressive ones in India. There may be a bus that goes there but we got a bit lost when we tried, so it might be easiest to take a taxi or go by scooter as we eventually did.

The bus we thought was taking us there actually took us around the foot of the mountain, past the university and up along the cliff. There you can find lots of nice little cafés overlooking the sea. Some even claim to have scones! The best time to go is on an afternoon when there's a typhoon approaching but the rain hasn't reached land yet, so you can watch the waves crashing on to the rocks below with a moody dark sky as backdrop. You can even imagine you can see the eye of the approaching storm, a dark column going down to the water… Just make sure you have a rain coat, and if you're going by bus check when the last one leaves.

Joël's photos of Kaohsiung can be found here.

Welcome to our blog!

This used to be just Joël's blog for a trip back at the end of 2006, but we're resurrecting it to be a general travelling and stuff blog. We've been living in Tainan, Taiwan for the last 20 months or so, and will be here for about another 4 so to start with we'll probably be concentrating on cool stuff we've seen around here. We might also post stuff about places we've been previously, such as our 2008 trip to India and Nepal. To see photos from our trips you can visit our photo sites:

Axicon Photos
Joël's Photos

Java & Bali

(11/2/2007-17/2/2007)

If anyone reading this goes to Indonesia and has the choice of taking a bus run by the Damri company, then take it. This was the company of the bus that took us from Banda Lampung on Sumatra to Bandung on Java, and it was the best bus we had in South-East Asia. It had Winnie the Pooh blankets and pillows for everyone, working footrests,plenty of space in each row, a sealed area at the back for smokers so they weren't allowed to smoke anywhere else, and despite it being a night journey, which apparently is generally considered an ideal time to play really awful pop music really loudly, there was no music at all! As if all that wasn't good enough, we even arrived at our destination almost 2 hours early! As this was at 4.20 in the morning, we were able to skip Bandung completely and take the first train to Yogyakarta (pronounced "Jogjakarta", or just "Jogja"), which was far more comfortable than a bus despite being a couple of hours late. As Sally spent 6 months here when she was doing her degree, for once we had no problem findingaccommodation, places to eat, or places to do our laundry.

The next day we booked our "travel" (minibus) for the next day, then went for a walk around town, visiting the Sultan's palace (the sultan is still in charge ofJogja ), and the Sultan's water palace where he would bathe with his wives and children and meet his concubines etc. It then started to rain, so we got a bus up to near where Sally used to live and stayed in aninternet café until it stopped, and then it was time for a dinner of ayam bakar (grilled chicken and rice, Sally's favourite). We then had time to collect laundry, do a bit of shopping for journey supplies, and then had beer and pancakes at a bar where we met a crazy Australian from Alice Springs, studying in Darwin. The next day was not very exciting as we travelled by minibus toBromo . The lady sitting next to me kept jumping due to the incredibly bad and dangerous driving of both our driver and everyone else on the road, but after nearly 2 months in South-East Asia I was used to it and just slept. The most exciting thing to happen was when we realised that our water bottle which had been on top of the engine and in the sun had got hot enough to make hot chocolate, which we did by adding chocolate flavoured sweetened condensed milk from thesqueezy, screw-top packet that we'd bought. Eventually, after some winding mountain roads, we arrived at the village near Bromo, an active volcano, and due to the lack of tourists were able to get a very nice room in a hotel.

Others in or minibus had been persuaded to go on a trip to see the sunrise, so had to get up at 4am, but we decided to have a couple of days there, so just got up at 9, had breakfast, and then went walking across a volcanic wasteland of cooled lava to MountBromo , which steamed in the middle. We were escorted by a horse guide who wanted us to pay for him to walk us across on his horse, but wepreferred to walk, so he cantered off after a while. It was pretty hot, there was no shelter, and we didn't return until after 1 so we got quite badlysunburnt despite all the suncream we put on. To get to the rim of the volcano there we some crumbling steps, and at the top there was a fence of plastic tubing to stop you falling into the steaming crater that smelt of sulphur, a guy trying to sell us flowers to throw in as an offering (a few minutes later we saw him climbing down to pick those that hadn't reach out again!), and a lady selling drinks and stuff. In theory you could walk all the way along, but the fence only stretched across a few metres, andsome of the edge looked pretty thin and crumbly, so we didn't. Having seen enough volcano for one day, we went down to the Hindu temple at the foot of the neighbouring extinct volcano, and got a ride back on horses after some bargaining. We ended the day by watching the sunset with an Indonesian expat (the lady who'd sat next to me on the minibus), her daughter, and an Indonesian couple, then all had dinner together before we went to book our onward travel and the trip to the viewpoint for sunrise the next day, which we'd been convinced was worth it.

Sadly this meant we had to get up at 3.40am for our drive in a jeep through the dark, occasionally lit by some cool lightning in some clouds which luckily turned out to be behind us when watching the sunrise. It turned out that it really was worth it, as the huge extinct crater containing Mt.Bromo and it's neighbour was filled with mist, so it looked like a scene from Jurassic Park, the clouds didn't hide the sun but there were enough to look pretty in the red light, and best of all was the even more active Mt.Semira which erupted twice in the 30-45 minutes we were there with a huge cloud of smoke. Once the sun had risen, the jeep took us down to Mt.Bromo for other people to climb it, but as we'd already done that with hardly anyone else there, we didn't feel like doing it with a crowd of tourists, and instead stayed at the bottom, Sally joking with the horse guides, and laughing at the tourists being lead on their horses up the 5 or 10 minute walk to the steps, several with their video cameras out.

Then it was back for breakfast (including coffee which we turned into moccha by adding our chocolate condensed milk) and into the local bus to Probolingo where we had to wait for our bus to Denpasar on Bali, passing the time by letting a nice young Indonesian guy practice his English, who told us he wanted to be the next Kasparov. Our bus was OK, although they refused to give us our complimentary meal that all the Indonesian passengers got, but once we were on the ferry across to Bali we got a great view ofvolcanoes (presumably extinct) silhouetted against the sunset lit sky. Arriving in Denpasar was surprisingly hassle free, as the first taxi driver we asked agreed to use the meter, and the hotel the Indonesian expat lady had recommended to us turned out to be pretty nice and reasonable, with a swimming pool, breakfast and all. Dinner was also pretty good as I discovered a mega-sandwich including chicken, pineapple,avocado, mayonnaise, and more.

The next day was more fun, beginning with a swim in the hotel pool, then breakfast, a quick spell on the internet as at the last minute I decided I didn't want to got to Hong Kong, China, and elsewhere on my own but go to Australia with Sally, so I had to activate a visa and buy a plane ticket, and then we went toWaterbom Park. This is a great place full of waterslides you can go on in tubes, on mats, or just on your own (including a great one called Boomerang where you go down a flume in a tube, come shooting out and up avertical wall then down over a bump into a pool), a "river" you can float around in on your tube, various pools, and bubble tea! When that shut we went shopping for presents and stuff, had dinner, and finished with beer and ice cream.

Our last day in Indonesia began similarly, only with dragon fruit for breakfast as well (a large pink skinned fruit with odd scale-like bits, which inside is white with black seeds, and tastes a bit like the seeds in kiwi fruit), then we had to pack and check out as our plane was that evening. We spent most of the day shopping, with periodic breaks for ice with jellies, cocktails, beer, swimming on the beach, and a tasty dinner of chicken and coconut. Then we got a taxi to the airport for all the joys of checking in, finally leaving just after midnight on our plane, meaning that now Sally and I have travelled together on all popular forms of transport (as well as a few more unpopular ones). A few hours later we were in Australia, and I was (almost) done with long distance travel for a while.