Sunny Side Up

Back on track! Our circle is almost complete, we are now in Hsinchu - a short train ride from Taipei. A lot has happened since our wonderful detour back north to Hualien. We have visited countless night markets overflowing with delicious food, old forts and temples, and even utilized wonderful beaches. First things first. Let's go south!

All the way south actually. Apparently the holiday destination for Taiwanese and mainlanders alike is the southernmost tip of Taiwan: the Hengchun peninsula - with Kenting National park (and Kenting town) as the main destination. Having passed the Tropic of Cancer halfway between Hualien and Taitung the weather drastically improved, and we sure were back in the sun again. We didn't waste any time when we arrived on Sunday afternoon. Seeing Kenting Youth Hostel out the window of our spacious bus, we immediately jumped off and checked in to the lovely establishment.

Yeah, welcome to Kenting!

Within an hour of our arrival, Thomas was out jogging in the surroundings of the National Park, and I was on a shuttle bus to Nanwan, the nearest surfing beach. Hengchun offers good surf all along its coastline, and I was anxious to check it out, a little skeptical of the strong winds that might dampen the waves. Arriving at the water sports-filled beach I could see the waves and the surfers, but where were the surf shops? "Surf?" I asked some boys hanging out by the stairs to the beach. They exchanged looks and one of them motioned for me to follow. As an old man came rolling by on a quad-bike, I understood I was to get on the back. Five minutes later I was sitting on the back of the bike, perched on top of a surf board and ready to go! Man was it great to get back on the waves. Surfing, like climbing, is a therapeutic sport, and it gives you a lot of time to just relax waiting for the perfect wave. After some serenity at sea, it was time to meet up with Thomas again to explore the now bustling village.

Heavy duty night marketing.

Kenting is a small town composed mainly of hostels, hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops with few local residents. Now for the town's major feature: as soon as the sun goes down, the entire main street turns into a long night market, with all the good stuff this entails. We spent both nights roaming these food stalls and found so much delicious food ranging from deep-fried, boiled, flambeed, swan eggs to real (portable)
stone-oven baked seafood pizzas. Ah, Taiwan and your gluttonous ways!

This guy really put his heart into making swan egg shaped dreams come true!

This guy, not so much. Still delicious deep fried Oreos though!

On Monday, since I don't really know how to scuba dive, and Thomas doesn't really know how to surf, we both decided to do what we wanted most. After shopping for an (electric) scooter I followed the guys from the surf shop to Jialeshui beach, 30 minutes' drive along country roads from Kenting. Here I found nothing more than another branch of the surf shop, a row of houses, and of course, a fantastic beach with waves rolling in from all sides. In my excitement though, I forgot to put on sun lotion, and after a day of successful surfing my face was all red, the rest of my body luckily cocooned by the wet-suit.

All you need for a day out surfing!

Waveees!

Meanwhile, as I was driving around the peninsula enjoying the scenery, Thomas was returning from a different day at sea. While I was riding the waves, he was exploring underneath them. Back at the hostel I got enthusiastic stories about disco clams reflecting torchlight, and clown-fish colonies a plenty, from the two dives he had done that day!

After recuperating in the south, it was time to focus our attention to the western, more sun-blessed, side of Taiwan. It is way more urbanized than the east, a two hour train ride took us through populated residential zones to Tainan on Tuesday. Yeah, they're not very original with their city names here, they basically keep the Tai prefix and exchange it with geographical positions, Taipei meaning north Tai, Tainan meaning south Tai, and Taitung meaning east Tai.

Tainan itself proved to be a breeze, especially after we rented some bicycles and checked in at Darwin's hostel (a natural selection). We quickly made our way to the old part of town and explored its historic alleyways. With temples and Dutch fortresses all over the place it was nigh impossible to run out of sights, but I enjoyed the most just bicycling the narrow paths and seeing the history directly in the streets. The greatest surprise was the Anping Oyster Shell Cement Kiln Museum. While hearing about production of Oyster Shell Cement might seem dry, bear with me for a moment. The exhibition housed the autobiography of an oyster, all the way from its formation in the egg cell, to its annihilation in the dreaded fires of the Oyster Kiln. Hilarious!

Cycling down narrow lanes towards hilarity at the Oyster Kiln Museum

Poor oyster. We believe the onomatopoeia is Chinese for crying.

How is it even autobiographically possible to say that?

Oh, but they had some regular sights too. Like this (partially) old Dutch fort.

The Eternal Golden Castle didn't quite live up to its name.

 

But they had a pretty bad ass destroyer though, so that was cool!

After obligatory night marketing and some badminton with the restaurant-owners kids, we ended the night in the cinema, the streets being all empty and stuff. Non-Stop showcased Liam Neeson as a deputy officer on an airplane, in an unbearably exciting action/psychological thriller. We were glued to our seats!

Time for some more sightseeing. Posing outside Confucius temple

Shooting squirrels!

Where did all this delicious bread suddenly come from?

The next day we finished up Tainan's sights, met a friendly old man giving us insights into modern Taiwanese politics at the Confucius temple, and filled our bellies with delicious bakery goods before making our way to Taiwan's High Speed Rail, which zoomed us north to Hsinchu in only an hour! Here we've contacted a local biker, who'll take us out for some mountain-biking. On Friday we'll temporarily part ways, bringing another chapter to a close. Hard to believe you say? Perhaps out of the realm of possibility? Well, you'll find out what happens next soon enough.

Meanwhile, were taking this bad boy for a ride.

The other Taiwan

While quite precisely half of Taiwan is one continuous stretch of cities, industry and urban sprawl, the other half is an exact opposite. Down the middle of the island runs a huge, rugged mountain chain (its highest peak, Yushan, is 3952 m), and on the eastern side of this are deep gorges and remote jungles, wave-beaten, jagged Pacific coastline, and only two smaller cities. This was the side we decided to check out first, as we left Taipei a week ago.

Bet you didn't know Taiwan looked like this!

We took an afternoon train down to Hualien, the first of the two cities on the east coast. It was a lovely, scenic train ride, despite the chilly fog over the mountains, and our welcome at the hostel in Hualien was if possible even warmer than in Taipei. (It had a piano!) I decided to use the rest of the daylight for a run. I hadn't found any running trails on the maps, but since this was Taiwan I figured I'd just try my luck and run down to the river, and sure enough: A lovely biking and running trail ran along the river, which was full of fish and beautiful herons catching them. Following the river I quickly got to the rocky river the mouth, and the violent Pacific ocean opened itself before me, for the first time in my life. Quite a sight! I continued along the ocean until it got dark, battling the fierce wind on the way out and enjoying it in my back on the way back. Although I had some trouble finding my way back to the hostel (it's much harder to find English-speakers outside of Taipei), it was a fantastic run! In the meantime Alex hadn't been bored, playing piano, chatting with fellow guests, and getting a free haircut from the very nice hostel owner! For dinner we joined the gang from the hostel to the local night market - always a delight.

A quiet provincial town, Hualien's main draw is as a base for visiting Taroko Gorge National Park, and that was our primary motivation for going there also. So the next morning we bought one-day "hop on hop off"-tickets for the Taroko bus, and started exploring. The weather was great, and we took the bus all the way up the windy, tunnely road up the gorge before working our way back down.

I like what I'm seeing!

At the innermost stop we took a hike down a side tunnel in a tunnel, where an abandoned hydropower project had left a little road along a spectacular valley full of cliffs and waterfalls, culminating in the "Water Curtain Cave", a tunnel which struck an underground stream and now has water gushing down from the roof and flowing through the tunnel. You walk in barefoot with a poncho and flashlight, it was really neat.

Stalactites are already forming in the roof of the tunnel. Cool!

The water curtain is really beautiful!

Yumm, nature.

Rice and some filling in seaweed - these are our new little favorite snacks.

We made a couple more stops on the way down, but had a hard time enjoying the most famous one, Swallow Gorge, as it received a constant flow of stinky, noisy tour buses full of rude, noisy Chinese tourists.

They're wearing helmets in case they... fall off the fenced plankway?

There are four in this shot - we probably had closer to forty altogether. 

Our next stop was Taitung, an even more relaxed town. We just stayed there for a night and a morning, before heading out to the distant, windswept Green Island, but we had time for a hilarious stroll through downtown taking pictures of the terrible English on T-shirts!

Such a half-assed approach to the English language!

We just couldn't stop laughing.

This is from the wall of our hostel... same style. Pure gold! 

The boat ride to Green Island is famously bumpy. Though it is less than an hour long, and the first stomach-tingling wave brought cheers and laughs from the passengers, it didn't take long before the puking cacophony started. Neither Alex  nor I had ever experienced waves like that, and we only just managed to save ourselves by intensely staring out the windows. Green Island is famous for its beautiful ocean scenery, fantastic diving, and one of only three salt water hot springs in the world. Arriving there I immediately thought of the Faroe Islands. It is a small island; the road around it is just 17 kilometers long, and we rented electric bicycles (woo!) and whizzed around the island to the various sights, of which nature's were the most impressive. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The weather kind of kept us away from diving, but at dusk we went to the hot springs for a delightful soak.

The uphills were a breeze... even with the wind against us!

Thank you, bagasjebreetbatteri (baggage board battery).

Green Island used to have huge prisons, that today are amazing eerie ghost towns.

Minus the palm trees, it could have been the Faroes!

This beach... Don't you just love it when you chance upon spots like this?

Let’s check out this huge cave and its crazy conglomerates (?).

Yeah, I could stay here all day.

"The Little Great Wall of China" - since we skipped the mainland version.

The view from the top!

That evening we ate at a restaurant full of loud Taiwanese tourists. We turned in the door the first time, but our search for another place proved futile, and we returned, to much laughter and cheer, and an invitation to share in their meal. It turned out they were a gang from KYMCO, Taiwan's largest motorcycle company, and they invited us to ride with them from Taitung to Hualien the next day! We of course couldn't pass up an offer like this, even though it was the opposite of the direction we were headed, so sure enough, the next morning we got on the boat back to Taitung with 200 KYMCO-people, and every single one of them thought it was just grand that they had two Norwegians with them. (Even more so than in other places, when Taiwanese ask us where we're from and we say "Norway", they'll go "Woooww!!") They treated us to a terrific, trillion-course seafood lunch in the little fishing village outside Taitung where the boat docked, before we were given helmets and each our motorbiker to cling on to.

A fortunate turn of events on Green Island!

The first four in a never-ending line of courses in Taitung.

Our view more often than not. Thanks for posing, guys!

Nervous? Not the least!

Before we knew it we were whizzing along down the coast at terrifying speeds. Neither of us had tried anything like it before, and we could hardly see the beautiful scenery for the battering wind in our eyes. I recorded my driver topping out at a ridiculous 136 kph (85 mph)! It was great fun, though, especially in the more winding, mountainous parts, where we were forced to slow down and could actually enjoy both the driving and the scenery. We stopped at the Tropic of Cancer marker, and at a very photogenic stretch of volcanic, wave-battered coastline, and arrived in Hualien before we could blink. KYMCO got us a room at the same top-end hotel they were staying in - we couldn't thank them enough (mostly because they constantly wanted to take pictures with us, but still), and happily accepted!

Mid-flight! You can tell by the eyes!

Scenic spot is scenic.

And photography is fun!

Alex and I with our respective drivers at the Tropic of Cancer.

The next day we left for Kenting, a summery holiday destination on the southern tip of Taiwan. The train down went through the inland East Rift Valley, a pretty, rural valley running parallel to the route we biked, so we really didn't double up on any part of the trip. We had a fantastic time on the far side of Taiwan, excited for a refreshing dose of nature and sea, and the many new additions to our already extensive list of modes of transportation!

Taiwan 101

So where are Thomas and Alex now? A week of silence, last seen in Hong Kong... any suggestions? The plan was mainland China, but with an appalling impression given off by Chinese tourists, terrible pollution, Visa-hassle and more, our ears tingled when more than one fellow traveler enthusiastically ranked Taiwan as their favorite destination so far. So off we go, to a new, totally unfamiliar destination! All I have to go by is my growing-up intuition, which says that it's all just a big factory, and the lofty promises of our travelmates, who say it's the best place they've visited, with the friendliest people, yummyest food and awesomest scenery. We just had to find out for ourselves! 

Well, our record-long period of blogging silence might speak for itself. We've been here for a week now, and have barely had a free moment in between all the fun that's been had. Taiwan has thrilled us, from the very beginning. We found the TripAdvised JV's Hostel in Taipei, the capital, where we received maybe our warmest hotel welcome yet. A super-smily girl gave us piles of practical tips and showered us with suggestions on things to see and do, and we filled the next three days with a small selection of Taipei's highlights.

I'm gonna build stuff like that too when I grow up!

First off was Taipei 101. This architectural and engineering world wonder was the tallest building in the world for seven years - until Burj Dubai came along - and was totally eye-stopping right off the bat. Compared to Hong Kong's skyscraper jungles, Taipei is relatively low-rise, so Taipei 101 soars sky-high over its surroundings, and we can't wait to get up it. However, having not eaten since before our 06.30 Hong Kong pick-up, we first head the other direction: past the ridiculously high-end shopping mall, to the food court downstairs. The JV's girl told us about a Michelin-starred dumpling restaurant there, with affordable prices - a chance we just couldn't miss. It was great. Pro tip: Poke a hole in the dumpling with your chopstick to let out some steam, and dip it in the 1:3-ratio soy sauce and vinegar mixture.

Gucci, Prada, LV, Rolex, Dior, Versace, Burberry, D&G...

Then we went up. The world's fastest elevator - with pressure-controlled cabin (like in an airplane) - took us up the 87 floors in under 40 seconds. At the top we had spectacular but smoggy views over Taipei, and a good dose of engineer-porn in the exhibitions. The enormous wind damper was amazing, absorbing over 40 % of the tower's movement during typhoons or earthquakes.

Unhindered views in all directions - on a smog-free day.

660 tonnes, 5.5 m diameter.

Other stops our first day included the memorial hall of independence warrior Chiang Kai-Shek, an ocean of pandas we had to traverse to get to it, the high-intensity shopping district of Ximending and a poop-themed restaurant therein, and a huge 24 hour book store - enjoyable not only for its enormous amount of Chinese books and still respectable amount of English ones, but also for its conveniently located coffee shop, the freedom to open and sit down with any book for as long as you want, and the amount of people still there when we left at way past midnight.

Many laughs were had!

Dritgodt, like we'd say in Norway.

We've learned to take the heroicness of national heroes with a pinch of salt.

It makes perfect sense that the 2014 World Panda Tour stops by Taipei.

Taipei's transport system is awesome. The subway connects not only every part of Taipei, but also its suburbs and some countryside villages, so on Tuesday we decided to take the tube all the way to the historical seaside town of Tamsui. But even better than the metro system are the city bicycle stands at every station, and the nice and wide bike paths along every road. We didn't need more than five minutes on these before we were certain that we'd found the way to see Taipei.

Oh, the joy: Bike trails are ubiquitous in Taiwan.

Tamsui had a tempting market, nice parks and bike trails where the river met the sea, a whole bunch of tourists, and a slightly historical colonial quarter. The sights weren't of the same level as most we've seen, but in return they had small museums and interesting displays. It was a good way to learn a bit of the history in a more indirect way. The fort, for example, had nine flags in front of it, one for each of its rulers: Dutch, Spanish, two old Chinese dynasties, British, Japanese, Australian, American, modern day Chinese, and finally Taiwanese. There's a lot of history for you!

Various versions of Fort San Domingo have protected various holders
from various enemies for 400 years.

I just love matchingly dressed, singing Chinese tour groups.

Decorated Victorian British, the fort is a popular wedding photo op.

On the way back to town we jumped off the metro on a random station, rented bikes, and had a bit of a frolic around temples, parks and riverside exercise facilities, before joining the traffic on our bikes along the metro line (we might as well bike one more stop... or two more stops...).

Should we see what's up there? Yeah, why not.

We got what we came for: Temple, freaky Chinese statues, and city views.

We really got to see a lot of the city, and it's so much fun. Taipei is a very comfy, well-organized and enjoyable metropolis, and there's interesting shops, foods and sights around every corner. One of its main draws are the night markets, of which there are dozens all over town. Between 6 pm and midnight every day, these seemingly empty streets all of a sudden become a-bustling with locals shopping, snacking from the over 100 stalls of crazy foods, and just enjoying a fun night out. Though they're called "tourist markets", they seem plenty authentic, and we are usually the only tourists there. Some of the tasty dishes we get are black rice (made with pig's blood), eel noodles, jumbo dumplings and clam skewers, but the list goes on.

Rather off-putting gooeyness before cooking, but delicious after!

The few English translations weren't always too helpful.

We're now a few days out of Taipei, enjoying Taiwan's scenic east coast with a huge gang of motorbikers, but this'll have to do on the blogging front for now. I'm already looking forward to getting back to Taipei towards the end of our stay here; there's still so much more to do in that great city.