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.