Friday 25 October 2024

This day was in three parts: The Ugly, The Bad and the Good. I know it should be the other way around, but this is how the day was.

Part One it was raining when we got up and continued upon leaving. Not just mizzle a steady rain.  We cycled approximately 5kms in the wrong direction (my fault). I was convinced I knew which way was south. I was wrong and it was also Garmin’s fault. The Garmin doesn’t have Taiwan base mapping, it was only showing a blank screen and a line indicating the route. It also couldn’t work out which way was south. We eventually got on the right path. Ralf had wanted to follow the route/map I had created using Ride with GPS and had downloaded on to his Garmin. but I knew we needed to get to the Sanxia Old Street, as this was the Official Start of the Ride Around Taiwan. When we got into the area of Sanxia we followed the road signs to Old Street.

It took us about 1.5 hours to go 10 kms! The roads were busy, and the rain didn’t help. Also, our bikes didn’t appear to be very happy with us. Ralf’s bit him and mine tried to throw me off. We hadn’t quite got used to having all the weight on the back of the bikes. When we stopped suddenly the bikes would twist, hence Ralf’s pedal hitting the back of his leg and me trying to control a back heavy bike and I almost fell over with the weight of it. I have a good bruise forming on my calf.

Part Two was when we eventually arrived at Sanxia Old Street. This is one of the oldest streets in Taiwan and has many connections to the Japanese. Nowadays, only the red brick buildings with arched hallways and Baroque styled architecture remain to tell of their past glory. The characters carved upon the ancient buildings in the street show the first and last names of the occupants, or their occupations, or the names of the store.

It was a beautiful street, and the sun came out.

Part Two of the ride was looking up, until we hit the hills of Daxi and Guanxi, and we were going up and up and up. 

It had taken us so long to get out of Taoyuan, the rain had stopped, and the heat and humidity began to climb, at the same time as we were climbing.  We climbed two hills at the top of the first hill there was a small temple. We stopped as there was a washroom sign and discovered a lovely little temple a massive marble rock and stunning views.

The last hill going up to Guanxi, according to the Garmin was 3.5% climb over 7 kms, easy peasy. Until we got to the bottom of the climb and the road sign indicated that it was a 7% climb. The heat and humidity were getting to me, and I couldn’t get my heart rate down. I had to stop several times, eventually we made it to the top. We were hoping for a 7/11 convenience store, they are supposed to have everything you need. Unfortunately, it was a Hi-Life Mart, the only thing they had that was any good for a cyclist were bananas. I took the last four and bought a 2-litre bottle of cold water. We refilled our water bottles. At this point we definitely hadn’t hydrated well, and we needed to rectify that and quickly. There was still water left in the bottle, so I poured it on my little towel, which I bought for just this occasion and wrapped it around my neck. That cooled me down and we were ready to start again.

At this point we had been working on three different mapping programs. Ride with GPS, Maps.me and Google. A German fella who stopped as we were taking a break on the Guanxi hill told us that google had taken him 15 kms in the wrong direction when he was leaving Taipei. He wasn’t having a good first day of cycling in Taiwan.

We had told our warmshowers host (Garlon) that we would be at his place at about 4:00 p.m. It was already 3:30 when we texted him to let him know we would be another couple of hours.  We had 30 kilometres to go form Guanxi.

The information I had read about the route was that it was downhill all the way from Guanxi. We made our right turn and headed downhill, yeah. Ralf had changed the mapping to google maps and was using his phone and the data.

A beautiful quiet ride from Guanxi. The google route took us through back roads that followed the rice paddy fields and avoided Hwy 1, almost completely.

We had to come away from the rural route and onto Highway one through Zhubei. It was rush hour and bedlam, motor scooters everywhere and cars trying to get through. We saw our first fender bender.

At this point it was getting dark. I never thought we would be arriving at a warmshowers house in the dark. We arrived at 5:30 p.m. Garlon wasn’t home from work and his girlfriend (Jean) was at a music lesson. We had to wait for him to come home and he was stuck in traffic. Fortunately, one of his neighbours allowed us into the garage area of his building, we were out of the way of mosquitos.

Part Three: Our warmshowers hosts. What a joy. Garlon arrived home, we showered and relaxed a little while. When Jean came home they took us out for dinner.  Garlon had asked if we had any traditional Taiwanese food since arriving in Taiwan and we sheepishly admitted that we hadn’t. He took us to a good, traditional Taiwanese restaurant. We told them that I was allergic to shellfish, but apart from that we ate anything so long as it wasn’t moving.

Jean explained that traditionally they would order rice, vegetables and two or three other dishes and everyone would share. She asked if we did this in Canada. We said no unless it was at a Thai or Indian restaurant. The dishes kept coming: noodles with beef, noodles with veges, noodles with mushrooms, it seemed to never end, and we all dug in with our chop sticks. We asked for a lesson on how to use the chopsticks and they tried to show us, but I stuck with the way my Dad showed me, as Jean put it the traditional way. Ralf managed quite well but for a couple of the dishes he needed a fork. We chatted throughout the meal. It was a wonderful evening. They also ordered a couple of bubble teas (famous Taiwan tea with milk and tapioca) and a Guava slushie. Garlon told us that this restaurant claimed that it had invented Bubble Tea. He seemed very skeptical about this claim.  The food was really, really good and we could have stayed longer but the restaurant was closing.

When we got back to their flat, we carried on talking about our trips, Garlon’s ride along the silk road and Jean walking the Compostela in Spain, last year. They had recently returned from New Zealand, and we all agreed how special New Zealand was. Eventually we went to bed at about 11:30. A very late night.

As we often say about our warmshowers guests you meet as strangers and leave as friends. I know we have made new friends.