Wednesday 30 October, 2024

What an interesting day this turned out to be. After breakfast and while we were packing our stuff up ready to leave on our bikes to go to Beidou, I had a little panic attack. I have no idea why. I can’t quite get back into the bike touring mode, it has been a while. I was worrying about the route, the hills, the accommodation and now of course a ruddy Typhoon.

Ralf had requested an extra nights stay at our guest house in Beidou, they responded positively, but Bookings.com said no availability.

We set off and as soon as we were weaving our way through traffic to the Rainbow Village, I calmed down and was in cycling mode, all’s well with the world.

Rainbow Village was originally military housing, small houses for military dependents. They were going to be torn down. However about 15 years ago, Huang Yung Fu (known as Grandpa Rainbow) painted his house and surrounding houses with colourful paintings, that reflected his optimistic attitude. This became a very popular place to visit, and the Borough of Chunan in Taichung decided not to tear down the Village.  Unfortunately, in 2022 some of his artwork was deliberately vandalized and destroyed. The Taichung Cultural Affairs Bureau covered the fragile murals with wooden walls and invited citizens to paint on the wooden walls to continue the spirit of Grandpa Rainbow. It is now a collaborative art space. Grandpa Rainbow passed away in January 2024 at the grand old age of 100.

We spent about an hour taking photos and then Ralf plugged into google maps the address of where we are staying in Beidou, or at least somewhere close to where we are staying. The options were Best Route, less hills, or busy traffic.  I was going for the less hills, Ralf said best route. Google hasn’t done us wrong yet. So Best Route it was.

We headed out of Taichung on a quieter road and cycled through some small rice fields. The route was really nice. The weather was hot, but not too humid, a good day to cycle. At about 20 kms Ralf said we should stop for some lunch. O.k. next 7/11 we pulled in shared a chocolate milk, had a couple of bananas and a sandwich. Then we headed of again. The central mountains were to our left and we climbed a nice easy grade. This was the life. Then google went mad, it took us through a few little hills and a small village, we took the left-hand farm lane, which deteriorated into a rough path, which got even worse as it became leaf strewn. To top it all it was an 8 – 13% grade.  We couldn’t cycle on this stuff. We were both off and pushing uphill for about 2 kilometres. From the bottom to the top, it took us almost an hour. We got back on our bikes at one point, but it was a false summit, and we were off and pushing again.

At the false summit, we could hear people talking. Who farms at the top of a beejesus hill. Apparently you can grown pineapples in a small area.

At the very top there was a small café which was closed, this obviously was a popular hiking area.  We headed down the hill, I was so pleased we had disc brakes.

At the bottom we caught our breath and carried on a very flat road towards Beidou.  Google had had its joke and decided to take us through small villages again and away from the main Highway 1 traffic route.

We came through the area of Tianwei. This area is known as the flower or garden area of Taiwan. There is an area where you can visit the flower farms and when they are in full bloom, they are stunning. They were a little past their prime, but garden centres line the roads. As we passed one garden centre a gentleman said Welcome to Tianwei. Thank you it is good to be here. I had to stop and take photos of one garden centre, that seemed to have something for everyone.

Ralf was getting a little concerned about the power status of his phone. It was down to 10% and he had no idea how far we were from the guest house. The other small issue was we didn’t have the correct address of the guest house where we were staying for two nights.

We stopped, and I said to Ralf “in Vietnam we always got help from a hair salon”. He left me with the bikes and with google translate on his diminishing phone he headed down the street.  A couple at a small roadside eatery said they might know where it was, and the husband headed of on his scooter to check. In the meantime, the wife offered us water. It was so nice of them. Hubby returned and said in English follow me. Two minutes later we were at our little guest house. It is a small apartment with a kitchenette, two bedrooms, bathroom and living room. Perfect place to keep us safe from Typhoon Kong-rey that is barrelling down on us. The forecast is for it to hit Taiwan on Thursday and bring devastating winds and rainfall.

After we had showered, we headed out to get some supplies so that we can stay in the apartment for two days. Sometime during the day at Sun Moon Lake, Ralf had lost his glasses. He tried to find an optician but the closest according to crazy google was 15 kms away. As we walked down this little street, I spotted some eyeglasses in a shop. It was an optician, 150 metres from our location. We popped in and we were able to buy two new pairs of reading glasses for $13. The screw in my glasses is coming loose and he couldn’t fix it. The optician gave us two plastic cases (pink and blue) and cleaning cloths. Google also could not find us a local supermarket, within 5 kms of our location. On the opposite side of the street from the optician was a PX Supermarket that has everything we need for a couple of days.

Google let us down today.

Although the Typhoon isn’t due to arrive until tomorrow, we bought food for tonight. We could have eaten at a local eatery as they were all open.