Taroko and Mission Aborted - Again

The title is a spoiler... Mission aborted. Just like a bit more than a year ago, when we were about to leave to Taiwan from Vietnam, we also decided to cancel our further cycling plans. It must be something about Taiwan... But before explaining the change of plans in detail - an interesting story - let's go to the Taroko Gorge, our last proper day in Taiwan.

The Taroko Gorge is probably the most famous tourist attraction in Taiwan, and rightly so; it's a very impressive place! The temple on the picture above is one of the most photographed places in the gorge, the Temple of the Eternal Spring. With the Taroko Gorge being such a famous attraction, it's usually quite busy. Not so during this corona crisis, there were hardly any tourists around while we were there.

The gorge itself is very spectacular in places, also the road that runs besides it - which you can see on the left side; the dark hollows are also open gaps in the rocks where the road paces through.

Incredible how the water has eroded the white marble; the beautiful colour of the water adds to the beauty of the place.

In our initial plan, we would cycle through the gorge and further into the mountains. Due to the limited time we had left before leaving to Japan in our new plan, we rented a motorbike for the visit. That was a great decision, and it also allowed us more easily to visit side roads and sites.

So many fascinating picturesque views

The Tunnel of Nine Turns, curving through the mountains closely following the river canyon, is part of the old road through the gorge.

This Water Curtain Cave, another amazing place. The water is streaming through the cave walls and forms a small river below. Wow, what a sight!

The Shakadang walking trail, nicely carved out of the rocks - it was welcome too, it gave us some shelter, as it just started to rain while we walked through

Impressive!

The colours of the rock, the water and the trees, a perfect acquarel!

The day had been grey but mostly dry, giving some dramatic mountain scenery

On the way back to Hualien we had a little bit of rain, and stopped at a long, wide beach. A blue sky and sun would probably have been more beautiful, but this view is quite spectacular

This ends our day trip to Taroko, what a beautiful day it was. Perfect to have done this on a motorbike, and also nice there were so few tourists... The reason for the low tourist numbers is of course less pleasant, it's the covid-19 pandemic that is all over. Even though Taiwan itself is hardly affected, the effects of it are everywhere. As we are about to find out...

We took the train from Hualien back to Taipei, as that was the only way to get back in time to catch our flight to Japan. Side note: the only train we could take with our bicycles assembled and unpacked, was a local train that took more than 4 hours. For a country that is doing so much to be a cycling destination, it's surprising how un-bike-friendly the train system is. 

While on this train we thought it would be a good idea, just as a precaution, to find out whether our visa for Japan were strictly limited to 3 months - as you never knew the pandemic could accidentally extend our stay there. By doing this we actually found out that... the 3 month visa exemption rule for Belgians (and many others) had been cancelled. Wait: cancelled!? This meant... we could not enter Japan! We called the consulate to double-check and sure enough: yes, a few days ago this had been decided. So suddenly, we had a problem; Japan was no longer an option! And we were so much looking forward to it.

So then, what to do. We basically had 2 options left: stay in Taiwan until further notice, or fly to Europe. Staying in Taiwan was possible, however there was so much uncertainty around how this would evolve further, that we could be stuck for quite a while. We had already seen the days before that more and more flights were cancelled, and checked which flights were still leaving Taipei airport in the coming hours and days. It was very limited, but we did find a China Airlines flight to Amsterdam that same night. We called China Airlines, they cancelled our Japan flight (with full refund, thank you!) and booked us on the Amsterdam flight; all of this still on the train to Taipei. We arrived in Songshan station in Taipei after 4pm, and as we were flying that night, immediately took a taxi from there to the airport. Wow, the miracle job the taxi driver did to get our (still assembled) bikes in his car, amazing. We arrived in Taoyuan airport, disassembled the bikes (took a while...) and had dinner. After that, we could check in for our flight!

Taoyuan airport late afternoon. Hardly a living soul to be seen. Our flight, probably one of the last flights from Taiwan to Europe for the time being, was not full at all - maybe a third. So we each had an entire row of seats to ourselves and had a decent sleep on our way "home". Who would have thought...

In Amsterdam we booked train tickets to Antwerp; there were fewer trains than normal, it was a 4 hour wait before we could leave. Other than that, it all went very smoothly. In Antwerp station we were briefly questioned by a (friendly) police officer, checking if we were allowed to move about during the lockdown: where did we come from, where were we going? But it was all fine, and soon we could continue on the next train to Leuven.

More comfortable travelling on the Belgian than on the Taiwanese train.

After more than 36 hours of being on the road, we arrived in Leuven. We assembled the bicycles outside the station, and rode the final 2km of this trip to our temporary home in the centre of Leuven. As you see, I'm wearing my down jacket - it was quite cold (it still is...)!

Under the covid-19 measures in Belgium, we are obliged to go in self quarantine for 14 days. Even though the risk of having been infected is very low in our case, we oblige... So this is our little world for the next 14 days.

Well, the place has a nice garden, and in it I can run a 60m loop. To make sure I keep moving, I did this immediately, day 1: 200 loops. Let's see how far I will go in the days ahead...

So, in conclusion, we are unexpectedly back in Belgium now, after a nice but abruptly interrupted bike tour with less than 1200km on the counter. We'll probably be here for quite a while until things settle down. With everything that's going on, and the increasing uncertainty, that's probably the best decision we could have made... To be continued!