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| Let's just jump straight into it. Our verdict on cycling on the West Coast of Taiwan is out: unanimous, irrevocable, resolute and unambiguous: it's a fail! We did not like it at all. Before setting out we considered to bypass the whole west coast and we probably should have done that. There were a few positives, sure: some stretches were pleasant cycling, Tainan was a highlight, ... But all in all, most of the time we did not like it that much. It's a too enormous urban area, you can hardly get away from the concrete jungle, cycling is mostly on big, busy, noisy, smelly roads (luckily often with cycling lanes) and then there are these zillions of traffic lights that are a cyclists' nightmare. |
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| Sometimes good efforts have been made to create safe and comfortable cycling lanes for sure; this one, as often the case, is shared with motorbikes. We cycled here during rush hour which meant we often had hordes of fast motorbikes zooming past us (of which I could not take a picture for obvious reasons). What you also don't see: yes, it's a proper and even nice cycling lane, nevertheless this one is going through a busy heavy industry zone with monstrous plants (mostly metal industry). |
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| This is the point where we decided on our final and strong verdict... No more west coast. After the heavy metal industry came the petrochemical industry. Oh my. Decent road, nice sunset, but nope, this is not why we cycle....... The past days we have just been pedalling to get this over and done with. |
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| Although, admittedly, just after leaving Tainan, once we left the busy city, we found a few kms of really nice coastline to cycle through on a beautiful, dedicated cycling lane along the beach. |
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| After 93km we settled for the night in Donggang, south of Kaohsiung. We cycled through Kaohsiung, and even though it seemed like a nice, well organised modern city, we decided to just keep going and leave all this urban stuff behind us as soon as possible. In Donggang, a small fishing town, we stayed in a friendly guest house (Zhuji Hostel) and had a nice seafood dinner, with a Taiwan Beer, to flush all the frustration away. |
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| We finally arrived on the long awaited coastal road towards Kenting National Park... Ouch... |
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| All in all, OK cycling, nothing to really write home about. The road is still wide (4 lanes) and busy, but the scenery has become much better now with the ocean on the right and forest clad hills on the left. |
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| And it's only getting better. We've left the main road behind us, and are in a small sleepy town called Wanlitong, where we have found a fantastic camp site. This is truly the first wonderful place we have arrived at, quiet, peaceful and beautiful without any bells or whistles, immersed in nature. Let's hope that this is more like what we will be finding on our second half of this tour, along the east coast! |
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| The view from our campsite! |
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| It's so good here, we have decided to stay for a day, enjoy the place and be lazy! |
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| To finish this post; the west coast has been a sausage with not much taste (at least, for cycling), which we are happily leaving behind us and we look forward to cycling the east coast now! |