Exactly one month. That is how long we've been back in Belgium now. And I haven't written ever since; not even my usual trip summary. I thought that wasn't needed for Taiwan, yet maybe it is - briefly. Plus, what have we been up to since our return, and some thoughts about this coronised world.
So, Taiwan, a summary. Where to start...
Taipei and the West Coast
Our first days in Taipei were pretty pleasant. The city had some nice corners, it was not too busy, easy to get around and with mostly good pedestrian sidewalks, friendly traffic, ... Also, "thanks to" corona, things were quiet - which made it nice as a tourist. Taiwan, since before our arrival, had very little covid19 cases, yet people were concerned and careful. Tourism had also been decimated. It contributed to less traffic, lower prices in hotels, and very little people in touristy places. Thanks to this cautious approach, Taiwan had very few problems with the pandemic, until today. So we had a couple of nice days in Taipei, the highlight being Beitou with its hot springs and nice walks in the area.
 |
| On our first ride, from the airport to Taipei. In a way, the first kms were a good representation of what was to come: separate cycling lanes, some green but mostly urban and/or industrial environment. And blue skies too! |
 |
| Ximending in Taipei, pleasant traffic free shopping area |
 |
| This is early March, the worst part of the covid19 pandemic yet to come, on the Taipei MRT with nearly everyone using a face mask. We weren't wearing these and for that, sometimes people looked a bit uneasy at us. |
 |
| Beitou, with its hot springs, an area of raw beauty. |
The day we left Taipei and started riding the west coast, we noticed that it was a lot of urban riding, but we still found a couple of really nice stretches to cycle. The first days on the west coast this continued, with some nice stretches but mostly very urban riding. This meant: cycling lanes along busy roads, with lots of cars and other obstacles along the road, and millions of traffic lights which seemed to jump to red the moment they see tour cyclists. The best riding parts were mostly those stretches where we did NOT follow the national cycling route No 1, the route that circles the entire island. We found some really nice places, more inland, some really beautiful riding but it came at a price:
lots of hills, sometimes long and steep, and major detours.
 |
| I made more pictures of nice places than the boring and ugly busy roads of course... There was some nice cycling along the west coast as well, although these were mostly some smaller pockets. When we did some efforts, we did sometimes find nice bike routes or low traffic small roads - usually away from the main No 1 cycling route. |
 |
| Beautiful and challenging cycling around the Mingde reservoir. |
 |
| And according campsite at the lake; this is one of those places with a lot of the nasty midges - see later in this post. |
 |
| Tai'an, another beautiful place in the middle of nature, with hot springs - but it needed a detour of 14 very hilly kms back and forth to get to this place... |
 |
| One of those truly wonderful views |
 |
| There are lots of tunnels when cycling through Taiwan, being such a mountainous country. This is an old tunnel on the road to Sun Moon Lake - which, by the way, we were not impressed with... |
Then there were also long stretches where there were little realistic alternatives, and so we just rode on along those busy roads. Basically, as I wrote in my
verdict on the west coast: this was definitely not our favourite cycling experience; yes, there were a few nice parts, but overall it's a no. If we were to go back to Taiwan for cycling at some point, I would just skip this entire stretch, from Taipei to Kaohsiung. There is one thing however: the cities as such are often nice and very liveable cities, so some of these are definitely worth a visit - definitely
Tainan!
 |
| At this point we made our final verdict about the west coast: not nice for cycling! |
 |
| Cycling along the roads on the west coast; even the smaller "rural" roads are big and urban, usually with much more traffic than on this picture. |
 |
| I guess at least half of the distance we cycled on the west coast was more like this... |
 |
| And then for one of the highlights: Tainan! A strong recommendation by all means! |
The South and the East
Once well past Kaohsiung, things gradually got better, and once we were closer to Kenting national park we started to like it a lot! What a relief, after more than a week of mostly disappointing riding. The far south was suddenly marvellous nature, beautiful cycling, peaceful and much (much) quieter than the chaotic west coast. We found some fantastic scenic spots, made very nice (short) walks, had some great camping spots and completely enjoyed our cycling trip again.
 |
| Our campsite once we were at the Kenting national park. It was so nice, such a consolation that finally we were in nature with beautiful camping, that we stayed for an extra night and fully enjoyed the moment. At this point it started to become clear that the future of our trip was very unsure, with covid19 on the march everywhere and Malaysia closing its borders to foreigners - even residents like us. So we realised we would have to monitor the situation closely, yet there was no reason to rush things as Taiwan was (and is) still one of the least affected countries on earth. |
 |
| A must-visit in the very south |
 |
| Riding through this kind of scenery: that's what we do it all for! |
 |
| Some of the best parts of the entire trip, in the far south of Taiwan. |
 |
| Once back on the main east coast road the scenery remained spectacular, but the road was a big busy road again and we rode mostly on a narrow hard shoulder. |
From Taitung we decided to ride north first through the east rift valley, then cut through the mountains back to the coast - see
this post. That would prove to be a great decision! The rift valley was definitely stunningly beautiful, and with a lot of very nice riding along quiet roads and dedicated bikeways. The connection from Ruisui along road 64 was fantastic, hilly but feasible, one of the highlights of our entire trip! Also the next part of the ride, along the coast again, was wonderful. So the (sparsely populated) east coast was a completely different story from the west coast: marvellous nature, much less people, low traffic and many traffic-free small roads and bikeways, superb camping spots, ... Here's a big thumbs up for cycling in Taiwan; the east coast is well known as a cycling destination, and it's totally worth it. Yet, also here, a big remark: most of the really nice riding was NOT along the national cycling routes, it was often along local/regional bikeways and on small local roads.
 |
| The east rift valley is indeed lovely, with a lot of dedicated cycling lanes, surrounded by high peaks left and right, and riding through rice paddies. The good summer weather with deep blue sky also helped to enjoy this part to the fullest! |
 |
| More fantastic cycling lanes through wonderful landscapes. |
 |
| Even grey cloudy weather can be very beautiful! |
 |
| One of the highlights of the entire trip, the impressive gorge along road 64 back towards the east coast. |
 |
| One of the few times we camped in Taiwan with a roof above our head, although it is very common. The timing was good: it rained all night. This is in Shitiping, a (normally) touristy area famous for its rocky wild coastline. |
In Hualien, our
plans changed drastically. First, we booked tickets to fly to Japan, then we were forced by covid19 to change this into... flying to Belgium. We did have the time for a day visit to Taroko, which was incredible! Really fantastic! Also here, we were lucky to have the gorge mostly to ourselves, with very few tourists around. Yes,
Taroko can be added to the list of highlights, it is truly impressive. After Taroko, it was time to leave: train to Taipei, taxi to the airport and plane to Amsterdam... What a surprising turn!
 |
| The coastal road went up and down and often provided spectacular views of the rough coast below. |
 |
| An old tunnel in the Taroko gorge, now no longer used for traffic but only as a pedestrian walk. |
 |
| Another walk in Taroko; usually Taroko is very busy with tourists in this season, however we were almost alone - because of covid19 and further helped by the rainy day. |
People
We heard so often that people in Taiwan are extremely friendly. While we definitely can't say the opposite, we were not that impressed by exceptional friendliness - just nicely friendly, yes definitely. What we noticed however, is that in several cases it took a little time for people to warm up, and afterwards they were indeed very friendly. We did get lots of small gifts though, which is a very Taiwanese habit: a beer while camping, a piece of grilled meat from the neighbour's BBQ, some fruit, a piece of cake, and so on. I guess this would also be language related: the level of English is often limited, and people are shy to use it. Unfortunately, our level of Chinese is not existing, so casual communication is hard...
 |
| A lovely lady selling strawberries. Initially we paid a bit too much, but she made it up by giving us a lot of extra's. In the end she was shy to pose for the picture, but very happy! |
 |
| At one of the many friendly homestays. We ended up staying in homestays and guest houses more than anticipated, for 3 reasons. Firstly, they were much less expensive than expected, probably again due to covid19; usually we paid around 30-35 EUR per night; less in cities than in the countryside strangely enough. Secondly, we preferred to stay indoors when it rained, which it did quite a few times. And lastly, along the west coast there was very little opportunity to camp in nice places. |
We also noticed at some points that people were concerned about covid19. Hey, we were those Europeans where covid19 was breaking through heavily, so we could be "dangerous". While people were cautious, sometimes a bit wary, it always worked out one way or the other. It helped of course that we had not been in Europe for months already, and in Taiwan for 2 weeks by the time they started to close their borders for foreign visitors.
Taiwan Practical
A few practical points about cycling in Taiwan; just major things.
Food is everywhere, it's good, safe and affordable. We were always able to communicate one way or the other to order our food, either by pointing (at pictures, or other people's dishes), by using Google Translate, or just by ordering whatever they recommended. Buying provisions was also no problem at all; in all major cities there are big supermarkets (even Carrefour is everywhere...), but besides that you'll find convenience stores (7-11, Family Mart and others) in every settlement that has more than 2 dwellings and a bus stop.
 |
| First meal after leaving from the airport - at a 7 Eleven. Many such meals would follow, especially while on the road during the day... |
 |
| We enjoyed a lot of local food however, like on this night market in Taitung. |
Finding your way around is easy, road signs are in Chinese and English. Google Maps, maps.me and so on are close to perfectly accurate and have most information you'd need (like hotels, shops, camp sites, bike lanes, ...). Being online is simple: many places have wifi, but we bought a sim card upon arrival which cost 30 EUR and gave us 1 month unlimited data.
 |
| Taiwan is a rainy country, although March is not too wet. We didn't have that much rain during our riding days, although we made sure we took some of our rest days when rain was forecast. But sometimes, you just can't avoid it and have to brave the wet weather... |
 |
| Bike rest stops, in many places along the way, especially on the national cycling routes. In these places you can use the restrooms, sometimes take a shower, often get tools to work on the bikes if needed, and last but not least refill your water bottles. Surprisingly, tap water in Taiwan is not suitable for drinking - due to the seismic activity it can't be guaranteed. So you'd always need to filter or boil water before drinking. These rest stops provide filtered (hot and cold) water. |
One big warning: Taiwan has something called biting midges. These are tiny, almost invisible insects (nicknamed "no see um") which attack without you noticing anything. Next thing you know, their bites itch like crazy for the next couple of days - or even a few weeks in some cases. Insect repellent helps but is no miracle cure; the only good prevention is to cover your body completely, not always nice when it is beautiful weather! There are some areas where it seems like a real pest, and there it just drives you crazy. Maybe people get immune to the bites after a while, not sure, but for the unknowing tourist it's a major annoyance.
 |
| After a midges binge... |
Generally, travel in Taiwan was absolutely easy and straightforward.
Would we go again? Well, it was a nice trip, and we liked Taiwan sure enough, but to be honest it is not at the top of the list of places to visit again. Of course, we also visited most of the country already on this trip, so there is little new to discover. Although: there seems to be a lot of very adventurous hiking in the majestic mountains in the interior of the country, which we were not able to visit on this cycling trip. That could still be an attractive idea...
 |
| Local train from Hualien to Taipei. To be such a cycling oriented country, taking bicycles on trains is a headache. From Hualien there are many trains to Taipei, taking just a bit over 2 hours, but with bicycles you can only take a local train that takes well over 4 hours. And you have to get off in Songshan station, not in Taipei station itself. |
Hahaha, this summary became much longer than I expected, so no more coronisation here. That'll be for a next post - maybe.
