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Day 3 - 31 July 2017 - Riding around Taiwan - Kenting to Tainan


The typhoon was over in the morning.
I was planning to ride all the way to southern part of Taiwan and then to Hualien today. It was the longest stretch of road in the 6 days of riding that is 330km and it will take about 7 hours. 


Packed my stuff and left the hotel at 7am. 

The road was totally messed up by the typhoon.



It was suppose to be a very scenic ride at the coastal road but the weather was ultra gloomy.










The road condition turned worse once I hit the mountainous area. Lots of big rocks, tree branches, loose gravels all over the place. There were long stretches of road that were covered by slippery mud due to water continuing flowing down from the mountain, leaving mud in the trail. I have to slowly (bout 5km/hr) ride through them and almost skidded many times. Finally, I did skid and fell, at a very slow speed. my foot was scratched, so was one side of the scooter. Then my raincoat was covered with mud, :( What luck !

The worst have yet to come. When I reached this point marked in red......


There was a long queue of vehicles at the junction.

The lady in luminous green raincoat told me that the road has been sealed off and not passable to all traffic. She told me that the road condition was really bad and the workers are clearing the road before any vehicles could go in. That will take about 6 hours.

6 hours !! Oh no, no way I can make it to Hualien before nightfall.


So I sit down and look at Google Map and see if there were alternative routes.
The map showed that this road is the only way to Hualien, apart from flanking all the way up and cut-through from center of the Taiwan island.

I figured that there is no way I can continue my plan to ride around the island. I just have to make the best out of it and explore the western side of Taiwan. Anyway, most of the big cities are on the west side and east side are just mainly countryside.

So I drew out the plan to go to Tainan instead. This time, I careful planned the route to avoid the area that was flooded yesterday. On the way there, encountered few heavy downpour which had helped to wash away the mud on my raincoat. :) It's not bad news every time !


Reached Tainan by 2pm and spent the rest of the day exploring around the city.


There were quite a few famous street food you can find in Tainan. The hotel even offered to help hotel guest buying them at a fee.  I wondered how much is the transportation fee.




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