This is the second installment discussing our recent trip: the first is posted below.Down the freeway again and eventually we paid our 11th and final toll on our way south. (The toll is $NT40 a hit, about $A1.40) The first few towns after the freeway were very run down and quite awful looking, not inspiring us at all. However, as the road turned onto the coast, we started to see a proliferation of mobile coffee carts (where we had a break) and endless vistas of a calm and deep blue South China Sea. Kenting town is the second little surf community after South Beach and as we made our way through, the steady increase in lairy colours on the shops, surf outlets and restaurants with a distinctive non Taiwanese feel made an impression. I’d spotted a place on the net that we were keen to check out, so we made our way through town to Shadao and the boutique hotel “Sand”. It was quite funny as the girl working on the desk was Indonesian so we both put our “Chinese as a second or other language” skills to work. Sand is a slick uber modern, minimalist design of stone and wood, with just a handful of rooms, directly facing the southern tip of Taiwan (which is actually walking distance from here). Our room was unreal, fitted out to a sleek modern design with a generous verandah and overlooked a protected white sandy beach…bliss! So we were set for the next 4 days and all, at winter mid week prices, for a ludicrously cheap sum…I actually thought I’d heard the numbers wrong, or had said something stupid.
The surfing Mecca, Jialeshuei, was a short drive round the tip to the east coast, so we began a series of trips round there during the day and had a recovery read or relax in the afternoon, before heading out to sample some fantastic meals at night. For more Jialeshuei info and lots of shots of both it and the east coast check out pointyhat here…it was awesome! Meals at night were authentic cantina style Mexican, Thai food like it was being served on the beach in Chiang Mai and Tex Mex varieties that made the mouth water. We ate a lot and it was good! In fact, Kenting had a real Thai feel to it overall: it was ultra cool, had lots of different cuisines and quirky little bars and restaurants and endless stalls and markets lining the streets at night giving it a vibrant carnival atmosphere: we felt super relaxed and content down there. We toured around by day and by night: we witnessed the amazing Chuohua fires at night, natural gas hissing from the ground on fire. We saw the preserved walled town and gates in the same area. We drove around the languid shores of the national park’s south west corner, gazing from lookouts and treading along deserted white sand beaches. We travelled along in a tiny blue truck with no shock absorbers as a tour guide told us in incomprehensible Chinese all about the animal shapes of the rocks on the Jialeshuei coast and we even helped some mainland Chinese people celebrate their walk out to Taiwan’s most southern point (see photo)!
Our plan after relaxing for a few days in Kenting was to slow crawl up the east coast and check out a few more surf spots. On the way to Taitung, the east coasts biggest city, we motored through fresh forests and discovered deserted beaches. The car snaked its way along mountain ridges and tracked through lush valleys, sometimes encountering little aboriginal villages along the way. We stopped and investigated any point of interest and made frequent detours down tiny side roads and tracks. The day of travel was very eye-opening: this part of Taiwan is just gorgeous. Taitung saw us (eventually) find the Aboriginal Hostel where we were keen to stay. With beautifully decorated Yami fishing boats in the forecourt it offered spotlessly clean, slightly jaded but interesting rooms, and was staffed by aboriginals of lots of different tribes. We had an interesting Chinese/Japanese/English check in which was wildly amusing to all concerned, dropped off our bags and set out to make use of the hotel’s free bicycles. Taitung has a plethora of bike trails winding through the outskirts of the city, through rainforests and around lakes, most ending up at a sculpture park right on the beach. Cassy was a natural after more than 30 years of not gracing a bike, and we cycled for many kilometers and had an extremely pleasant afternoon. Our dinner that evening was our first disappointment, even though a minor one. The food at the large café we went to left a fair bit to be desired, the place stunk of smoke necessitating us sitting outside on a chilly verandah and the waiter was surly beyond belief, insisting on speaking only Taiwanese to us! Anyway, not to worry, the next day was to be a trawl along the mid east coast to find some of these rumoured secret surf spots of quality, perhaps ending up at the famous Taroko Gorge…I was getting very excited! (More to follow in a final installment in the next couple of days…)