July 20, 2008

A couple of weeks ago I came across a reference to dolphin-watching on the east coast of Taiwan. It sounded interesting, and I decided to check it out. I imagined sitting on the bow of a boat (cold drink in hand) while dolphins frolicked around us and swam in and out of the bow wave – like in the commercials and movies. It didn’t work out quite like that, but it was an interesting day nonetheless.

My plan was to go to the town of Toucheng. I had read that dolphin-watching boats left from Wushih Harbor in Toucheng. I don’t even remember now where I came across that information. The Lonely Planet guide for Taiwan mentions Toucheng and Wushih Harbor, but only as a jumping off point for visiting Turtle Island. It doesn’t say anything about dolphins. I must have read something on the Internet, but I don’t remember which Web sites I visited.

In any event, I had the idea that dolphin-watching boats left from Wushih Harbor in Toucheng, and I made that my destination. I knew that there was a good chance the whole expedition would blow up in my face. Things in Taiwan tend to do that. I’d probably get there and find out that I was at the wrong Toucheng – there’d be another one on the other side of the island perhaps. Or I’d get there and find out that reservations were required and that all of the boats were booked up. Or perhaps I’d be missing some crucial permit or paper. It’s impossible to predict all the things that could (and likely would) go wrong. None of this worried me though. The dolphin-watching was really just an excuse to get on the scooter and get out of Taipei for a bit.

]My original plan (and one I probably should have stuck with) was to leave on Friday afternoon, spend the night in Toucheng, and then wake up early on Saturday morning to go dolphin-watching. However, time got away from me on Friday and it soon became too late to do that. I wasn’t too worried about that either. I was looking forward to driving my scooter through the mountains, and leaving on Friday afternoon meant I’d have to rush a bit to get to Toucheng before dark. I reasoned that if I left on Saturday morning, I could take all the time I wanted in the mountains. Then if I got to Toucheng with lots of time left and there was a convenient boat leaving, I could hop on board, or I could spend Saturday night in Toucheng and go dolphin-watching on Sunday.

With this plan taking shape in my head, I went to the Breeze Center (a local ritzy shopping mall) to see Kung Fu Panda. I knew it would be disappointing, but the media blitz got to me. Like a good consumer, I forked over my NT$290 (about US$8.50) and sat through an hour and a half of Jack Black’s antics. Later that evening, I honestly had almost no memory of seeing the movie – it was that forgettable. I was sitting in my apartment trying to remember what I had done that afternoon. The movie had left my brain before I’d even reached the escalator leaving the theater. Still, it wasn’t atrocious. It was mildly entertaining in parts and even showed the occasional flash of imagination. To steal from Douglas Adams, I’d say the film was “mostly harmless.”

Packing is a big thing with me, and I have to say that I haven’t mastered packing for a scooter trip. I prefer bicycle trips. I’ve gotten used to having the various pannier bags and handlebar bags that you can put on a bicycle. In particular, I like having easy access to a camera, and that is easy to arrange on a bicycle. It’s much more difficult on a scooter. There is a small space under the seat. However, it is designed for your helmet and isn’t good for much else. It has an odd shape, and it gets very hot. You certainly wouldn’t want to put a camera or film in there. You can put a bag on the floor of the scooter between your feet, but that isn’t ideal either. There is a real risk that it could fall off, and that would be very dangerous driving at speed on a mountain road. Besides, having a bag there makes it very awkward finding a comfortable place for your feet. In the end, your only reasonable option is to strap something to the seat behind you, or to just wear a backpack.

I’ve found, though, that no matter what I do, stopping to take a picture becomes very complicated. On a bicycle, I simply stop the bike, take the camera out of the handlebar bag, and take a picture. I don’t even have to get off the bike. I just straddle it. If I do want to get off the bike, it’s a very simple matter to put down the kickstand and walk away. Traveling on a scooter is a different story. For one thing, you’re traveling much faster and all of your concentration is on the road ahead of you. You can’t really look around. You end up seeing nothing but the pavement. You also can’t hear anything. If, by chance, you do see something interesting, stopping the scooter takes a lot longer. You usually end up far past the thing you wanted to photograph. So now you’re doing two dangerous U-turns on a mountain road to get back to what you saw. Then you have to turn off the engine, get off the scooter, put down the kickstand, take off your helmet, take off your knapsack, unzip it, get out the camera, take the picture and then do the reverse. It’s a complicated process, and I find that when I’m driving my scooter I tend not to take many pictures. It’s such a hassle.

For this trip, I tried to think of a way to make it a bit easier, but I couldn’t come up with anything. It’s even more complicated now because I tend to take two camera bodies with me these days. I like to use both a 50 mm and a wide-angle lens. Switching lenses all the time gets a bit tedious, so I keep each lens on a different camera body. This, though, makes it even more complicated to take pictures while on the road. In the end, I had no choice but to just dump everything into my knapsack and wear the knapsack on my back. It wasn’t comfortable, and it was awkward to get at the cameras, but it was the best I could do.

I got up at five on Saturday morning and was on the road when it was still cool and pleasant. I headed south out of Taipei intending to take Highway 9 through the mountains to Toucheng. I live right on Zhongshan Rd, so it is easy to go south on Zhongshan. Zhongshan eventually does a dogleg to the left and turns into Roosevelt. Roosevelt follows the MRT line south for quite a while until it turns into Beixin Road. Beixin Road continues all the way to the Xindian stop of the MRT, where it then turns into Beiyi Road. This all sounds very complicated, but fortunately it’s not. It’s pretty much the same road the entire time. I don’t know why it has to have so many names, but once you figure out that it’s the same road, it’s no problem. I just turn right onto Zhongshan from my lane, and then go south for ten or eleven kilometers until I leave Taipei behind. Shortly after the road becomes Beiyi Road, you reach the turn-off to Wulai. Turn right there, and you start climbing up to Wulai. Go straight and you are on your way to Pingling and then the coast at Toucheng and beyond Toucheng, Yilan.

I’d already done this route a few times – twice by bicycle and three or four times by scooter – so I knew what to expect. It’s a very pleasant ride, especially when you have the road to yourself early in the morning. I remember the first time I ventured out in this direction I was astonished that such a wild area could be so close to Taipei. I had the same feeling the first time I rode out toward Pingxi and Shuangxi. The roads wind and curve along rivers with jungly hillsides all around. Few people live on these roads, and you can zoom along taking the curves at speed. The temperature drops very quickly once you leave muggy Taipei behind, and you soon start to feel that the world isn’t such a bad place after all.

]A surprising number of cyclists were out on the road slowly grinding their way up and up. I don’t know why cycling has become so popular in Taiwan, but there is no question that it has. Three or four years ago when I did my first trips out of Taipei, cycling felt like a novelty. I met almost no other cyclists on the road. Now the roads are jammed with them. They ride mountain bikes, hybrids, racing bikes, and even folding bikes. The motorcycle crowd was out in force, too. That hasn’t changed. I remember on my first trips being amazed at how many people rode these giant motorbikes in Taiwan. For one thing, I wondered where they got the money. These are not cheap motorcycles. Their clothing isn’t cheap either. They deck themselves out in full racing leather and racing helmets and everything else you can think of. It all must cost a fortune, and I can’t see that there is much return on all that money. By the time you get a motorbike like that up into top gear, you’ve arrived at the other side of the island. Taiwan just doesn’t seem big enough for motorcycles like that. You can barely get them out of second gear. Still, they certainly enjoy themselves zooming around the corners on these winding roads.

I remember chatting with one of these guys once, and he said that it wasn’t really about riding the motorcycles. It was all about gathering at these places where they can park their bikes and hang out and admire each others’ bikes. Since then, I’ve seen many of these places. On my way to Toucheng, I was passed by dozens of these rocket bikes and then I saw them all parked in a grassy field while the riders drank coffee and walked around chatting. I wish now I’d pulled over and gotten out my cameras. I’d love to get some shots of these bikes and their riders.

At one point, something caught my eye at the side of the road, and I quickly did my two dangerous U-turns to go back and check it out. It was a big snake at the side of the road. It wasn’t moving, and I thought it was probably dead. Yet, I couldn’t see any blood or other damage, so I got out my camera and approached it cautiously. It was certainly the biggest snake I’d seen in Taiwan. I guessed that it was about six feet long. Its body was quite thick – perhaps thicker than my wrist at its thickest point. When I got close enough to take a picture, it started to move, so it was still alive. I took four or five pictures before it slowly moved over the edge of the road and disappeared into the branches of some trees. I have no idea what kind of snake it was, but once my pictures are developed, perhaps someone can tell me.

The rest of the ride was more or less without incident. I stopped in Pingling for a cold coffee at 7-11. The place was jammed as always. A dozen cyclists were sitting outside with their fancy bikes. A bunch more guys with motorcycles were also there. A lot of these guys had their girlfriends with them. They, too, were decked out in skin-tight leather and giant racing helmets. The motorcycles that were really designed for speed had only the tiniest little spaces on the back for a passenger. These girls had to perch way up there on this little seat and then fold themselves over the backs of their boyfriends and hold on tight. These little seats never seemed that safe to me as they generally had no supports below them – just the giant wheel down there.

I’m not sure that you’d call it a sign of the times, but I do find it interesting that the 7-11 is by far the busiest and most popular place in Pingling. Pingling, after all, is famous for its tea. The main street is full of tea houses where you can sit and enjoy a fine cup of tea served with all the traditional trappings. Yet, every time I’ve been there, the tea houses have been empty and the one 7-11 is so jammed that you can barely move inside it.

Beyond Pingling, the road begins to climb again, and you go up and up until you reach the very edge of the mountains on the coast. This is a very dramatic spot as you can see almost straight down onto the rice fields and flat land of Yilan county. The road here clings to the side of the mountains and goes down in a fast series of switchbacks. I had been enjoying my ride through the mountains, and I was somewhat reluctant to go down to the coast. The temperature would rise and I’d suddenly be engulfed in all the busy traffic and gravel trucks that thunder up and down the coast. However, my goal was Toucheng, and down I went.

As I came down out of the mountains, I realized that a bit more preparation wouldn’t have hurt. For one thing, I had no real idea where Wushi Harbor was. I just assumed that it would be right there in Toucheng. I’d just have to go to Toucheng and then go to the shore and there would be the harbor. In reality, it was a bit more complicated than that. There were more roads than I expected, and I quickly got a bit turned around. For some reason, I thought the beaches and the harbor were south of Toucheng. So I kind of turned south and tried to follow the coast. However, that wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Then I turned around and decided to head for central Toucheng and then see if I could get my bearings. I found central Toucheng (sort of), but never did get my bearings. I ended up just driving around at random and hoping I’d see a clear shot to the water or a sign pointing the way to the harbor. I did find a sign and I went in the direction it pointed, but ended up nowhere that made any sense. I worked my way out of the maze of streets and finally found myself back on the main coast road. I turned north this time and decided to go that way. I thought at the very least I could get free of the maze of Toucheng and then approach the town from that direction. Perhaps then things would make sense. To my relief, I suddenly saw another big sign for Wushih Harbor. I went in that direction and promptly got lost. But after fighting my way out once more, I then just kept going north, hoping something would make sense, and suddenly there it was – Wushih Harbor.

Once I found the place, it seemed perfectly obvious and easy to find. There it is right off the coast road with a big sign pointing the way. However, that’s only when you know where it is already. From this point, you’d think it would be smooth sailing. I’d found the harbor, and I understood that one simply walked around and found a boat with a sign saying when it was leaving. You signed up, paid your fee, and got on board at the appropriate time. Perhaps that is how it works, but it didn’t work that way for me.

I saw on the right as I went in, a very large building that was the Visitor’s Information Center. That seemed like a good place to start since I saw no boats with friendly signs saying when they were leaving. I did see one boat that was clearly a tourist boat of some kind. In fact, I’m not sure I would call it a boat. It was more like a ship – far larger than I expected. There were about a hundred people on this boat in bright orange life jackets. It looked like it was getting ready to leave, and I wondered if I could park my scooter and quickly hop on board. However, by the time I’d parked my scooter, the boat had already left the dock and was on its way.

The visitor center was quite large, as I said. I was happy to see that it had big, clean public restrooms. I was very happy to see that it had a coffee shop. I wasn’t happy, however, to see that the coffee shop was closed. Anyway, I went into a big public area with lots of activity. A group of fifty people were sitting on big blocks listening to a woman give a presentation on dolphins and whales. That was a good sign. Against the far wall, there was a long row of counters with lots of posters and other information. Behind the counters were young women busy talking to people and, I assumed, selling tickets. That was another good sign. I spoke to one woman who quickly brought me to another counter where the resident English-speaker was stationed. I tried to ask her some questions about how the whole thing dolphin-watching thing worked, but I didn’t get any answers that made sense to me. She was focused on doing what she was supposed to do – signing me up for her company’s dolphin-watching tour. Eventually, I bowed to the inevitable and just let her take over. She was a little taken aback to find out that I was on my own. She had assumed that I was a representative of a large group. This was actually where most of the confusion came from. All of her questions and all of her systems and information were geared to large groups with tour guides who come on tour buses. Once she figured out that it was just me, things got a bit clearer. She got out a big form and had me write my name down in the top box. It looked a bit lonely sitting there next to these other forms that had twenty or thirty people listed. Then she told me to come back at 12:15 (the tour started at 12:30) and I could pay my NT$1,200 fee then. NT$1,200 seemed a bit high to me, but it appeared to be the going rate. Considering that these boats went out with up to 90 people onboard (as the woman explained) and that all they did was drive around for two to three hours, they could make a tidy profit. Perhaps it’s more expensive to run one of these boats than I imagine. At the time, I thought my NT$1,200 would include some extras like a meal or at least a cold drink, but there was nothing like that.

At 12:15, I returned to the Visitor’s Center expecting to join a group of people. I assumed we would all sit down on those blocks and get a presentation from a tour guide just like the group I’d seen earlier. None of that happened, however. The pleasant and attractive woman who had signed me up said that she would take me to the boat personally. This confused me, but I wasn’t about to argue. I couldn’t imagine that every person who signed up for a tour was personally escorted to a boat. I don’t think it was my stunning good looks and charm that induced her to do this. She just didn’t know any other way to deal with me – a lone foreigner wanting to catch a view of a dolphin.

I thought my boat would be one of the boats I had seen just outside the Visitor’s Center. However, she pointed to another boat on the far side of the harbor and said that was mine. As we walked, I tried to find out again how this whole thing worked. I wanted to know if each counter in the Visitor’s Center represented a different boat. And were there many boats run by different companies? Did you have to buy your tickets from the Visitor’s Center or could you just go up to one of the boats? I didn’t get any answers out of her, though. She turned the tables on me and subjected me to the usual interrogation: Where are you from? How old are you? Are you married? Why not? Why are you alone? Aren’t you lonely?

On the other side of the harbor, a few things became a bit clearer, but not much. There was a large covered area there, and under the roof there were many tables with what appeared to be representatives from different boats. I say “appeared”, because I really am only guessing. The woman helping me went up to a man sitting at one of these tables and the two of them went into a very long and detailed conversation about me. Clearly, it wasn’t as simple as paying my NT$1,200 and climbing aboard. I have no idea what they talked about, but they constantly pointed at me and then at the paper with my name on it. They seemed to go around in circles around a few different issues, and there was a lot of confusion. Again, I can’t even guess at what the issues were. Apparently, though, if you didn’t come as part of a tour group, whatever systems they had to deal with visitors kind of fell apart.

The men were friendly though and once the details had been settled to their satisfaction, they pulled out a plastic stool for me to sit on, and through betel-nut stained teeth told me that Canada was a beautiful place. Meanwhile, large groups of excited people started to gather around the boat and the woman told me it was time to get on board. I had been surprised that she stuck around for so long. I thought that after depositing me at the proper boat, she could then leave. However, I was glad she stayed. Without her, I never would have gotten on board. Even though I’d paid my NT$1,200 and had my name on this official form, there was no clear system for getting me on the boat. The big groups gathered around the steps to the boat where a couple of official-looking men were holding court. There was a tremendous amount of shouting and yelling and gesturing and even pushing and shoving. As the shouting and yelling continued, the people got more and more nervous and started to mill about and push forward. The tension rose and rose. The woman grabbed me by the arm and dragged me through the crowd and then to the very front where she waved the piece of paper at one of the men. He simply ignored her. Then he spoke to her and just turned away. She poked at his arm and tugged on his sleeve and made all kinds of efforts to get his attention. Meanwhile, the people around me were jostling and pushing more and more. I contemplated getting on that boat with this unruly crowd and being trapped on it for three hours, and I was one second away from simply turning around and walking away. I just wanted to go on a little boat ride and see some dolphins. I didn’t want to engage in World War III. Nothing about the experience had been pleasant so far, and from what I saw around me, it was only going to get worse.

Just then, the woman turned to me and said that it was okay. I just had to show the man my passport. I offered my ARC instead, not having my passport with me. The man peered at it for a moment and then turned away again. I had no idea what that was all about either, and it left me feeling a bit soured. What was the point of showing an official ID to go on a pleasure cruise to look at dolphins? And I thought that after all of that, someone would finally give me some indication that I was in the right place and that they were going to let me onto the boat. It wasn’t to be though, and the shouting and pushing and yelling continued. Finally, something appeared to be settled and the first of the people started to get onto the boat. Or should I say that the stampede had begun? For it really was a stampede. I don’t know that there were prime seats on this boat and people wanted to get to them first, but there was some advantage to getting on that boat fast and the crowd surged forward.

I understood from the woman at this point, that all of her shouting and yelling and effort had managed to include me in the official tally of one of these groups. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be allowed on the boat. I had to be included in a group. This group that I was now part of was boarding the boat and I had to board at this time and be counted or I would be out of luck. This made no sense to me (to put it mildly), but I hardly had a choice. The woman pushed me forward and told me to “get in line.” I tried to insert myself into the line of people shoving its way onto the steps, but it was nearly impossible. They pushed forward so fast and hard that I was thrust backwards each time. Twice, an arm came forward and cut me off and then a shoulder hit me in the chest and pushed me out again. I turned to the woman with a despairing look. Sure, I wouldn’t mind seeing a dolphin, but come on, does it have to be so aggressive and chaotic? She gave me an encouraging look and said (I think), “You have to cut in! It’s okay!” So I made one last attempt and thrust my own arm into the line and blocked the next person and got in front of them. A hard push from behind and I stumbled down the steps onto the boat right into the scrum that had formed around the pile of lifejackets.

Apparently, judging from the frantic attack on this pile, there weren’t enough lifejackets to go around. People seemed to think if they didn’t get one now (RIGHT NOW!), they’d be left out and would be abandoned at sea to drown. I wouldn’t even have bothered with a lifejacket at that point, but I’m sure if didn’t someone would yell at me. So I grabbed one and then moved down the side of the boat. All the other people were charging into the inside of the boat where it was apparently air-conditioned. Perhaps the limited seating in the air-conditioned interior had caused all the panic and competition. Everyone went into the inside of the boat at that point, and I started to think that it must be a rule. Perhaps you had to be inside and you weren’t allowed to be on deck. My heart sank at that thought. After all of this, I didn’t want to spend three hours trapped inside the boat with no view but what I could see out the dirty windows. I moved around the deck of the boat expecting at any point to have someone yell at me. However, no one did, and I found myself at the front of the boat with my flimsy lifejacket in my hand. The woman helping me was still on the dock to my surprise, and she now gave me instructions on putting on the lifejacket. She also told me about the air conditioning and that if I felt ill, I should go on deck and get some fresh air. She reminded me that I had her name card and if I had any questions, I could call her. Then she left. I stood there smiling to myself. I could just imagine being out in the middle of the ocean and calling her up. “Hi. Yeah, hello, this is the foreigner? Well, the boat is sinking, and I was wondering if you had any advice.”

After much chaos and confusion, everyone was on board and jammed either into the air-conditioned interior, or under the shade awning at the back. I was the only person not hiding from the sun, and therefore I had the entire front of the boat to myself. No one had yelled at me yet, so I assumed I was allowed to be out there and I looked around me with pleasure. If I could stay there, there might be some pleasure to be salvaged from this trip yet.

Leaving the harbor was a tricky thing. The fellow piloting the boat didn’t seem too worried about the many, many other large boats coming and going at the same time. Nor were the fellows piloting these other boats. That we got out of the harbor without a collision is astonishing. Then we were at sea and I had the fresh sea air in my face. The boat was altogether a bigger and more powerful affair than I’d expected, and we were soon going at a fast pace. The ocean was also much rougher than I expected. It looked smooth, but at our speed, the rolling swells threw us up and down, and at the front of the boat I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. I had to hold on tight or risk getting thrown to my knees or possibly overboard. Giant sprays of water flew out from the sides of the boat. They occasionally came right over the bow and before I knew it, I was drenched in sea water. All this time, I was trying to get a picture of Turtle Island and I had to be very careful as I got my cameras out and tried to take a picture before the next wave came over the bow. I don’t know if it was my example or not, but eventually people started to emerge from the interior of the boat and join me at the front. By this time, the boat seemed to have found a rhythm and the water wasn’t crashing on deck anymore. There was just the occasional spray. There was still a lot of movement though, and everyone had to hold on tight.

Turtle Island was a beautiful sight, and I quickly burned through a couple of rolls of film as we approached it. Other tours stopped on the island, but I think you had to get an official permit from the government to do that. Perhaps that requirement is gone, but at least that is what I read. My boat wasn’t going to stop on the island, and we simply went around it on the right. Then we headed out into the ocean. I enjoyed myself immensely. It was wonderful to be out there with all of that space around. Behind me, I could see the island of Taiwan completely covered in clouds. The clouds ended, however, right at the coast and there was nothing out on the ocean but clear blue skies. It’s like Taiwan is this weather black hole that is permanently covered in rain clouds.

The trip began with a lot of excitement on the part of my fellow passengers. Someone spotted a flying fish and a roar went up like we were surrounded by a pod of killer whales. A second flying fish was spotted, and people rushed to that side of the boat in such numbers that I thought we were going to flip over. After that, there was nothing. We spotted no marine life at all, not a single fish or bird let alone a whale or a dolphin. Our boat drove out to a spot where a cluster of four other tour boats were gathered. There we floated for a while. I was reminded of trucks and jeeps on a safari in Africa. If some poor dolphin was spotted, all of these boats would suddenly fire up their engines and converge on the poor thing en masse like safari jeeps chasing and hounding a poor cheetah. I started to hope that no one would see a dolphin, because with this many boats so close together a collision was inevitable. Radios would crackle, fingers would point, excitement would surge and all the boats would head for the same spot with the result that we’d all sink to the bottom.

There was no such excitement, however, and we simply drove around for two hours looking at the empty ocean. Half of my fellow passengers were soon sound asleep in their chairs. Occasionally, the loudspeakers would come to life and someone on board would deliver a long and loud lecture on some aspect of the ocean or Turtle Island. These were always greeted with applause at the end. Even my appetite for new horizons was eventually satisfied, and I began to wish the boat would turn around and head back to shore. Yet we had paid for three hours and three hours or more we would get.

We got back a bit before 4 p.m. and I started to think about what to do. I still had time to drive back to Taipei if I wanted to. My original plan, though, was to spend the night on the coast and then slowly make my way back to Taipei on Sunday. I even had had thoughts of going for a ride on a paraglider. I’d seen a number of them launch from the hills above Toucheng and I wondered if it was possible to be taken on one of these as I’d seen them do at Green Bay. In fact, Toucheng was quite the happening place. After I’d found Wushih Harbor and gotten the details of my boat trip settled, I’d ridden my scooter around just to look around. I knew there was a popular beach around. I thought it was south of Toucheng, but I hadn’t seen it. Then I saw a big stone wall north of the harbor. I drove there and parked my scooter. I climbed up onto the wall, and to my great surprise saw the Toucheng beach resort on the other side. It was quite large and there were hundreds of people both in the water and on shore. It really took me by surprise. Most people had surfboards and were bobbing around in the waves. Occasionally a large enough wave would come and someone would hop onto their board for a second before falling off. There really wasn’t much chance of surfing though. There were simply too many people. It looked like a surfing traffic jam from my high vantage point. Still, it was a colorful sight, and I took lots of pictures and watched them for a while. Just behind the beach, I came across a little set of surf shops and other things. It was quite fun to wander around and see all the beach life going on.

I wasn’t surprised, though, to find no hotels of any kind. This is a common theme for me in my limited travels in Taiwan. I know there are hotels out there, but I can never seem to find them. In this case, considering the huge numbers of people that obviously come to this beach every weekend, you’d think there would be dozens of places to stay. Yet, I couldn’t spot one. I drove all around this area and saw nothing. I drove up the coast highway for quite a while and saw nothing. Then I turned and went into Toucheng proper. It’s a fairly large town, and I knew there were hotels in there somewhere, but I simply couldn’t find them. I drove up and down every major road a couple of times. I went on detours inland and all over the place going slowly and reading every sign and peering into every building. Yet I saw no hotels at all. I came across the train station at one point and figured there had to be hotels near there. Yet I couldn’t find them. An hour passed, and I was no closer to finding a home for the night. By then, it was getting late and I had to do something quickly. I could drive up the coast and hope to find a hotel somewhere, or I could go back the way I came and simply drive back to Taipei. In the end, I chose to return to Taipei. If Toucheng were a special place, I might have doubled my efforts and finally tracked down a hotel, but by that point I was tired of the town. It wasn’t exactly attractive or quaint. The streets looked much the same as the streets in Taipei and there was no convenient waterfront to explore. So I hit the road and zoomed (literally) back to Taipei. I didn’t want to be caught in the dark on that mountain road, so I made sure to keep my speed up and I raced back to Taipei. I had a bad moment or two when it started to rain, but they were only rainy patches and it was clear and dry most of the time. I got back in plenty of time, tired and sore, but pleased overall with the day. Traveling in Taiwan is never what you would call pleasant, but you always have an adventure in some bizarre and unexpected way.

 

 

Tags: dolphin, scooter, Taipei, Turtle Island