Saturday December 4, 2010

9:47 a.m.

Lobby of the Formost Hotel

It’s an interesting feeling going to a place for the first time. You really have no idea of the lay of the land or what to expect. A young woman on the bus translated for me and asked me for the bus driver where I wanted to go. I said that I wanted to go to Kenting, but apparently that wasn’t enough. He wanted to know where in Kenting, and I had no idea. I didn’t really know what Kenting was. The girl suggested KFC, and I said sure. I assumed that KFC was on the main strip, and I was sure I would end up staying somewhere near there.

One woman on the bus got off at a big resort. She was wearing a uniform of some kind, so it made sense that she worked there. If so, she must be staying for a long shift. The other woman got off in Henchung, which is the big town in these parts. A large sign outside the town said it was the Ancient town of Henchung. I don’t know how ancient it is, but it did have a rebuilt city gate. Ancient towns always seem to need a city gate of some kind. Henchung was quite a shock when I arrived there. I had been hoping that the terrain would get more empty and beautiful as I approached Kenting. Henchung is quite close to Kenting, and it was a big sprawling urban town. From that point of view, Kenting was not what I had hoped for. It felt urban and concrete all the way from Kaohsiung. It is a place that I would be glad to discover on a long journey around the island. However, I think it will take some effort to appreciate it as a place that one went to deliberately as I did.

I had assumed that people from hotels would be waiting for me when I got off the bus. However, there was no one. The bus drove through the long main street of Kenting and stopped in twenty different places, so it would be difficult for touts to show up. I got off at KFC as arranged and then walked up and down the main drag. It felt very different from anywhere else I’d seen in Taiwan and at the same time exactly the same. The surface was different. There was more color and more individual style to the shops and restaurants. There were also more international style restaurants than one usually sees. Actually, one usually sees none. In Kenting, there are many of them: Thai, Indian, Italian, and that sort of thing. Then there is a sprinkling of odd places – nightclubs with “live shows.” I don’t know what the live shows could be, but they look like they feature pole dancing. That seems odd for Taiwan. There are also a bunch of dive shops. I did a quick search on the Internet for hostels, and a couple of dive shops showed up. They seem to rent out cheap rooms, much like a place in Longdong where I stayed and that place I saw long ago in Jinshan. I saw one dive shop that looked promising. I would have gone right in except that I wanted to get the lay of the land.

At one alley, I looked to the north and saw just the top of a big rock formation. That was promising, and I went down the alley to see if there were cheap hotels down there. It was much nicer there away from the traffic of the main drag, and there were nice views of the rocks and hills to the north. A bunch of hotels lined the alleys, and they all looked interesting. From the look of them, I couldn’t tell if they would be cheap or interesting. It’s hard to predict those sorts of things in Taiwan. It’s possible that places on the main drag would be expensive and those in the back would be cheap or vice versa. It’s impossible to say. Most of them featured balconies facing the rocky hills and I pictured myself sitting up there and reading and enjoying the views. I picked out one that looked interesting. It had a farm and cow motif. I asked at the desk, and it cost NT$1,600/night. That’s about $55 a night, and was too much for me. The room they showed me was also not very pleasing. They had gone overboard in their decorations to make it look like a room worth $55. They’d filled it with junk, like a stereo with a CD player mounted flat on the wall. It had all kinds of junky luxuries like that – luxuries which I didn’t need. They’d also just finished polishing all the faux-wood in there and I was nearly knocked off my feet by the smell of Lemon Pledge. The price and décor alone turned me off, but it also felt very isolated. One might enjoy a place like that if you were with someone. But when you’re on your own, it’s better to be someplace more open and social. This place was too small and confined. I could see myself settling into the room and then looking around and wondering what in the world I was doing there. I told them thank you and left. I figured all the other places would look the same, and I didn’t bother checking them out and I went back to the main drag.

I walked a bit farther along the main drag and I came across the sign for the Formost Hotel. Joe had recommended this place. I had looked it up online, and it sounded pretty bad. One person had called it the “FarWorst” Hotel. I don’t know what kind of experience that person could have had, but Joe was right. It was a great place.

I liked it right away because it had a big lobby area with ten tables with chairs. I don’t think they had a restaurant or anything, but I liked that the tables were there – a place to hang out. There was also a man there who thought he spoke English and who could help me. He spoke English in a strange way that I’ve come across quite a few times. His brain had absorbed some concepts of English and English words, and his mouth moved at the fast pace of a native speaker. Yet, English didn’t really come out. It was simply a string of sounds that occasionally came out sounding a bit like English. We got all our arrangements done, though, because he could understand me even if I couldn’t understand him. The funniest misunderstanding came about when he tried to tell me about the free breakfast. The room came with free breakfast, but it wasn’t in the hotel. It was at Madonna. He said Madonna so many times that I thought it was important to understand and I asked for clarification. Was it a restaurant? Where was it? Then later I asked about a gas station to get gas for my rented scooter. He said that it was near Madonna. I drove in the indicated direction, and soon enough I saw the Golden Arches and it all became clear: Not Madonna, but McDonald’s. His brain knew that there was an M and an A in the word but that was as far as it got and it sent the signal to his mouth and tongue to say it without really knowing what it was supposed to be and his tongue just made it up.

The room at the Formost cost NT$800/night ($26), and after checking it out, I took it for 3 nights. The room itself was far nicer than I had expected. It wasn’t large, but it was large enough and it had everything one needed. In fact, it had more than one would expect in a tourist town like this for NT$800/night. There was an air conditioner, a TV, a refrigerator, a desk and chair, a hair dryer, and a fully-appointed bathroom with complimentary towels, soap, shampoo, and toothbrush. The bathroom even had a large mirror that went nearly to the ceiling. In most of these places, the bathroom mirror is a small thing in a cheap plastic frame. Looking into it normally gives me a nice view of my belly-button and I have to crouch to the size of a hobbit in order to shave. This mirror, covering the entire wall as it did, felt perfectly natural and normal. It felt so normal and natural that it actually took me until the next morning to even realize that it was there.

The real joy of this room was the soft, soft mattress. I wonder sometimes if I’ve gotten used to the hard mattresses in my apartment in Taipei. I certainly don’t ever think about them as being hard. Yet, I always seem to be tired and I have trouble sleeping. Could it be that I just never got used to those rock-hard mattresses? The last time I remember being struck by a comfortable mattress was when I stayed in a hotel in Toronto near the airport. The mattress at my dad’s apartment in Sarnia was soft, but far too soft. It was a shapeless and uncomfortable mess of springs. The mattress at that hotel in Toronto was perfect and I fell into it and never wanted to get up. I slept for what felt like the first time in months and I was rested for my long flight to Hong Kong and then to Taipei.

Last night in the Formost Hotel here in Kenting, I felt the same. I collapsed gratefully onto it at bedtime and I didn’t want to get up in the morning. I woke up at 5 a.m. and was rested enough to get out of bed, but I couldn’t leave that soft comfort. I flipped the pillow to a cool side and nestled back in for another couple of hours of napping and dreaming.

Another great thing about the Formost Hotel was the ease with which I could rent a scooter. A scooter is essential in Taiwan for a trip like this. Without a scooter (or a bicycle) I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. The hotel didn’t rent their own scooters, but they had a deal with someone who did, and in three minutes a tiny woman covered from head to foot with layers of clothing and hats showed up. She had a fannypack around her waist, where she kept her pen and money and book. She was overjoyed with my Taiwanese driver’s license and everyone tittered “so handsome, so handsome” when they saw the picture on the license. Of course that was old Doug from many years ago – pre-Taiwan Doug even. I can’t remember how long ago that picture was taken – certainly before my seemingly endless life behind a desk.

The scooter cost $400 a day, and to my amazement, they had a very sensible system for what constituted a day. Most people arrive in the afternoon and then leave the following day. This woman had come up with a system where that would be one day. You rent by the day, but not by calendar days. So for someone like me staying from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon, that is three days- Friday to Saturday, Saturday to Sunday, and Sunday to Monday. It’s perfectly sensible and logical and avoids any misunderstanding. There are 4 calendar days in there (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday), but those are really two half days (Friday and Monday) and two full days (Saturday and Sunday). To avoid any problems, this woman adjusted her rental fees to match the time period that guests generally want her scooters. I mentally raised my hat to this intelligent woman.

After I paid her and signed her form, she jetted off, all her layers of clothing and hats flapping in the powerful wind, and returned with my scooter. It was a brand new Yamaha 125cc and she showed me how to open the gas tank and open the seat compartment to get at the helmet. She indicated that the number written on the key chain matched the license plate number and she gave me her business card with her phone number on it. It was a professional and efficient and effortless transaction, and it was clear that I didn’t really need any kind of license.

The first order of business, as always, was to get gas for the scooter. I drove down the main drag to “Madonna” and saw the gas station. Rental scooters always have just enough gas in them to get you from the hotel to the gas station. I’m not sure how they calculate that (do they add gas with an eyedropper after siphoning out the extra?), but you had better head straight to the gas station. No detours. I love running little errands like that in Taiwan. It’s simply a lot of fun to ride up to the gas station and get gas. There is always a set of pumps with a sign indicating it is for scooters. I always get #95 gas and fill the tank. Each scooter has a different placement for the gas cap and a different magical twist of the key to pop it open. On this Yamaha, the gas cap was sensibly placed right at the front, and opening it required a fairly complex move with the key – placing it just right, pushing it in and twisting it in a special way. It took me a few tries to get it, but the cap popped open with a pleasing pop. The gas station attendant was the first one I’d come across in Taiwan who spoke English. He asked me if I wanted to “fill it up.” It came to exactly NT$145 for 4.76 liters of gas at 30.5 per liter.

Once I had gas, I did a bit of exploring. My first route took me down a side street that emerged right onto a series of fairly nice beaches. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but it was windy. I’m not talking about a gust here and there. I’m talking about a wind that usually comes along with a typhoon. That wind nearly blew my bus right off the road a number of times. On the scooter it was almost impossible to stay upright. The surf was not as big as I expected considering the power of the wind, but it was clearly far too dangerous to go into the water. At the first beach, there were several hundred young students. They were clearly there as part of some kind of organized trip and were divided into three large groups and they were all engaged in games in the sand. The waves were crashing on the beach, and they all sensibly were staying out of the water. I’ve been warned a number of times about the danger of swimming on the beaches of Taiwan. I still don’t know if that is the reflection of the surf here or the generally poor swimming skills of the Taiwanese. I’ve read that the beaches on the east coast are dangerous because there is no gradual ocean floor sloping off. The island is volcanic and is essentially the top of a mountain, so the ocean simply drops away to the ocean depths right at the shore. This makes for strong currents I’m told. In any event, I’ve been on beaches that looked perfectly normal yet with signs everywhere saying that swimming was not allowed because of the dangerous currents.

I sat astride my scooter at this beach just watching all the kids playing their games. While I was there, a beautiful dog missing one hind leg came hopping up to me He was a young dog – one of those traditional Taiwanese dogs with tiger stripes and the mottled coloring. He was such a sweet dog, and I think he was used to going on rides on scooters. He came up and pushed his head into the crook of my knee. I think he wanted his head and neck scratched and to be generally petted, but I think he also wouldn’t have minded if I’d moved my leg so that he could hop up onto the scooter’s platform and go for a ride. I wouldn’t have minded at all. I’d like to have adopted him then and there and taken him with me. He was a sweet dog.

In an effort to get the lay of the land, I then hit the road and drove along the coast road out of Kenting. I had maps of the area, but they didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. I didn’t have a sense of where I was and I didn’t know what the terrain would be like. I thought the terrain would be rugged like along the east coast, but it was more gentle with rolling hills instead of high mountains and cliffs. Most of this region is part of a national park and at a lot of the beaches there were lookout points, but also signs saying that you weren’t allowed, under penalty of big fines, to go into the area. I drove along the coast for thirty kilometers or so right to the very end. It was a challenging ride, as the wind threatened to toss me right over. It was, in all honesty, too dangerous to be out riding. The wind was that strong. I saw some other people on scooters, and they had all made the wise decision to turn around and go back to the town. Several girls were at the side of the road and too frightened to move forward or backward. Every time they tried to drive, the wind would blow them sideways and they’d nearly fall over. One girl had made it to the middle of the road and was stuck there. Cars had to slow down and go around her. Eventually, her passenger got off and the two of them walked the scooter to the side of the road.

I drove slowly and carefully and made sure of my rearview mirrors. The wind occasionally was strong enough that I veered a little bit out into the road and I didn’t want to do that just when a car or one of the blue trucks of death was racing past. The hardest part, though, was the sand. This area is very sandy and the wind picked up the sand and threw it at me with the force of a sandblaster. It hurt my legs, arms, and face so badly that at times, I couldn’t keep going. I had to stop and turn around until the wind dropped.

I kept going, however, and eventually I reached the end of the line. I’m not sure what the road does there, but I came to a place with a gate. A woman stopped me and charged me NT$110 to go through. I knew it wasn’t worth it since it was so late that it was almost time to go back before the sun went down. But I paid the fee and got a couple of tickets. A kilometer or two past the gate, I came to a big empty parking lot. I assumed there was some kind of attraction there, but I had no idea what it was. The road continued past the parking lot, but it was blocked with tire-shredding spikes. I imagine I could have walked down there, but all I saw was more rocks and sand and water. Besides, the wind was blasting stronger than ever and I could barely stand on my feet. Water was blowing off the ocean and drenching me, and any walk down the coast wasn’t going to be a casual and pleasant stroll. I enjoyed the setting for a few minutes and then turned to take on the difficult drive back to Kenting. The wind hadn’t let up at all. The only difference was that I was getting sand-blasted on the opposite side. My leg and arm were red and sore on my right side. Now I was getting a left side to match.

My evening in Kenting was a laid-back one consisting mainly of walking around the main drag and then reading in my comfortable room. All of the restaurants were open and all the spaces in between were filling up with temporary vendors selling items and offering the typical range of games for children. I’ve seen this kind of strip in many places in Taiwan and they don’t change that much. I thought about going into one of the restaurants and having a good meal, but the prices kept me out. The prices were aimed at those here for a special holiday and at those in large groups. The menus on the streets generally had set meals for two people starting at NT$1,600 and going up from there. I think a lot of people that come to Kenting do so one time in their life. It’s a trip that everyone has to do once, and they are prepared to spend some money. Most of the Taiwanese I know have been to Kenting, but it was always a long time ago and just once. Perhaps people do come here several times, but they would be the surf and diving crowd and I think they look for cheaper options.

Tags: Formost Hotel, Kenting Trip, NT, scooter, Taiwan