September 20, 2009

Well, I made it to Tainan without incident. The train just raced through the countryside stopping here and there. It was pretty effortless and painless. I can’t say that the scenery was anything to write home about. The east coast of Taiwan is quite scenic. There are mountains and steep cliffs and that sort of thing. But the west part of the island is largely flat and developed. It felt at times like I’d never left Taipei. We just traveled through built-up areas that looked like the outskirts of Taipei. I chatted with my seatmate from time to time. He was a young medical student going home for the weekend.

The train arrived at the Tainan station at 1:13, exactly on time. I was a bit disappointed by Tainan, and so far I continue to be a bit disappointed. I guess I had built the place up in my mind to be more interesting than the average city in Taiwan. Yet, it struck me on first glance as almost exactly like Taipei and every other city. It’s certainly quieter and less crowded and congested than Taipei, but other than that it is much the same. I’m not sure what I was expecting.

At first, I found the place to be a bit cooler than Taipei. That didn’t last long though. I had to wait for an hour for the train with my bicycle on it to arrive, so I decided to walk out into the city and look for a hotel that someone had recommended. I never did find the hotel, but I found that just a short walk got me just as hot and sweaty as a similar walk in Taipei would have. I couldn’t find the hotel that was recommended to me, but there were hotels everywhere and I checked a few of them out. None of them were standouts, and they all had the exact same price – NT$980 for a simple double. I’m spoiled when it comes to hotels I guess. I expect to get a perfectly comfortable place for around $5 Canadian, so I balk even at the reasonable price of NT$980 or $33. If I were travelling around Canada, I’d be thrilled to find a comfortable hotel for $33 a night. Here, though, I find handing over a thousand-dollar bill to be a bit much. I just have to adjust mentally.

After checking out the hotels, I went back to the train station to get my bicycle. I was pleased when that turned out to be as easy as can be. There were signs in English leading me to the luggage claim area. I showed them my receipt, and they wheeled my bike out, and that was that. My bike made a bit of a sensation when it showed up. I don’t think anyone here had seen anything quite like it. In fact, it made an impact on me. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that bike fully loaded up with all my gear. As I already mentioned, I hesitated to bring all of my camping gear. I decided to bring it, but when I saw the bike fully loaded, I wondered if it was the right choice. I have all four pannier bags, plus my tent and sleeping bag. Add to that the sheer weight of the bike itself, and you are talking about a very awkward beast to ride around – especially when you are in a crowded city center and will suddenly be faced with having to carry all those bags up into hotel rooms. When you stay in hotels, the tent and sleeping bag is just more luggage that has to be carried around. I did some more reading on the route I’ll be following over the mountains, and it sounds like there will be places to stay almost everywhere and I won’t even need the tent or sleeping bag.

I shouldn’t be too worried about it, though. I have had this feeling on almost every trip I’ve taken. The first time you set off on a fully-loaded bike, it is quite a shock. You are usually riding your bike around whatever city you are in as you are getting ready. You get used to the feeling of the bike by itself. Then when you put on all that luggage, it makes a big change. You even feel a bit silly to be carrying all that gear. It gets worse when you get to your first stop, and you have to unhook all those bags and carry everything into your room. Soon, though, it starts to become a routine. You get used to the extra weight on the bike. It starts to feel natural. And you become used to the routine of taking the bags off the bike and putting them back on in the morning. Lots of people insist on traveling as light as possible. I’m not one of those people…

I rode my bike out from the train station and into the heat of Tainan. At first, I went towards this backpacker hostel type of place that someone had told me about. I got about halfway there and I decided to turn around. I didn’t want to be on the outskirts of town. I wanted to be right downtown near all the coffee shops and restaurants. So I turned around and rode back to one of the hotels that I’d looked at. I never did go up to see one of the rooms. I just looked at the pictures in their brochure in the lobby. Now I know why you don’t just look at the brochures. Brochures, by definition, are a pack of lies. In this case, the pictures of the rooms looked a lot nicer and BIGGER than the rooms turned out to be in real life.

Still, I really shouldn’t complain. There’s nothing wrong with the hotel at all. I should probably cultivate a habit of not critiquing so much. The woman at the front counter was extremely friendly and she spoke enough English that we could handle the entire checking in process in that language. And checking in was completely informal – something that I like. All I had to do was write my passport number and my name on a scrap of paper and hand over the money. That was it. They have a storage room right on the main floor that was dedicated to bicycles. Apparently they rent them out. So I could just wheel my fully-loaded bike into the lobby and into this storage room. Then I unhooked all my bags – six of them in total – and carried them in one trip into the elevator. My room was on the seventh floor, and I quickly found it.

The room is smaller than I expected, but other than that, it is more than adequate. As I said, if you got a room like this for $33 in Canada, you’d be ecstatic. The room is a complete hotel room. It has a comfortable bed, a TV, a fridge, a complimentary bottle of chilled water, a tap for boiling water, complimentary instant coffee and tea. The bathroom is fully modern and comes complete with a full set of towels and complimentary soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, and special flossing tools. There is a closet with lots of nice wooden hangers. And, most important, it is air-conditioned. So for $33, I’m doing quite well. I can’t complain at all.

I felt like I should rush out and go look at the historical sites in Tainan, but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m actually not that interested in stuff like that. Tainan is supposed to have some interesting temples, but I’ve seen lots of temples. They don’t excite me. There is an old Dutch fort here that dates from 1630 or something like that. I guess I’ll go look at it at some point tomorrow. I was more interested in getting a cup of coffee or tea and relaxing.

To continue the blow-by-blow, I took a shower and put on some fresh clothes and then went out into the city. I was going to look for a Starbucks or someplace like that, but I found a little coffee shop right next door to the hotel. I ordered an iced coffee, which was not quite what I wanted. Then I ordered an iced milk tea, and that is really hitting the spot.

6:00 p.m.

I am being a major tourist it seems. I started off just looking for dinner, and I ended up at a standard buffet style restaurant. I think most people wouldn’t think much of these places, but they are my favorite. It is essentially a long buffet table with 25-30 different dishes in warming trays. One gets a plate and fills it up with whatever you want. Then you bring your plate on a tray to the cash register where you get a bowl of rice and some soup. A large tureen of some kind of cold tea completes the meal. The woman at the cash register simply glances at what you put on your plate and then gives you a price. If you only get one meat dish, the price hovers around NT$70 or $2 Canadian. Two meat dishes might boost the price to $100 NT or $3 Canadian. It’s a great deal and the food is fantastic. At least it is fantastic for those with simple tastes. I don’t need my food to be exotic. I just need it to be filling and simple. Depending on the location, these buffet restaurants can be frequented by students or by office workers. The one I found seemed to be popular with students. They all got a kick out of watching the foreigner in their midst. I’m not used to that, as they are quite used to seeing foreigners in Taipei. Here in Tainan, I guess we aren’t quite as common.

After my simple meal, I went walking along the main street. I had no destination in mind. I just wanted to look around. I turned a couple of corners, and by chance, I ended up standing in front of the biggest tourist attraction in Tainan – Chikhan Tower. According to the blurb that comes with your ticket, the fort was built by the Dutch in 1653. They called it Fort Providentia, but the Taiwanese renamed it “Tower of Savages” or “Tower of Red-haired Barbarians.” I don’t quite understand the Dutch connection, because nothing about the fort looks Dutch. It doesn’t even look like a fort. It looks more like a simple Chinese temple to me. From what I read, I gather that the original fort was almost completely destroyed several times and then rebuilt. Some of the original foundation remains, but other than that, I think what we see today was more or less built by the Taiwanese and has nothing to do with the Dutch. Frankly, I don’t see the Dutch putting dragons everywhere and a row of nine stone tortoises with tablets on their backs – especially when the tablets are carved in Chinese.

None of that matters, though. The grounds are very nice, and it was pleasant to walk around and poke around. There was a fish pond with a little fish food dispenser in the shape of a big fish. For NT$10, you get a little plastic tube of fish-food pellets. The fish gathered by the hundreds when I threw my pellets into the water. When you’re done, there is a convenient container nearby for returning your tube. I couldn’t read the Chinese on the container, but the tiny hole drilled into the side (just the right size for a tube) was a dead giveaway.

After seeing the fort, I planned to return to my hotel for an early night. However, just across the street I spotted a place that advertised itself as the first teahouse in Taiwan to serve bubble-milk tea. This is a Taiwanese invention I’m told. It is essentially sweet milk tea with tapioca pearls. It’s very popular here, and has since been exported all around the world. I know this because I had to write an article about it for my magazine long ago. I remember even mentioning this restaurant and its claim to be the first – a claim that has been disputed by a couple of other places.

Tags: bike, Chihkan, South Cross-Island Highway Trip, Tainan, Taipei, Taiwan, train