Friday September 25 11:00 a.m.

7-11 in downtown Tainan

You’ll probably laugh to see that I am back in a 7-11. Do I ever leave these places? I actually tried very hard to go somewhere else this morning for a cup of coffee. I wanted to go to a local type of place, but all of the ones in this neighborhood only have outdoor seating. It’s extremely hot already, and sitting next to heavy traffic doesn’t help with the mood. I did see a Starbucks yesterday, and I decided to go there. My usual bad luck with such things was operating though, and the place didn’t open until 11:00 and it was only 10:15. I became bound and determined to sit inside in a nice coffee shop in air-conditioned comfort. I decided to just walk until I found one. Well, I walked and walked and walked. Sweat started to pour down my body, my T-shirt got soaked, and my mood got worse and worse. Still no coffee shops. I finally gave up and popped into a 7-11 – which are everywhere. I don’t really mind, to be honest. The coffee here is as good or better than anything that I get in other places. It is simple to order and is always hot and fresh. And it is air-conditioned, and they usually have a seating area where I can sit without being bothered. Anyway, here I am.

I didn’t have a very exciting evening. I was a bit low from not being able to finish my bike ride. I really didn’t want to be back in a big city again. It’s astonishing how quickly one can get used to being in the mountains and in small towns. For dinner, I ended up at a fairly nice Japanese restaurant. I often eat at these Japanese places for the simple reason that they often have pictures of the food on their menus. They also have plastic models of all their dishes in the window. It’s a simple matter to point at what you want. And the food is delicious.

In my previous time in Taiwan, I never found my inability to speak or read Chinese to be much of a handicap. This time, however, I’m finding that it is a real problem not to speak Chinese. I guess I’m just doing a lot more and wanting to do a lot more. And there is much less English in Tainan than in Taipei. That makes it very difficult to take advantage of all that a place like this has to offer. It’s astonishing how many street restaurants there are in Tainan. Considering how passionate the Taiwanese are about eating and drinking, you’d think they’d all be fat. But they are slim, and, as far as I know, healthy.

I spent the rest of the evening in my hotel room. I had plans to go out and explore the city, but I was tired. And I was worn down by the heat. The heat is a big problem for me. I just can’t get used to it. Simply wandering around and exploring is no fun when you are overwhelmed by the mugginess.

I also had vague plans to take my camera out on the town today and take pictures. However, that plan is probably going to be abandoned. It’s just too hot. People have told me that I was lucky not to have come back to Taiwan earlier in the summer. They all say that it has been brutally hot this year – much hotter than other years. That’s interesting considering that the summer in Canada was the coldest I’ve ever experienced.

Saturday September 26, 2009 9:35 a.m.

Train 1010 Car 4 Seat 52 from Tainan to Taipei

I’m back on the train heading back to Taipei. I think when the dust settles, I’ll think of this as a successful trip despite the cycling being cut short. There are some high points that make it all worthwhile. In particular, I keep thinking back to arriving in the ghost town of Taoyuan. How many times do you get to hang out with some drunk policemen in a ghost town at the end of 8 kilometers of cycling along a riverbed? Not many times I’m guessing.

I’m very glad I made the decision to cycle instead of going with my original plan to simply hang out in Tainan and Kenting. Had I just “hung out” I don’t think I would have had a very good time. I don’t know what I could have done to fill all the hours of the day and night. Cycling made all the difference. In fact, when I got on my bike this morning just to ride to the train station, I felt great. It felt great just to be on the bike again. I imagine I will do many similar trips in the future especially now that I have figured out the train system for transporting bikes. I think I will also be able to streamline my luggage quite a bit. It’s pretty clear that unless I deliberately plan to go camping in the wilderness, there is no point to bringing along a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and sleeping sheet. I will also not bother to bring jeans again. At the moment, these jeans are the only long pants I have that are wearable, so I brought them. But I only wore them once and even then they were too hot. I’ll have to find some pants made out of thinner material. It would also be nice to find some clothing more suitable to cycling in hot weather. My standard cotton T-shirts and cotton underwear and cotton shorts were pretty uncomfortable. The last three days, after I became more comfortable out there in the wild, I stopped wearing a shirt altogether. I thought perhaps it was a bit impolite to be shirtless in Taiwan, but I was much more comfortable, and I don’t think people here care that much about what foreigners do. We can get away with just about anything. Of course, I couldn’t go totally shirtless. I was smart enough to realize that doing so would lead to a bad sunburn. I eased myself into it, taking off my shirt for just short periods of time now and then and building up a resistance to the sun. I did that mainly in the morning when the sun was still low in the sky. I also did it when there was a lot of cloud cover or when I was cycling through heavily wooded areas where the road was in shade much of the time. Once the sun was overhead later in the day, I had to put my shirt back on. The heavy cotton felt very uncomfortable and confining and hot at that point, but I had no choice. A sunburn would have been even more uncomfortable in the long run. I know from experience that it is easy to get a bad burn when you are on a bicycle. Since you are moving, the air can cool you down, and it feels much cooler than it really is. You don’t feel the hot sun as much, and you don’t realize just how badly you are burning. The worst burn I ever got came from a similar situation when I was snorkeling. My back was exposed to the hot Thai sun for hours, yet the cool water flowing over my back from time to time kept me feeling cool. I burned so badly that I couldn’t lie on my back for days.

I don’t ever want to wear the Lycra cycling clothing that most people wear. That seems a bit much to me. People in full cycling gear look a bit like Martians to me. I’d rather just look like a normal person on a bicycle. Taiwanese, however, like most Asians are very comfortable in uniforms of any kind. Every activity demands a certain set of clothing and they like to dress the part. I prefer not to dress the part. I’m thinking there must be some clothing that is thin and non-absorbent and yet comfortable and easy to wash and fast to dry. It will give me a project to find this kind of gear over the next little while.

Getting on this train was as simple and pleasant as all my experiences with Taiwanese trains to date. I woke up with plenty of time and helped myself to a simple breakfast in the hotel’s dining room. Then I carried my bags down to the lobby and hooked them all up to my bicycle. It went a lot better this time, and I didn’t look like a complete amateur. I felt like a fraud, though, because all of my new friends in the hotel – the clerks and cleaners and cooks – thought I was riding my bike to Taipei. I didn’t want to tell them that I was only riding to the train station and then taking the train to Taipei. I felt particularly bad when they actually applauded as I left. As I said before, cycling is now very popular here, and people think of it as a good thing to cycle. It’s an amusing reaction. For me, cycling is simply a pleasure. It isn’t good or bad. It is just the way that I like to get around. The Taiwanese, however, see it as a noble thing, something that is terribly difficult but good for you – like exercising. Dozens of people who passed me in their cars on this trip honked their horns and gave me a thumbs-up. Many more shouted “Jiayo!” out the window. Loosely translated, I think this means “Go! Go!” It’s an encouraging sort of phrase. I waved back to all of these people, but I felt a bit strange. I wasn’t cycling in the way that they thought I was cycling. It wasn’t a hardship that I was enduring, so I didn’t need encouragement.

I had the Tainan train station all figured out, so it was an easy matter to ride my bike directly to the baggage area. Everyone there knew me by then, and it was easy to fill out the forms and hand over the cash. And I had every confidence that my bicycle was going to get on the right train and that it would show up in Taipei. I think a lot of people would find it expensive to pay as much for the bike as for themselves. It essentially doubles the price of my train ticket. But it is worth it to me to be able to leave all my pannier bags on the bike. It couldn’t possibly be more convenient. I’ve dreamed of similar situations in the past. How amazing would it be to be able to just ride your bike to an airport with all your pannier bags still on the bike and then just hand it over as luggage? The fact that you can do that here in Taiwan on a train is a great thing. In safety- and efficiency-obsessed Canada, such a thing is inconceivable. Bicycles have to be dismantled and placed inside boxes. That makes it much more difficult to go on a cycling trip like this. There are now only two trains a day running out of my hometown of Sarnia. And neither of those trains allows checked baggage of any kind. So even if I did dismantle my bike and box it, I would then have to drive to London to get a train that would take the box as checked baggage.

After I had checked in my bicycle, I went to the main train station to wait for my train. I had left myself plenty of time and I now had nearly an hour to kill before my train arrived. The train stations in Taiwan are generally pretty old and interesting. They aren’t luxurious, but they are fully functional and comfortable. They are generally open to the outside so there isn’t any air conditioning, but there are usually these giant air circulators ranged around the outer walls. When I build up a layer of sweat, I get up and stand in front of these things to cool down. Most train stations also have a 7-11 as well as three or four other shops and cafes and stores. I can’t help but contrast that with the train stations that I am most familiar with in Canada – those in Sarnia, London, Guelph, and Toronto. There is literally nothing in those stations. Sarnia’s station has a vending machine for candy and soft drinks, and that’s it. London’s has the same. And in Toronto, I believe the best you’ll find is a Harvey’s. Toronto’s Union Station in particular surprises me in how unfriendly it is. I passed through it twice recently and reflected on how awful it was.

This morning, I got my usual coffee from 7-11 and a newspaper. I sat for a while and drank my coffee and caught up on the world and Taiwanese news. Considering how much I travel, you’d think I’d be more interested in current events, but I never have been. The news never seems to change. If you handed me a paper from ten years ago and told me it was published today, I could read it and probably not even notice that it was ten years old.

There is a lot of information available in the train stations here in both Chinese and English. So it was easy to see that my train, train 1010 to Taipei, left from platform 1 and that it was on time. Another fantastic thing about trains here is that they have reserved seating. I hate the stress in Canada that comes from having to stand in line and then fight for your seats. I can feel the tension levels start to rise as everyone stands in line and waits for the train. Here in Taiwan, you get a reserved seat by car number and seat number. Then when it comes close to your departure time, you simply go to your platform. The platforms are clearly marked as to where each car stops. In Canada, you have no idea where to go. You are kept inside the train station far away from the trains until just before you are supposed to board. Then everyone is released all at once to pour onto the platform and try to find your car. None of the cars are labeled, and you have to ask the VIA Rail employees if Sarnia passengers go in this car or that car or what. It’s much more relaxed here.

My train was scheduled to leave at 9:32. Perfectly confident, I went out onto platform 1 at 9:25 and I walked to the sign that said “Car 4.” At 9:30, my train arrived. It was clearly labeled as train 1010, and Car 4 stopped right in front of me. The door opened and people got off. Then we got on. My seat was the first seat inside the door – an aisle seat. And at 9:32, the train left.

The only wrinkle in the trains here is that they also sell standing-room-only tickets. I assume they are cheaper, but I don’t know by how much. These passengers will sometimes sit in an empty seat. So it can happen that when you get on a train with a ticket for a reserved seat, you might find someone already sitting in it. However, you just indicate to them that it is your seat, and they readily get up and give it to you. These people are usually going just short distances, so it is no hardship for them to stand up.

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