Day 08 – Hualien to Yuli – Tropic of cancer

2018-10-27

Start: 11:00 / 104 km / 984 hm

Despite being misty, this was a beautiful day of riding. Temperature was still quite high and with the subtropical humid, cycling was more then sweaty.

Choosing the route inwardly the land and taking the road 193 as an alternative to the official cycling way proofed to be a perfect choice. Almost zero to none traffic on the streets for the first 50 km – encountered about 10 cars on this section.

Wonderful countryside with loads of palm and banana trees, again endless green fields of rice, ready to be harvested.

This way along the countryside was todays absolute cycling highlight. With a clear sky this must be more than a dream to ride.

Later got a little bit lost on a special cycling way, as it was designed as a round course through the woods. Luckily some fellow taiwanese cyclists gave me some advice to find out…allthough actually it was the look on the map that helped, but they tried to explain it very nicely to me at least.

Last bit was a little bit dull, long straight highway with okayish traffic, but these roads take you very fast to your destination.

Yuli

Arriving there, the owner of the stay was a little bit scared and suspicious about me, as she had overlooked the booking – but this soon cleared. Getting to the room, I was then scared. Kind of a topic room, with the topic being teddy bears. Somehow funny, but yet ugliest accommodation on the trip.

Anyway she was super nicely and guided me to a overcrowded (in a good way) stinky tofu restaurant. Would love to have tried, but was impatient and went for a noodle soup and dumplings instead.

While walking around I also witnessed some surrealistic, but sad scene. A guy, who seemed to be so obsessed with his car, had parked his ugly Porsche in the living room, with almost no space left for living. Time for a therapist, dude.

On the early way back home (was absolutely tired), fireworks and music came to my ears. Just thought to give it a look…and bham! This was some sort of ethnical festival, people told me it a kind of temple fair. A little bit like carnival, wagons moving through the streets – but way much nicer. There was really old religious music being played live, beside some trap music coming from fire spitting cars.

Think this was one of the best raves in the last 10 years. The old music was very percussive, big gongs and strange trumpets. I was the only westerner there, walking with them through the streets.

All ended up at a place a little bit off town, where all the portable temples had a chance to perform on their own after an incredible deafening firework. So lucky to have witnessed this!

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