2023-10-26
Start: 10:00 / Arrival: 16:45
Distance: 64km / Gained height 380hm
Woke up and the the heat was already beating. So strange, its the end of October and we’re complaining about the warm weather (in fact, this is really a quite demanding condition for cycling).
Had breakfast at the hotel, which was soy milk and a burger they had prepared for us. Really liked the down to earth atmosphere of the hotel. Then checked the local fishshop 50m down the road if he would have sole sashimi for us, but unfortunately no 😌
Then rode 4km to the Sanxiantai bridge and parked our bicycles at the bus stop. Walked to the bridge along the beach and then found out, that it is unfortunately closed to earthquake damage, as the base could be sliding.
Nevertheless had a beautiful view on the bridge and the surrounding coast, with its eroded stones coming out of the water.
Walked a little bit around, checked the touristic shops, ate some giant dumplings and drank a dragonfruit juice. Also some funny Indonesian tourist approached us and ask for a foto with us and him sitting on Bettinas bicycle. All accompanied by some musician playing sax to playback of old Mandopop songs 😉
Then started for the transfer to Taitung, which was a smooth ride along the pacific with the help of tailwinds. This was also a little bit of bombing hills, meaning taking the momentum from a descent to get quickly up the next slope. All in an astonishing scenery with the pacific on the left and mountains with palms on the right.
Weather was weird, quite hot, but sometimes cloudy with a little bit of fizzling rain. But overall quite “bearable”.
Arrived early at Taitung but had a hard time finding the entry to our hotel, as it was so tiny. Even asked a resident for the direction, while standing in front of the hotel😂
Had a refreshing shower as our cloth were so damp from the heat and walked out for getting something to eat. Ate fried squid, oyster pancake (30NTD!) and abalone at the night market. Meanwhile there was some heavy rain but it got quite hot directly afterwards, without any cooling winds. It’s so warm in the town!
While writing the blog on the street later, we got approached by some Taiwanese guy – quite kind, but it turned out later, that he belongs to a strange sect, something religious with vegan transhumanism combined. Very weird, but as he was polite, this was somehow entertaining and interesting.
After saying goodbye, went tired back to the hotel, had some last bits of stinky tofu crackers and fell to bed.
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