The sun slowly sinks bellow the horizon while we are entering the port of Keelung. A pilot comes aboard and guides us along the right route to the peer, while on a wall on shore the vague remains of a once proud 'Welcome to China' are visible. A left over from times long gone, in which Tiawan and China still belonged to the same nation. The communists beat the democrats, which took up their refuge on the island, and until present times both still consider the other occupants of their territories.
Clearing immigration is easy, and the world outside bursting with energy. Such a difference compared to the boring, well organized and risk-less Japan! Thousands of scooters are crossing around beeping their horns, zigzagging from left to right over the multi-track roads, it is filthy and the air is filled with exhaust fumes and the smells of wonderful food. Like ants the Taiwanese are crawling around the night market that fills most of the city center, while the peaks along the port are decorated with the most amazing temples and a Hollywood-like display of lighted letters welcomes visitors to the town.
Rather than anything would I feel like exploring this fascinating circus, while I can still feel the excitement and adrenaline of exploring yet another new culture, like playing a familiar game of which you don't exactly know the rules yet. For now I will have to travel on though, as I am supposed to still ride to Taipei tonight. Doing so turns out to be a little more challenging than I first assumed though.
Without a map and using some logical thinking I manage to find the road heading out to the capital, but to actually find the address I am heading for is quite a different story. For some odd reason the street I am riding in never actually is the street I should be located in, and also the west continuously keeps on changing direction. When after some asking around I finally manage to point out my location again, it takes but mere minutes before the same situation repeats itself, and in this way the clock strikes eleven thirty when I manage to reach my host Ming, having seen most of the city already.
In the next couple of days I share in her apartment and, while she is busy working, go out into town. I manage to find some maps, gaze at the world's tallest building, pick up a flight ticket and enjoy the many ceremonies held to honor the ancestors and preparing for the upcoming new year's festival. Filled with devotion almost everyone seems to be occupied with praying, predicting the future, and sacrificing fruits and candy to the temple gods.
When the festival is about to brake loose, Ming departs for a visit to her parent, which means it's time for me to get back on my bike again. Tracking down the remains of Dutch and Portuguese colonial times as well as the road out of Taipei. In the end I manage in both, though it takes me another full day of cycling. While around me the firecrackers are setting of the blasts, I play hide and seek somewhere in a local forest, and enjoy some Taiwanese New Year's cake under the save shelter I call home by now.
At the rise of dawn members of the local polo club are surprised to stumble upon my presence and happily welcome me to their daily practice round. While I try to prepare some breakfast and break down my tent again, they spoil me with mugs of coffee, tea, cookies, candy, plenty of happy new year's and even one of the famous and well filled red envelopes. Amazing to be welcomed and celebrated by total strangers in a way like this.
Such hospitality doesn't seem to be an incident though. While slowly making my way south, alongside the street girls dressed in bikini are selling nuts and soft drinks and once back in Keelung ending up in a hotel that would normally rent by the hour, everyone just keeps on smiling and waving to me from endless queues of cars that seem to be barely moving. Kungsu whatsai!
Along the spectacular east coast and past cliffs of five hundred meters and over, I look out across a turquoise sea and the endless jungle. Moments later the road bends of into the mountainous center of the islands, leading me into the world of the clouds. Vegetation grows tinner and tinner and slowly the warm and humid forest changes into more moderate counterparts. Pine trees come next, until, at last, there is nothing but grasslands and bare stone rocks. From the gorges of on of world's most impressive canyons all the way up to a breath taking mountain pass at close to thirty three hundred meters. And after that of course, time for a down hill!
The hospitality of the Taiwanese around me seems limitless. While I am enjoying yet another tasty meal in some road-side restaurant, people pay my bills, and every so ofter I get handed over cookies, fruits and other snacks. 'Here, take this, you will need the calories', followed by a chorus of cheering, ranging from the local 'Jeijo!' to 'Gambate!' in Japanese or even an occasional 'You are the best!' in plain English.
I descend down into yet another valley. Unfortunately this one has a dead-end, due to one of Taiwan's common problems; a landslide. Every year these, together with the extreme rains during the monsoon season and an occasional earthquake, cause trouble to the island's roads, and quite often the damage done is to such an extend that repairs are close to impossible. Several of the main roads that once crossed the mountainous island have fallen victim to this fate already, and so has the side road I was planning on riding across. A wall of several meters of mud, and behind that on one side a dense jungle, and on the other a deep drop. I can see the village that was supposed to be my destination, but actually getting there is impossible. My only option is to turn my wheels and ride back along the same road.
This isn't as bad as it seems though, as most of Taiwan's inlands are inhabited by aboriginal tribes, and this area is no exception to that. This means as well that these parts have a completely different feel to them than the coastal areas inhabited by the Chinese. Village-like and easy-going, no hurrying or stress, music playing on high volume, smiling old ladies along the streets and little children running around naked.
Once back to the main road I find my way to Sun Moon Lake and enjoy a couple of nights in the local 'youth hostel'. It could as well have been called a 'five star resort', as I can't really remember sleeping in such a posh and luxury place for quite some time.
Through foggy mountain peaks and accompanied by monkeys, pheasants and other birds, I ride myself into the area around which most of Taiwan's tea is grown, not surprisingly called by the local name of chai-san, or, tea mountain. The cocktail of the day is a nice bled of heavy transpiration, full-wheat cookies, ice-cream, and lemon juice, stirred with a twist of long-legged banana spider.
Camping out is easy. There are plenty of small patches of grass behind little shops, and sleeping out in a city park seems to be an accepted thing to do. Just like the Taiwanese would do in their extremely crowded holidays, so it is just a matter of blending in. This works most of the time, albeit the triangular shape of my shelter sort of stands out in this nation of igloo-tents.
Being kept away from the wind by a group of training road-cyclists, I speed my final kilometers to Kaohsiung in a record time, and manage to arrange some final details with Malaysia Airlines concerning my flight to Malaysia. Finding Lisa, my host in Kaohsiung, fortunately turns out to be a whole lot easier than my disastrous straying in Taipei, and after a little less than an hour I find myself sitting on a couch in her generous apartment in one of the more up class neighborhoods of the city.
For celebrating Lantern Festival, the fourteenth day of the Chinese year, her friend Ben will be visiting a massive fireworks event in a town nearby. My initial reaction is to join him, until I find out that according to tradition the fireworks are actually shot into the audience instead of up in the skies. A yearly happening, pure for kicks, at which the audience goes dressed in several layers of fireproof clothing and a motorbike helmet. In the end I decide that finding some cardboard boxes to wrap my bicycle in is probably a better idea.
Doing so actually turns out to be a lot more difficult than I initially thought, as, so I find out, even though Taiwan is renowned for producing bicycles, the local produce reaches the bike shops completely assembled. Which means there are basically no cardboard bike boxes at bike stores. It seems fate is on my side though, as due to coincidental meetings on the street, I manage to get in touch with ITA Olympis, one of the country's most important bicycle exporters, and the manufacturer of the frames and components used in for example Ridley and Colnago bikes. Once they here about my trip, they are more than willing to donate me some pieces of cardboard, and during their lunch break they even help me to package my bike in a new record.
Yet another passer-by offers to bring both me and my bike to the airport, at which, as was agreed, I can temporarily park my boxed bike. This is how my tour through Taiwan ends at Lisa her couch after a couple of nice Belgian beers, a foot-massage and some great food, to be flown to Malaysia in the exorbitant luxury that is called business class. Taiwan was great, and maybe, one day, I might be back!
