Through the Old Caoling Tunnel and Around the Coast
I did not having a great sleep after feeling the earthquake, even though I knew it was a minor one.
Motivated to leave my room early by the crummy wifi, I took my tea down to a comfy chair in the lobby. Then I went out for breakfast and had another dan bing - I’ll miss them. Although I’d add a bit of cilantro. That doesn’t seem to be a thing here.
A market was underway with some great looking fruit, but I’m still eating my way through my stash from Shoufeng.
It was a flat 2 km ride to the train station, where I arrived an hour early. My track was already showing. Another cycle tourer with panniers was trying to get to the tracks already, but was turned away because he was too early. I asked him, and he was booked on the same train as me. He was from Spain (Menorca), also nearly finished his trip. His English was as bad as my Spanish, so we didn’t chat much. But I had a friendly interaction with a local fellow who was practicing his Duolingo French in the waiting area.
There were more loud fighter jets overhead today. That’d get old fast.
The platform was easy to access via a big elevator that fit two of us with loaded bikes. And it was an easy roll-on train, with loads of time because the train originated in Hualien. Bikes were allowed only in the final car.
I saw a fellow bagging his road bike with the front wheel off, so he could get on any train, even the fast ones. I was limited to certain trains by having an uncovered bike, and by my chosen destination, which limited me to a local train that’d take three hours.
There were four of us with bikes in the huge car, including David, a recently retired teacher from Whitehorse who is also heading back to Canada on Monday. He got off the train well before me, and will ride some of the busy coast I was glad to avoid because of the steady truck traffic. The train car never filled up on my three hour journey. Disembarking at the small Fulong station was easy too - I just rolled off and used large elevators to get off the platform and out to the street. Easy easy.
I dropped my bags at my funky homestay above a surf shop, and set out at about 3 pm on a short but scenic ride. There was no time to linger, since sunset is at 5 pm and it gets very dark very fast.
The entire ride was on quiet roads or on a bike lane physically separated from the nearby highway. It wasn’t as sunny as predicted, but it also wasn’t cold.
My route included the 2 km long Old Caoling Tunnel. It was opened in 1924, abandoned as a rail tunnel in the 1980’s, then opened as a rail trail in 2008.
This tunnel draws lots of visitors, I think. Walking is allowed only on weekdays because it’s busy with cyclists on weekends. Mostly on rental e-bikes, I suspect, from the look of the shops.
Fulong has perhaps the nicest beach I’ve seen yet in Taiwan. Once again, there was a ‘no swimming’ flag flying. My host, the surfer, says it’s because many Taiwanese are bad swimmers, and there are rip currents, especially after a big rain storm or typhoon. He figured it’d be fine today. The water here is still 24 C, which is warmer than the air was today. The surf shop isn’t busy this time of year because it’s normally so rainy. In the summer, it looks like they have multiple beer taps going, but not today.
I had a bento box for dinner with braised pork, a tea egg, tofu, and various vegetables. Even though I ate in, it was served using disposable everything.
Taiwan tidbit: last week Taiwan won the Premier12 championship, an Asian baseball tournament. They upset Japan, and it was big news here because it was their first ever international tournament win. Because of China’s bullying, the team is not allowed to have ‘Taiwan’ on their jerseys. The uniforms have only a blank space where the country name should be, and a very small ‘CT’ logo (Chinese Taipei) on one side. When they won, the captain made a now viral gesture covering up the CT and swiping across his chest where it should say Taiwan.
