Our Kaohsiung hotel was in a great location and was well maintained, but it was older than we’ve generally stayed in, and a bit noisy compared to newer places.
We woke to sunshine and a good buffet breakfast. As usual for here, got a good feed of veggies. They also had fruit - best pineapple we’ve tasted in Taiwan, plus yellow watermelon.
We had a very slight delay in departure while Rick futzed with his sticky disk brake caliper. He’ll attempt to ride today using only his front brake. That’s not easy to remember.
It was already stinking hot when we left the hotel around 9. Kaohsiung has an interesting waterfront which seems to have been redeveloped in recent years. There were lots of paths, giant office buildings, and a cruise terminal.
The Kaohsiung waterfront. There were a few runners and bikers out on this Sunday morning.
We had a hot and flat 30 km ride to Donggang, with gears that I didn’t really need. But it’s still nice to have them. We made only one 7-Eleven stop and had ice cream before lunch. Did I mention that it was hot?
Like the past couple of days, we had a seemingly endless string of traffic lights with long waits. Today’s route took us past some heavy industry. including refineries. And also through lots of construction - we were on a brand new scooter/bike land for quite a while.
We had about a 45 minute wait at Donggang for the fast ferry to Liuqiu. There were lots of signs warning that there were no ATMs on the island that accept foreign credit cards - so cash is king. I enjoyed some fresh coconut water while we waited inside for the ferry. We had a slightly bouncy 25 minute ride on a boat that seemed reasonably full. It was passengers only - no cars. Scooters are king on the island. We were ready for lunch on arrival, and found a great place by chance. I figured I’d eat fish while I was here, but there wasn’t any on the menu.
Liuqiu is small. Only 12 km circumference. We managed to exceed that distance because we had trouble finding our accommodation. We booked a place on booking.com, but received a reply from a similarly named hotel in a different location. And the Google maps location was wrong. Eventually the owner texted us the location. We were a bit cranky and more than ready for a cold beer by the time we arrived.
The route called for us to descend some stairs. Fortunately, we had a ramp.
We walked down the road for an outdoor dinner at a restaurant where we were the only customers. It took forever to arrive - there was a problem with the rice, so they started over. But it was tasty when we finally got it. And we had fun with the waiter, who was thrilled when we asked for chopsticks instead of using a fork.
