Sun Moon Lake

November 11, 2024

Rest Day

Mei Jen House is a great little hotel. It is very quiet and comfortable. The owners are a lovely family who live in the building with their cat named Puma. The daughter and mom are the front of house. The dad is a retired culinary instructor who headed off to China today with a team entered in a competition. His trophies and team photos are on display in the breakfast room upstairs.

We decided to take the day off today, and enjoyed a lazy morning reading and catching up with people. Rick and I both took our bikes to the nearby Giant store to see about getting our granny gears back - it’s mostly a rental shop for the many hundreds of people who bike around the lake each day, mostly on e-bikes. Rick’s bike was quickly tweaked back to health, but the mechanic said I had to leave mine. We traded WhatsApp details and I hoped for the best.

There are a fair number of western tourists here, the first we’ve seen since Taipei. Rick saw the Spanish flat tire guy again. He had wrapped his bike in plastic bags to be allowed get on a bus. His flat had been fixed.

After breakfast we walked around a bit of the lake. There was a nice breeze at times.

We booked another night here so we can bike around the lake tomorrow. It’s a vacation, after all, and doesn’t have to be hard work everyday. I’ll have to move from my room with a view though.

Mei Jen House is tall and skinny. There are just two rooms on each floor. I have the 2nd storey balcony.

Having left my bike behind, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast sitting outside. It included a chicken croissant, salad, potatoes, and the first passion fruit of the trip.

Dogs in carriages are a thing here. This corgi arrived for breakfast.

The lake was looking good today. We’ve been very lucky with the weather so far.

Sun Moon Lake is a reservoir built during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The Taiwanese have a great respect for the Japanese because they generally improved the standard of living here through things like education and infrastructure improvements.

Signs warn of various creatures, but don’t mention the alarmingly large spiders. Not quite the size of my hand, but close.

There is no swimming allowed in the lake except one day a year when 25,000 people can swim across the lake during an organized event. Official reasons for no swimming are: (a) that it’s drinking water, and also (b) that there are too many tour boats so swimmers might get run over. Bit of a contradiction. I’d say? All those boats can’t be great for the water quality. It’s apparently got a silty bottom, so probably isn’t the most pleasant to wade into. There are stand up paddle boards for rent, but we were content to stay on shore today. And despite all the people around, we didn’t see anyone on a SUP or kayaking.

In the early afternoon, I returned to the bike shop while Sue did laundry. I’m in a bit of a pickle. When the mechanic worked on my bike, he made it so it had zero gears in the back, a significant downgrade from just missing the granny gear. Then he showed me the problem he was trying to deal with - a plastic bit in the SRAM shifter is broken. He doesn’t have parts, and said Giant shops all around Taiwan won’t have them either since Giant uses only Shimano for mechanical shifting. Argh. Now I know why the mechanic in Dongshi didn’t look too happy when he sent me away. The mechanic here suggested maybe buying a shifter online and taking it to a shop - good idea, other than that I’m illiterate in Chinese and haven’t been able to find one online here. He sent me away (no charge) after finally getting it back to having everything but the granny gear. Having had no luck finding a shifter to order online, I sent emails to local SRAM distributors and to the shop where Rick and Sue rented, since their bikes are SRAM. But that shop in Taipei is closed until Wednesday, and one of the distributors I emailed is away until Friday. Fingers crossed that the cobbled together fix lasts. Ironically for a part made in Taiwan, it seems easier to buy on Canadian websites.

We’ll see tomorrow on our ride around the lake how it’s riding. I don’t suppose it helped that he dismantled it and reassembled it today. If tomorrow’s ride doesn’t go well, I can have him choose me a medium gear in the back and then I’ll at least have two speeds, thanks to my front derailleur. The next day is almost entirely downhill, and then we can choose VERY flat rides if necessary.

[Further research tells me that the broken bit is called a cable spool, and it’s notorious for breaking in the way mine has. SRAM won’t provide this cheap plastic part, wanting to sell a whole new shifter. There’s a company in the UK, Ratio Technology, that makes an aluminum replacement part for a whole lot cheaper than a new shifter. And there are also instructions online for 3D printing a new plastic one.]

The afternoon was almost shot after sitting around the bike shop, but we did make time for bubble tea flavoured ice cream in afternoon, then beer on the rooftop terrace while we watched the sun set. There was a decent selection of beer at yet another 7 Eleven - one of three within spitting distance of our hotel.

Checking out the beer selection at 7-Eleven.

We have a view of a wee slice of the lake from the rooftop terrace.

We had a delicious dinner at nearby restaurant serving traditional local cuisine. It was vegetable forward, very light, and flavourful. We had multiple dishes. And then fresh pineapple for dessert. The pineapple we’ve had in Taiwan is okay, but nowhere near as good as what’s available in Hawaii. I preferred the passion fruit we got with our brunch.

Dinner was beautifully presented. This was a cold salad of blanched greens with pineapple.

It was an enjoyable day, other than the worry about my gears. There were blue skies all day, and the weather app said the high was 27 C. Perhaps best of all, we have clean clothes.

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Graham FinchThsis likely too late, but there's a small road south from the lake - much better than Highway 21. I did it a while ago...

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/formosa/
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1 week ago

Betsy EvansWe took route 131 down to Shuili, which was quiet and beautiful too.

Graham - did you see my message about an internet search for a local shifter?
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1 week ago

Susan CarpenterSorry to hear about your SRAM shifter woes -I hope that you can find a replacement part soon. It was nice that you were able to end a disappointing day with a fabulous meal.
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1 week ago

Betsy EvansTo Susan CarpenterThere is a possible shifter fix available in Kaohshiung. SRAM sells replacement parts here (unlike in North America), and the distributor found me a shop that has them in stock. So hopefully the busted shifter will be fixed in a couple of days. 🤞
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1 week ago

Graham FinchTo Betsy EvansNo -I didn't see that request. I'm not getting notifications for some reason.

Hopefully you can find a decent bike shop - as mentioned above, a bigger place should have the component you want.

Will you visit the small island of Xiuliu - just south of Kaoshuing? It's only about 10km circumference, but has a couple of nice beaches and few vehicles. Here are a few pages of journal from April...

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/covid/april-9th/
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6 days ago

Betsy EvansTo Graham FinchYes, our plan is to head to the island, as long as the weather looks good.
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6 days ago

Graham FinchTo Betsy EvansIt's pretty warm here now!

below is a journal of mine from when I went to the island and rode around the area south of Kaoshuing - with train rides.

You can't get on/off at Kaoshuing and need to do so at nearby stations.

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/kaoshuing/
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6 days ago

Rachael AndersonGood luck getting your bike fixed.
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5 days ago