January 24, 2022
January 24th
Xiluo
Yuanlin City doesn't really have any claim to fame, which is what makes it appealing to us. The place is grounded and after sampling the Grand View's buffet breakfast, we ride off in search of the one place of historic interest I spotted on Google Maps - a wooden police station dating from Taiwan's period of Japanese colonial rule. It's not far away - maybe five-minutes' ride.
On our way to a Thai restaurant last night we walked past a high school and noticed the adjacent building had tall walls topped with razor wire. We guessed right that it's a prison and ride past it to take a snap of some large gas metres mounted on its painted wall.
The gates to the police station are locked, so it's a matter of taking some snaps from outside the compound. The villa-like building is similar to many from the Japanese period - dark wood and tall widows with a deep soffit below a gently pitched roof. The building is surrounded by a garden. Unfortunately the cloudy sky makes my snaps look flat.
There's a Louisa Coffee shop just a few blocks away. Guess what...
From the city centre (It's not really a city) our escape is easy - just ride a block from this main street to Guangming Street , then turn south.
Guangming Street is another shop-lined one that's quite narrow and without sidewalks (pavements) and has double yellow lines running along most of it. It's nothing to get excited about. When we cycled along a part of it late yesterday afternoon in search of a small hotel, it was crammed with young shoppers, but it's all a bit dead now.
The shut fashion outlets soon give way to open hardware stores and small noodle shops and humble cafes. We cross over intersection after intersection and in less than 10 minutes reach its southern end.
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Once we reach the edge of town it's a simple case of following a quiet route marked with bike path signs that runs beside a canal. It takes us southeast and towards our goal of a bunch of traditional homes belonging to an extended clan, located just on the east side of Route 137.
Unfortunately a shower begins a few hundred metres before we reach the 137, where there's a 7-Eleven that we could have sheltered in, so we nip to a shed belonging to an allotment. The absent owner has a school chair and a rudimentary homemade table where veg no doubt gets sorted, and a weathered and slightly tattered calendar hangs above it, bearing the day's date from about a year ago.
Once the shower has passed over, we ride up and over the 137 and the houses are closer than I imagined. It's obviously all private property, but there's a common area and the space between the few rows of single-floor homes is just about wide enough for a car. We venture in.
An alley goes up a slope to where it seems to end and we soon hear voices that are maybe telling we're trespassing and to clear off, so I do a U-turn and cruise back to a man of around 70 with slightly androgynous features. His wife soon appears and they're friendly and it seems they just want to say we can actually exit from the top end of the alley, but as that's not what we want, we change the subject and start to chat about a well that's just near their front door.
It has a heavy metal cover on it a metre in diameter and the man helps me slide it to one side to have a look. There's a circle water visible a long way down and you'd not want to fall in. It'd be a one-way trip. I suspect when they were young this was their water source. They say it's not potable.
A couple of tall concrete structures stand adjacent and we figure out they are mini water towers, with rusty pumps in the lower half and remnants of plastic piping connected to the well. The stuff has not been is use for ages.
The amiable couple are happy to let us wander around to snap away after I've taken their portraits. Their small home has been renovated and modernized (I notice the front door is a metal one), but others nearby are empty and have just been left at the mercy of the elements. They look interesting.
No doubt the younger generation have moved to cities to find work and many of the homes are in ruins. A lot of the rendering that would have concealed and protected the mud bricks has fallen off and wooden windows are rotting away. Some roofs have collapsed and visible between wooden support posts is wattle and daub. It's like being on an architectural field trip.
We don't see any other Liu clan members, but clearly some still live in various houses, with washing hanging out to dry on bamboo poles and cars parked here and there.
It's just a minute north to another compound, but the homes all look lived in and renovated. However, there are some right next to the lane that have clearly been empty for a while and one door has been knocked down. Inside I can see the lower section of the living room walls is hand-painted with green and yellow lines and it looks like a stencil and spray can were used. I use my flash to take a snap.
There's the original Liu clan house just further to the north, with a large pond and many more old homes, but we veer back to the 137.
Apparently this road is a popular cycle route, but it has fair bit of traffic and buildings line both sides. There's not much space to ride and it's not my cup of tea, so after a few hundred metres we get to a temple at Shetou and make a left off the 137 and start to climb. As expected, the lane is devoid of traffic.
It doesn't take long to ride under the high-speed rail line elevated high above.
It's slightly sunny now and we both begin to feel the heat and humidity, what with the lane going straight up the hillside at a decent incline. It's a proper fitness test and my heart rate is high. Sweat soaks my top and shorts and I use a bar towel to wipe it from my eyes. Eventually I throw in the proverbial towel and get off and walk. It's not much slower.
There's a modern-looking temple-monastery complex (Hutian Temple) at the top and five black dogs that must all be related in some way occupy a piece of the road at the T-junction. With fierce territorial tendencies, dogs are commonly a bane of anyone riding a bike, but these are clearly dopey creatures and simply gather round for a good sniff. One soon rolls over on his back and sticks his four legs up waiting for a belly rub, which g gladly provides. Maybe the monks have taught them respect and tolerance and we agree it's a shame we don't have any treats to feed them.
The lane is not quite at the top of the hillside, but it is elevated and provides a great view over to east. There is a ridge road (139) higher up, but it looks like it can be pretty busy.
This route is not really wide enough for two cars to pass but no vehicles come by as we pedal south. Google Maps actually denotes it as Evergreen Bike Path.
There are a few isolated farms between the trees that line the sides of the lane and this gives us welcome shade. We ride past orchards of starfruit and see a lot of the stuff has fallen and it lays on the verges looking like autumnal detritus.
With the haphazard orchards being so dense and dark, I resort to using my camera's flash to take a snap of some of the fruit hanging from short branches and the result looks a bit surreal...
One of my screenshots tells us to make a turn and drop back down the hillside to the 137 and I warn g that there's a small soy sauce factory near the bottom that I happened to notice on Street View. It seems worth braking for.
I recognize the small building, and rows of ceramic jars with loose covers are behind a low wall just as I saw and I decide to try my luck and ride into the entrance.
My bike gets parked and I walk between two buildings to get a good close up snap but a man aged around 40 comes out and obviously wonders what I'm up to. He doesn't seem to mind me taking a photo and another man appears and gestures to the rear of the yard, where there's a more modern looking warehouse. It's not of real interest to me, but then a woman comes over and speaks good English and hears me explain my interest in taking some snaps.
She says her family has been making soy sauce for 60 years and hopefully her two young boys will carry on the business. One of the men seems to be her husband and he says something to her and she goes off and comes back with two bottles packed in nice presentation boxes inside stiff card bags.
They're weighty and mine only just fit into my saddlebag, while g finds room in one of his panniers. I reckon we're both carrying an extra kilo, but the gift makes our day.
Although the countryside is crisscrossed with lanes, many only lead to farm houses and are effectively dead-ends.
We consult my screenshots before crossing over the 137, then continue south on a parallel lane. There's a small commune of old homes that mostly look abandoned that we look around and just 50 metres further along the lane, poking up above some fruit trees, the pointed ends of a swallowtail roof are visible and signify an important old house.
After making a turn to take a look, we find the metal gates locked, but it seems like it's a place that's open to the public (it's called Shetou Doushan Shrine). A sign indicates it closes for a long lunch break and a local woman walks over from a nearby parked car and confirms it. She wonders if it's worth calling the security guard, while it occurs to me to just climb over the gate to take a few snaps - but who knows what the result would be, so we opt to get going to Tianzhong, cycling along more empty lanes.
Tianzhong has a new hotel next to its train station and we cross the tracks on the way there. It'll simply give us our bearings.
A screenshot says there's a cafe nearby and it looks like it'll serve decent coffee and g agrees to give it a try. It is lunch time, but the woman owner behind the counter says they only serve cake, so we do a Marie Antoinette and I opt for a strawberry wedge. The ground floor has a couple of small tables, while a metal staircase goes up to an area where we get to chose between several.
After 20-odd minutes the woman comes up to tell us rain has begun to fall and our bikes are getting wet, so we take shelter with them across the street under a house's sheltered doorway. It's really just drizzle.
We look over at the building next to Cafe 13 and wonder what it was. The ground floor has been covered in sheets of plywood that are painted beige with some musical icons and maybe it was once a KTV, while the upper floor has the original wooden windows and clapboard. It could well be Japanese and is clearly empty and quite big. It'd make a great place to live.
A man comes out of the house and he can also speak English. His jacket has Canada on it, but he tells us he's never been and he asks the usual questions and agrees that the drizzle doesn't look like it's going to stop, so g and I head off south with our rain capes on.
We soon reach a junction where there's a 7-Eleven, but notice a McDonald's just a short distance away and decide to head there for a bite to eat. Maybe the drizzle will stop while we have a burger and fries.
It eases a bit and Route 199 takes us east before veering to the south and we branch off that after five minutes onto a rural lane. We ride past farms growing cabbages and other veg, while rice has been planted recently in some fields and shoots a few inches tall form wiggling vibrant rows between shallow water.
We have to consult my screenshots a few times as we make a complicated beeline for a bridge to reach Xiluo. We cycle below the highway bridge and another carrying Route 1 and get to a metal one, which is part of the 145.
Traffic is heavier than I anticipated and because it's quite narrow we turn on our rear LEDs and try to keep up a decent speed. The steel structure was completed after WWII and is a couple of kilometres long and takes us south into Yuanlin County. For some reason it's been dubbed The Red Bridge.
We make our way down the town's famous Old Street to the hotel I've earmarked and the quoted rate is NT$2,200 and that's OK. Our bikes are parked in the spacious foyer near about 10 others.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 1,293 km (803 miles)
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