July 14th

July 14, 2021

Shirmen Dam (still closed)

Waking up at six is strange and sure enough it isn't long before I'm back in bed and it's almost 11 o'clock when I resurface and gone noon when I wheel my bike outside.

The news says that national parks are now open again, so it seems logical that the scenic road around the local reservoir will be, too. That's the day's destination.

Sun cream is on my arms.

The route soon takes me past a row of old, two-room houses that now line a fairly new road and they are backed by 20-floor apartment blocks built around 10 years ago.

It was about 10 years ago when I looked into buying one of these ramshackle places - the plan being to demolish it and have a house built. The problem was ownership, as once the owner has died, the property gets passed down to their family - traditionally the sons - and with these old houses, it also involved grandchildren. Each family member has to agree to sell it, which is seldom achieved, as most like to hang on to the home, even though it's uninhabitable and slowly going to ruin. They see it as a part of their ancestral heritage or something.

Two plastic traffic cones are outside one of the few places that looks like it's still lived in, so I take a snap for my Canadian friend g.

After 20 minutes, the road takes me around the edge of Longtan and I drop down into a valley then go up a short hill to get onto Route 3, which then leads down to the dam.

Once I get to the turn-off, there's a convenience shop called Simple Mart open and I pop in, fill out the small piece of paper with registration details, spray my hands with sanitizer and get myself a cold bottle of fizzy apple drink and a packet of cashew nuts. My shirt and hat are is wet with sweat.

Just across the road is a man working on the front of a building and he has his shirt off and his back has a large tattoo, so I pull up and take his photo with him being unaware.

Seeing the barrier across the entrance to the reservoir isn't a total surprise. It just doesn't make any sense.

I do U-turn and ride back to the 3.

Route 3 is a wide highway, but it never gets very busy. There's a decent shoulder to cycle along. It's just that there is not much that visually stimulating or photogenic. I spot a couple of chairs outside one house, but apart from that it's a matter of pedalling away towards Longtan.

On the edge of town are a few places selling traditional wooden furniture and statues of Buddha, plus various odds and ends that look old. They have a few storage jars and some big old wooden doors that appear to have been imported from China. They could be reproduction. It's hard to say.

The woman manning the place comes out and says the large containers are NT$3,800 each. I reckon they should be half that. The slightly smaller ones that I bought many years ago were only about NT$250.

Clouds have drifted over. This is nice. It was really sunny this morning and riding didn't seem on the cards.

I've cycled along this section of Highway 3 before, but going the other way and the last time would have been in January, when I did a short tour during the Chinese New Year vacation. I just wanted to zip towards the mountains.

There's not a lot to see and it's good to speed down a long hill and get to Longtan.

Louisa beckons. It's now gone 3:30 and I get a large iced latte and head to a park at the end of the block.

I came here a couple of weeks ago and the place is quiet again with just a couple of dog walkers around. One elderly man strolls past followed by his little dog just as I've set up my tripod and pressed the shutter release, so I get photo-bombed. It's is fine with me, as the result looks more candid than having me sat on the concrete bench posing.

The rice has been harvested and the paddies are now looking bare, with cropped stalks standing about six inches tall. I pass a small harvester that's discharging grains into a trailer.

When I pass a plant shop the door is open and I decide to see what ferns the man has. There are a few large ones, but there's a small one that looks different from the ones I have on the balcony at home and for NT$50 it's worth the risk. It goes in my bar-bag.

On the ride out a few hours ago, I glanced a bike hanging up just inside a small workshop and made a mental note to take a snap of it on the way back. It just looked a little bit odd hanging there among a chaotic array of tools and paraphernalia.

Being late afternoon, the sun is now in a better position and once I stop it's not a piece of rusting junk as expected. It's a basic Giant mountain bike with disc brakes and looks like it gets used occasionally by one of the guys who repairs vehicles.

Not far up the road someone has fly-tipped a toilet. What were they thinking? You see lots of discarded garbage in Taiwan. People throw stuff out of car and truck windows all the time.

It amazes me that rural life continues and there are a few people working in small fields as I get closer to home. They are always the older generation. Their diligence is remarkable and they make manual work look easy.

I take a snap of a man and his wife hoeing a field in preparation of planting some veg. She gives me a wave.

A large playing field five minutes from home that I think belongs to the military is still roped off to stop people using it. In the middle is a pair of football (soccer) goals replete with nets and they remind me that my brother asked me to take a photo of pubs and football fields. You can easily gauge his personal interest. After finding a way to get past the chained entrance, I ride over the course grass and oblige.

Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 500 km (311 miles)

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