January 29, 2019
Return ferry and up to Chaozhou
warm weather
Sleep wasn't great maybe because of the two beers last night which made me slightly dehydrated. The first was a small can which had a toy-like schematic map of the island on it and was called Captain's. The second was a 600 ml bottle of Taiwan Beer.
Twenty minutes after getting out of bed at 8:00 I'm across the road from the hotel and having a large coffee and devouring a rubbery bagel purchased from the adjacent 7-Eleven. It's all very quiet at this time of day and while the sun is hiding behind clouds, it feels balmy and the hill away from the harbour soon has me sweating.
There are quite a few scooters zipping past, but none of the riders have helmets on and my guess is the police here don't care. The road undulates with sea views here and there and after a 10 minutes or so I see a small lane dropping and decide to see where it goes and on the way down there's a glimpse of the beach with people on the sand and a few are standing in the water.
A couple of minutes later, after freewheeling past parked scooters, my bike gets left at a garage-sized temple that faces the water and I walk over some rocks and along the damp sand. It'd be nice to take a dip as the water is clear and must be quite warm, but I don't have my swimming gear and after 20 minutes I head back with my shoes off and see a female foreigner just coming onto the beach. We say hi and chat for a while - she's from Denmark and plans to stay in Taiwan for three months, travelling around. She tells me there are several turtles in the shallow water and points them out. Sure enough, there are three huge ones, with the biggest a metre long. I try to take a snap, but they rarely stick their heads up for air.
It seems like the sun has gone for good as there's a whole blanket of cloud to the south and I only stop one more time at a small beach on the southern coast because it seem best to get back on the ferry and ride north before it gets dark.
There's a ferry leaving in 20 minutes when I arrive at the terminal and my bike gets carried on and I go sit at the rear and look through photos on the camera with the sea as calm as a lake and it only takes 15 minutes to cross the open stretch of water.
It's pointless staying in Donggang because there are hotels in a town called Chaozhuo and it's still early. It's easy to get there what with a river leading all the way and running beside it is a small service road together with a defensive bund which doubles as a bike path.
I get on the bund's wide top and cruise along. It's only going to be 20-odd kilometres of pedalling and it'll all be flat and it doesn't take long to get away from the urban architecture of the port town. Many of the fields have rice that must have recently been planted as it's only a few inches tall and the rows of shoots are a bright green.
Being on the high wall gives me a good view of the flat landscape and there are some sections paved with bricks while others are smooth. In one place it's grassy, so I cycle along the adjacent road for 10 minutes, until I find a spot where it's paved again. Spaced at regular intervals along the bund are wooden shelters that must have cost a bit to construct, but they seem totally unused.
Only a couple of vehicles pass by before there's a concrete bridge to take me across the waterway. After that it's a left turn to get back to the bund and then I ride along a track and suddenly feel my back tyre go flat.
It's warm in the sun, so I opt to walk back towards some houses to find a bit of shade, but then see a chair and a plastic stool beside a telegraph pole that I guess must belong to a farmer, so I sit down and get to work.
Rather than glue a patch, I just fit a new inner-tube as the old one already has a repair and it's been leaking slowly for a while. Withing a few minutes I'm back to the river and enjoying more stress-free cycling along a narrow lane that's wide enough for one car.
The river takes me to the town and after riding around a few busy blocks there's a sign for the train station and I know there's a hotel close by. The woman owner is watching TV in a back room and comes out when I poke my head around the door and she gives me a cheap price and two bottles of water from a tall fridge and I drink one straight down.
After carrying my bags upstairs it's no surprise to find my room looks dated as that's what I anticipated. Chaozhaou is a something of a backwater and won't get mentioned in Lonely Planet.
Once I've typed the hotel's Wi-fi code into my old laptop and got online, I email Debbie to tell her where I am.
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 71 km (44 miles)
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