China Cycling Travelogues

Do you have a China cycling travelogue you would like to share here?
Contact us for details.

Xiao-er-lang
Around Taiwan in Thirty Days
"E-Mails of my wonderful solo bicycle trip"

Xiao-er-lang

Skip to Xiao-er-lang: Taiwan 1 | Taiwan 2 | Taiwan 3 | Taiwan 4 | Taiwan 5

Day 10 - March 1st Tuesday, in Taitung Cloudy day

The mosquito bites woke me up at four o'clock in the morning. This reminded me of the offer made by my newly acquainted police friend, Tsai-jia-han. Last night I arrived this little town, Dawu, in the dark. I saw an unexpected sign says, "downtown", pointed towards the inland side of the highway. I followed the direction of the sign and stopped in front of the beautiful building of a police station. Officer Tsai came out and answered all my curious questions with very delightful attitude. It is amazing to meet such an educated person in a deserted place like this. We talked for almost half an hour with pleasure and he showed me a piece of land across the street of this station, an abandoned schoolyard, as a good spot for my tent. I didn't take his advice but decided to mingle with the local people a little more, so I ended up staying in the only hotel in town by the side of the highway, paying five hundred yuan.

Luckily, the computer bar was open 24 hours a day by the roadside so I could just go in and try to write my travelogue there. I was one of the two customers in the store, the other fella, named Chen Shang-en, after knowing my attitude towards smoking; he stopped not only his cigarettes but also his neighboring storeowner's too. What a nice guy! He stopped over to chat for a while at seven thirty before heading home. He said he lived in Daren with his mother by a small temple, then I realized that the kind lady who helped me put on the rain coat yesterday happened to be his mother. Alas! What a generous family! What a coincidence! And what a small world!

Taitung city, where my sister Ching-ping and my brother-in-law, Chen-chiou-tse, lived temporarily while taking care of Chen's ailing ninety-eight year-old mother. She e-mailed me last month before I started my journey of Taiwan and said that she'll stay in Tatung till the end of March before heading back to Shanghai to teach at Giaotung University. She also pointed out that there would be a room ready for me to use whenever I go to Taitung. The city is 60K north of Dawu. I took off at eight in the morning.

The pavement of the highway was rather new, but the lane was very narrow, not leaving too much room for cyclists. The fast heavy trucks zoomed by me without mercy. And the gust wind now came from the north with loads of very steep hills along the way. It took me four hours to pass the most difficult 21K mark. I started to think I did promise my lovely daughter, Lauren, that I'd take care myself for her. Right at this moment, there came a sedan with two ladies inside; they waved to me to stop and park the car by the roadside in front of me. Aha! Here came the mother, Chang-jing-chang, who owns the hotel where I stayed last night, and the daughter, Chen-mei-gue, who almost treated me a free meal in her restaurant where I enjoyed my dinner, the restaurant is next door to the hotel. They were on their way to Taitung city to see the doctor for treatment of mother's aching back. Actually the hospital was on the same street where my sister lived! Within thirty minutes, we all reached our destinations, as it should be. My sister and her husband were very glad and surprised of his kid brother's early arrival and took me right over Fugang fish harbor buying tuna sashimi as the first treat. Later on they drove me to the famous Zhiben Hot Spring to release all my tension from the highway. It looks like another paradise is waiting for me for days to come.

Day 12 March 2nd Wednesday in Taitung Weather: Cool

At eight o'clock in the morning, I took a bike tour with my sister and sister-in-law as their routine morning exercise. When we got out of the house door, on the left-hand side there are mountain ranges and the borderless ocean is on the right. A beautiful bike route took us to a beautiful beach park. A variety of plants sit alongside with the trail. The early birds are catching the early fish in the wetland; you can see them from a wooden confined bird watching platform. A man-made lake 1,100M x100M with more than two meters in depth is protected by the miles long pier where many morning swimmers swam together with feet long fish in the rather chilly water.

We met a fisherman, Wang Ping-jing, a retired man who authored several books of peaceful philosophy. Then we went to an organic roadside cafe runs by Lin-jing-chen and his wife Liu-jia-miao for breakfast. Liu is a native Taitungnese, a chain smoker, warm-hearted with endless helping hands. A big glass of freshly made veggie juice, a big bowl of veggie congee with toasted ham and egg sandwich made a big healthy breakfast. Then came the outspoken Peng Chuan-yin and her quiet husband Yang-chao-hsing with her invitation to lunch in a country farm some half an hour away from here on Sunday. Am I going to stay that long in Taitung City?

We went to McCay Memorial Hospital to visit my brother-in-law's ninety eight year old mother, Chen-Lee-jing-feng, in the intensive care unit where she was sent in about a month ago. We communicated with her in writing, She showed her fourth finger, indicating her knowing me as the #4 in our family order; my sister is #3, of course. Ama's condition is weak but stable. Relatives came here to comfort her twice a day for half an hour each in the visiting hours to encourage her spirit to fight against the unwanted fable disease.

After a quick veggie lunch, we went to Taitung Normal University, the only college in Taitung, where my old pal, Hung-wen-chung, has been teaching language education for eleven years. We found him in his basement office preparing for his classes on editorial skills in children's publications in which he has been an expert for decades. He is as nice and simple as he always is. We were very happy to see each other, he gave me a book he wrote about the history of cartoon book in Taiwan, then we made an appointment for seeing each again in a few days which didn't materialize due to both of our busy schedules. I believe friendship is forever, despite the distance of time and space.

We went to a place where hundreds of medicine plants were cultivated by the public agricultural organization in Taiwan. The attendant is a resident of minority of Binan. He is not only so resourceful in the knowledge of all the plants but also good in handicrafts and fish rearing. He treated strangers like us as his home folks. We spent almost the whole afternoon here. Our visit ended up in a gift of specialized medicine book given by another assistant, Chen-jing-feng, in the office. What a nice treat!

March 3rd Thursday, Day 13

To get ready for further riding up north, I decided to make a stainless steel stand to put on top of the rack behind the seat to replace the old foam I made temporarily for releasing the tension off my shoulder. Luckily I found a metal shop nearby and placed the order for two working days to pick up. I also purchased a helmet and extra blinking light for safety reasons.

The nephew couple of my brother-in-law came over to where we lived to pick up us to have a lunch with them together as a special treat to me. The restaurant is located near Cheshang, some thirty minutes away on the roadside with no fancy look, but the dishes Cheng-cheng-min ordered were incredibly delicious. I cleaned the plates upside down and took a picture as an evidence. Mr. Chen worked as an officer in the county government with a side business, manufacturing colored asphalt. He is very familiar with the area where we ate. He took us to Duyuan, a memorial park of Du's family. It's a well-designed botanic garden full of Buddhism philosophy. You can see quoted phrases of famous Jing(4)-Si1) everywhere. I copied down three good ones:

"The more blessing you achieved, the more forgiveness you should give the more unbeatable right you got, the more humble you should become. "

"To appreciate others is to honor yourself; to forgive others is to better treated yourself."

"Happiness is a quality to make others feel like taking a bath in the spring breeze by your side."

March 4th 2005 Friday in Taitung, Day 14

"Tell me not, in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow, find us farther than today.
Art is long, and time is fleeting, and our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating, funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle, in the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle! be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present! Heart within, and God overhead!
Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another, sailing over life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait."

This famous poem is written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a 19th century American poet, I learn it by heart in my college freshman English lesson, it was going with me throughout most part of my life since then. You can never imagine how it lifted me up during those spiritual low moments. So, whenever I got a chance to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, I always jogged to his memorial bridge by Harvard to worship him with my heart. I thought about him at this moment, because Taitung is so much like the place he used to live, from Maine to Boston, so calm, peaceful and full of
deep-hearted characters.

The unexpected morning rain gave us a shower before we could get to our regular breakfast place, the little green house for protection. There we met Lin-tzi-long, storeowner uncle, a local poet and folk costume collector. He invited us to his house for afternoon tea.

It is a three-section ordinary household building full of woodcrafts, stoneware and carved custom folks. A thick heavy root table top with TV remote control spread over on top shows the narrow place for Mr. Lin collections. There is also a pavilion outside the house, on one side of the beam says a paragraph, n(1)-ding(4)-tsai(2)-ke(3)-ping(3)-cha(2)-hsiang(1) (You can only know the taste of Tea, when you have calmed down). I quietly put a followed sentence showing the feeling of my heart,?hing(2)-du(3)-fang(1)-neng(2)-zhi(1)-ai(4)-nong(3)? (Only if you are deeply in love, you won know what love really is).

We drove to a small tourist spot called hrei(3)-wang(3)-shang(4)-liu(2) The Water flows upstream). Scientifically speaking, only the fish can swim against the current, like we can see very clearly in the water tunnel built for the salmon inside the dam of Columbia River in the States. How could the water do this? It is against the law of gravity. Buses carried loads of people here to observe this curious phenomenon everyday. In reality, it just a perception error caused by an upward walkway leading to a very long small stream with little change of relative pitch. I thought it. It is very misleading to general tourists who needed to be educated in the right way. If there is a sign or something giving people an explanation, it will make this place a little bit worthwhile to visit. This misleading spot clearly identifies the ability of the bureau of tourism development for this region. I believe, there is a long way to go to make beautiful Taitung a paradise for nature loving people, worldwide.

On to Taiwan 3

Skip to Xiao-er-lang: Taiwan 1 | Taiwan 2 | Taiwan 3 | Taiwan 4 | Taiwan 5

Top of Page