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| On our way to PingDong |
As a half-trip celebration, we allowed ourselves to get up later in KenDing (8:20am). WOW! One hour later, under an already-burning sun, we started off and rode our motorbikes for 33 km towards FongGang (the village we slept at the night before), on our way up to the North. 20 km further, we crossed FengLiao and then stopped at PingDong (屏東市), where we ended up in a McDonald’s… The city, just like many of those crossed in southern Taiwan, is made of a large avenue deprived of any soul, where traffic combined with heat make the animal in you thrive for two things : shade and a/c…okay, three things if you add junk food! Judging from the way all customers were staring at us, PingDong is all but a touristy place and its inhabitants are not used to coping with foreigners.
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| Back to bustling city life in TaiNan |
Belly full and pockets emptied, here we are hitting the road again, only stopped 30 km later by hesitations on the path to follow while crossing the huge city of KaohSiung (高雄市). Having had enough of Taipei and longing for everything but “Big City Life”, we agreed on not settling down in KaohSiung, Taiwan’s second biggest city (third if you include the newly created New Taipei City) and heading directly towards TaiNan (臺南市). To our surprise, KaohSiung and TaiNan (Taiwan’s former capital city) are pretty close: the two counties are only separated by a 30-km stripe of Highway 1, whereas city centers themselves are 50-60 km apart.
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| Hann Gong Hotel room |
We were first fascinated by the number of scooters parked more or less legally in the city center of TaiNan and then started being upset, as we had to go around a few blocks to eventually find a spot to drop our bikes. Following our Lonely Planet’s recommendation, we found ourselves accepting a cheap and relatively cosy room in the Hann Gong Hotel (漢宮大飯店), right in the city center, for no more than NT$850 for the two of us. As we turned on the TV, it was broadcasting a documentary involving two ladies, a dildo, camera zooms and moans… pretty basic hotel indeed, but good enough for our standards!
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| TaiNan's version of GongGuan |
At night, once freed from the layers of black smoke and dust mixed with sunscreen and sweat that covered us every day, we went on a discovery walk, going “behind the train station” (recommended by Lonely Planet), we did not find much more than a shorter version of Taipei’s GongGuan as small stores along busy streets were selling mainly female clothes and accessories in a brightly colored and loud atmosphere.
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| Dinner at the food market |
Tired from the 180 km ride from KenDing, we ended up at a sort of market, or rather outdoor foot court, where one can sit at a table, order food from the restaurants around or simply bib a beer from the close-by 7/Eleven and Family Mart; we did all of these, played-back the trip by reading our notes and writing even more.
Mechanics note: despite the technical control our bikes went through in TaiDong two days before, my Yamaha squeaks the hell out of its engine and its dashboard is not indicating anymore speeds or gas level… Driving too fast is not much of a concern though, my bike being tired and slow anyway! Talking about dashboards, Ben’s indicated more than 900 km at the end of day 8, which is the distance driven from Taipei and half our trip in terms of timing.
As for TaiNan city itself, we’ll leave it to tomorrow, with a tour of the center on foot to see all the main historical sites.
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| We drove about 180kms on day 8 |
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