Bike Trip Part 3 (Day 2)

We slept that night for 4 hours waking up early the next morning around 5:30 am. To ride! The sun and heat didn't really give me the option to sleep longer.

We rode for hours and hours, just peddling none stop except for the occasional 7-11 stop. At one point we didn't see a civilized town for a long time. Our water bottles got low as our skin boiled in the heat. Eventually, we stopped and asked these kind elderly people sitting on their porch for water. We ended up sitting there for 1-2 hours, being served tea, hot water and watermelon. Jake fell asleep while I stumbled over my Chinese trying to get directions. Before we left they gave us a little ice cream, fruit and hot tea to go.

These photos aren't of abandoned buildings but of actually people's homes. This is a very normal site to see houses and buildings in the country or city to be so full of junk even in some store fronts.

Fellow Bicycle-lists

We rode mostly near the west coast. Some villages had piles of clams lined up all through the town.

All day we rode using the Sun as our compass. But as it faded we continued to ride. As it became dark we ran into another young gentlemen on a bicycle. He rode past us, an hour later to be we passed by as he walked his bike along the road. The next time we saw him he caught back up to us. He began speaking English to us. We then rode along the road with him too the city of Puzi. 

 After looking at Jacob's bike he decided we needed to take Jake's bike to a bike shop. His uncle happened to own one. As they worked on our bikes more and more people began to show up. It was about 9pm, and we realized all these people came to see the Americans. Before we left there was about 15 people or more that showed to see us. They took our picture and sent us off without a bill.

After riding into Tainan we needed a little help knowing how to get to the train station. I knew if we got there we could find a hotel. After asking a 7-11 employee, one of the costumers offered to help and drive his car as we followed by bikes to get us to the road we needed.

At night everything in Taiwan looks pretty sketchy even though its not. So it is really hard to judge the unsafe areas verses the safe. We saw a sign for this hotel across the street from what seemed to be a big party area. After walking down the dark ally (picture above), and being greeted rudely by the employee of the hotel, we really didn't know what to expect. The hotel turned out to be nice and clean but very small.

We rode 150km that day to arrive in Tainan (台南) totaling about 200km for the trip.

Bike Trip Part 2 (Day One)

We started riding at 4:30pm with our bikes roped with things to the side and back of it, from Shovels to skateboards and giant jugs of water.

(I didn't take as many pictures this time just because I wanted to experiment with video.)

It wasn't long before we weren't 100% where we were. After following the sun we managed to get stuck on the wrong side of a river shooting us far west instead of south. After a long bike trail someone guided us to a bridge to get across the river.

7:30pm (25.4km) - Jake began dragging behind, only to find out he had a flat tire. He just replaced the tire the day before.

After walking across the bridge and too the first Family Mart (like a 7-11) we saw, we managed to get help to find a bike shop. The Family Mart employee showed us the way. While there with the very friendly bicyclist mechanics, Jake decided to get new handle bars, a new higher seat bar, replaced a broken peddle, replaced the back tire air tube and the front wheel entirely.

We continued to ride until about 1:30am going a total of 61.1km, for the day. We found a place nice place at Fuhai Park to camp, 16km south of Lugang.

Point A - Starting Point

Point G - Wrong turn that got us stuck on the wrong side of the river sending us North West.

Point I - Jake gets a flat tire

Point K - Our Camp site

Lugang Temple Tour

 Lugang is a port city in Taichung County, Taiwan. It is famous for some of its foods, its Dragon Boat Races and also its old temples. Marc took Jake, Brittany and I on a little tour here.

Many people come to the very old temples to worship. The town is full of gods. The men used to go out sailing and trading for goods while many of the wives stayed home to pray to the gods for their safety.

It almost brings me to tears watching as this father leaned over his son, holding his hands together, teaching him the proper form to worship the gods of Taiwan.

Many of their gods are surprisingly demonic like. The idols they worship or beautiful creatures but dark evil looking monsters, which they fear.

Similar to the Catholic church you can buy little spaces of lights for you dead ancestor. I'm not sure if this is to help them have a better after life or better chances of a good reincarnation.

Lugang is a very old town but over the years it has been expanding. The white part is where the land use to end but it has risen to the colored sections of the map on the left. I think it was like 5 meters every so many years.

Lugang is famous for its old brick streets, many pink hatted, Taiwanese and Chinese tourist visit. You will also see the tour guide carrying a flag to help keep anyone from getting lost. Funny thing is the Americans use tour guides less in foreign countries then Chinese use for a country that speaks the same language.

Giant Buddha statue sits over looking Lugang. You can actually walk right into the belly of Buddha (not as exciting as it sounds). On each floor is a different stage of Buddha's life.

There are 12 men sitting around Buddha

Pokemon Tower?

Lady selling giant Ostrich eggs on the way up to the giant Buddha.

Marc was kinda enough to get us some of this very gooey gel food stuff, which I have had many times and still am not use to the texture, before the ride home.