The Solo Bike Ride

The grand trip. The epic journey from North to South. The final voyage on my motor- cycle. It was to be five days with just my girl and me, all 200cc's of her, and long uninterrupted stretches of asphalt and dirt, through mountains and along coast. It was to rival my last motorcycle trip not in length, but in driving expertise as this trip was to be done almost entirely in the mountains. The only problem was I didn't get a move on until almost 2 days after my anticipated start.
　　
The trip started out in disaster. My good friend Mike was to join me on this ride, but some schedule mishaps at work prevented him from coming along. Instead, we hung out on Sunday and went out to lunch in this famous Soymilk restaurant in Yonghe. Apparently this restaurant, which is famous for Soymilks, Xiao Long Baos and other small eats, influenced an entire food genre that has avalanched across China. In fact, most Soymilk restaurants now call themselves the Yonghe Soymilk Store in honor of this famous institution.

The lunch was nice, but it did put me a day behind. I was determined to take off early the following day. Before I left on my trip, I got online to say hello to my parents. I was speaking with my dad and we were talking about a birthday present for my mom. We came to the conclusion that we would buy her this spiffy new touchscreen laptop that you can only get in Taiwan. This, however, would be a full day task. I got on my bike and drove down to the computer store where I purchased the new toy. I then had to bring it to an Acer center for them to change the computer into English. After dropping it off, I went to lunch and then returned back to pick it up. I finally brought it over to the FedEx office to ship back to the USA. The ordeal was lengthy and I didn't get on the road until 4.30pm.
　
I took a different route through the back roads to Pingling (which took me through this lovely little village I had never been to) and then over to Yilan. I arrived in Jiaoxi just as the sun was setting and contemplated on whether or not I should check into a hotel. I decided to keep on driving.
　
Haphazardly, I took a wrong turn and started driving into the mountains. During the day this is a precarious route to take and seeing it was already pushing late into the evening, it was not somewhere I wanted to be. I turned around and got resituated on the coast road and before long, I was winding my way down the East Coast. I will be honest, I've driven this route in both the day and night, and I far prefer the night. Moonlit turns along cliffsides crashing into the sea, cool breezes wafting in from the ocean, twists and turns in the mystery of the darkness made this a very awesome ride.

I pulled into Hualien and went straight to sleep after a long day of driving around. I also had an early day the next day and I wanted to be rested for my long trip into the mountains. It didn't matter, though, as I woke up much later than anticipated and didn't get on the road until 10am. Fortunately, the road was clear and the ride through the mountains was bright and sunny. The entire affair was in good order. I continued along the same route as last only in reverse order. Again, I approached the highest road in Taiwan and coasted through the European style castles down into Puli.

From Puli, I continued along to Sun Moon Lake where I decided to stay for the evening. The clouds rolled in as I sat along the waterside and ate some aboriginal boar and drank some Taiwan Beer. I went to sleep early in the most comfortable bed I have ever stayed in (actually, funny enough it was the same hotel I stayed in when I first came to Sun Moon Lake years ago) and slept soundly.

I woke up early the next day and took off for a long day of driving. My ultimate goal was to travel from Sun Moon Lake to Tainan while stopping for some touring in Alishan. It was an ambitious goal, but waking up at 6am put me in the running. The first surprise I got was when I took a road up the backside of Yushan! The road wove back and forth providing stunning panoramics of Taiwan's most iconic peak.

Continuing on, it was a straight shot into Alishan National Park. It had been a longtime goal of mine to make it to Alishan and I was so delighted to have finally arrived! I paid the park entrance fee and parked my bike. I went up to the Alishan Train Station and booked my ticket for the Hogwarts Train. In a quaint station made of pine, an old locomotive arrived carrying with it antique wood carriages.

The train took us through the mountains to where the old sacred tree used to stand. Today, it has fallen and has started to decompose. Continuing on past the end of the line, the trail goes through some magnificent Red Cypress trees. Some of these trees are almost 2,000 years old and reign supreme in this old growth.

One unique location was a tree that had died and was reborn three times! The first time the tree grew up, died and fell down. A seed landed on the tree and the sapling took the nutrients from the roots of the dead tree. This tree then continued to survive for hundreds of years when it too passed away. At this time, a new seed came along and again started using the roots from the first and second growth. Remaining are all three trees and a very interesting story.

After the little walk, I sat down at a nice little restaurant and got some lunch. I had some famous Alishan Tea and then was back off through the sea of clouds. I zoomed down the mountain side and connected with route three. The road took me straight down through more precarious mountain passes until I reached Tainan at about 5pm.

In Tainan, I met up with my friend Mike who was supposed to join me on the trip in the first place. He took the bus down and we met a few of his friends that were teaching in the city. We checked out some of my favorite temples from last time and then met his buddy for some dinner and drinks. Afterward, we hit the town and went to a fun little night club. The momentum of the evening was disrupted a bit when they stopped the music and played a massive tournament of Rock, Paper, Scissors for thirty minutes.

Late in the evening, we retired as I was waking up at 10am the next day to continue my ride down to Kiaoshiung to visit a friend. I woke up on time, fortunately, only to be presented with a typhoon pouring down outside. I knew I had made it this far and I wasn't going to let a little rain ruin the rest of my trip, so I went to 7/11 and purchased five ponchos. I covered myself in plastic to the point that I was probably preserving my freshness all too well, and then I was off. At first I was doing quite well and was remaining fairly dry. But when you drive a motorcycle in a typhoon, you are going to get wet. And after an hour on the bike, I was soaking wet as were all my change of clothes in my bag.

I arrived in Kiaohsiung a little late and soaking wet from head to toe. No matter, my friend was happy to see me and off we went to this excellent little seaside restaurant to eat some great food and watch the waves come crashing in. It was by far one of the coolest restaurants I had been to in Taiwan! The typhoon was really picking up speed and at this point, the restaurant lost power. Without any electricity, they decided to close down for the day. The owner of the restaurant
gave us a ride out of there as it was pretty far out of the way and, well, there was a typhoon.

He dropped us off at the movie theaters where we tried to dry out a little more by catching a film. We ordered some hot drinks and enjoyed the movie for a bit. Before long, it was time for my friend to head home and for me to get on the bus back to Taipei. I sent my motorcycle back to Taipei by bus and I took a five star luxury liner overnight. Early in the morning, I found myself back in sunny Taipei, out of the typhoon's reach and checked into a short stay hotel where I freshened up and caught a short nap. From the final road tripper around Taiwan, Michael.